Five stars for 'Shakespearean' Succession
HBOThe scheming Roy family is back, and season three is "as piercing and caustically witty as ever". Caryn James reviews the "provocative, thoughtful" new series.
There is no Covid in the world of Succession: it's as if the Roy family has enough money to buy their way out of anything. But, there is a more practical reason for the omission. The series' new season picks up the action just minutes after it ended in season two, which arrived way back in October 2019, when walking bundle of neuroses Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) publicly accused his father of corporate crime.
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As piercing and as caustically witty as ever, the third season uses the alternate reality of a pandemic-free world as backdrop, foregrounding the hard-nosed reality of its usual landscape, money and power. The illusion works because we know these scheming, dark-souled yet delightful-to-watch characters so well. What began in season one with a simple question – which of his children might succeed Logan Roy (Brian Cox) as head of his media empire – quickly became a family saga with Shakespearean depictions of love, betrayal and greed that echo King Lear and Macbeth.
By now, we completely get it when Connor (Alan Ruck), the hapless but increasingly venal eldest son, who has been outside the family business all along, sums up his siblings while pleading with his father for a chance to get in the game: "Roman's a knucklehead, Shiv's a fake, Kenny is screwy – why can't I get a shot?" he says. Harsh, but he's not altogether wrong. These complicated, fraught people may never fundamentally change, but they swerve and keep surprising us.
It's worth re-watching the season two finale to recall all the threads of deceit the Roys have spun out like some corporate, Oedipal spider web. As that episode ended, Kendall was meant to take the fall for the company's coverup of sexual abuse, but instead told the world his father was aware of everything. As this season begins, the Roys head back from a tense family meeting on their yacht, in a cluster of helicopters that recalls Apocalypse Now. "It's war!" Logan roars at one point. He's referring to Federal investigators who might turn up at his door any minute, but that line might as well be the family's all-purpose motto.
The plot zeroes in on whether Logan can hold on to power, and if not, who might claim it from inside or outside the family. There are plenty of turns and red herrings in the seven episodes, of nine, that HBO made available in advance. Among the many questions to keep in mind: Will Kendall always be an insensitive dolt? Probably yes. As he tries to dethrone his father by getting investors on his side, he evades the media by setting up shop in his ex-wife's apartment, bringing along his new girlfriend. Nice. But along with the raging egotism, Strong captures the deep insecurity and sense of being unloved that is beneath the callousness, drug use and Alpha-male posturing. The series has always expertly guided us, so we may feel sorry for Ken at one minute and fed up with him the next. It seems he will always come crawling back to daddy, unless one day he won't.
When did Roman get a heart? Of all the children, this season only the youngest seems to genuinely care about his father's well-being. He also has more of a brain for business than before, although he can still be a model of immaturity. Kieran Culkin had made the improbable heir Roman one of the series' most dynamic characters, and he gets the snarkiest, funniest, if often unprintable lines. Culkin's sharp delivery makes Roman's jibes better than the words suggest.
HBOIs Daddy's Girl Siobhan (Sarah Snook) the peacekeeper she sometimes poses as, or is Shiv – more perfectly nicknamed after a homemade weapon than ever – power-hungry enough to be manipulating everyone? At one point Logan calls her, and the contact photo that pops up on her phone is of Saddam Hussein.
Who, if anyone, will go to prison to make amends as the company's sacrificial – lamb is too innocent – so sacrificial goat. Shiv's endlessly passive-aggressive husband, Tom, is pre-emptively scouting prime prison locations, just in case. Matthew Macfadyen carries much of the series' gallows humour, and makes Tom slightly slimier than ever.
Most importantly, will Logan outsmart them all yet again? Cox can do more with a glance and a raised eyebrow than most actors can do with a monologue. His performance is a wonder, making Logan a great, lion-in-winter enigma. When he asks Kendall, "You OK, son?" the line has never been so chilling. It is true of Succession, as of most dramas about the wealthy, that we are lured in with a combination of aspiration and schadenfreude. Of course we'd want the Roys' billions. The season plays out mostly in New York, although they may take the occasional jaunt to a meeting on a private island, as one does. But thank goodness we're not part of that family.
There is more beneath the surface, though, adding another reason the instalments hold up to repeated viewings so well. Succession is an exploration of a rapidly-changing world. Logan's legacy technology of cable television, including his powerful Fox News-like channel, is competing with his children's new tech plans for apps and streaming content. The Roys, sometimes subtly and at times pointedly, embody a global economy running away from them. Trying to persuade his siblings to betray their father and embrace his vision for the future, Kendall says, "We're at the end of a long American century. Our company is a declining empire inside a declining empire." That may not express his deepest motives, but it captures the provocative, thoughtful underpinning of Succession.
The series doesn't entirely get away with ignoring recent world changes. The previous seasons' US president, a Trumpian ally of Logan's, is still in power, a jarring note today. But the Roys' alliances provide one of the funniest scenes, when they attend a right-wing political conference attended by many goofy, outlandish and occasionally dangerous activists and candidates. That leads to a mordant possibility. Just maybe, Connor Roy could become president. Stranger things have happened.
★★★★★
Succession premieres on 17 October on HBO and HBO Max in the US, and 18 October on Sky Atlantic/Now in the UK.
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