What Was Succession All About?

This is the golden age of video essays

I think Shiv's moment of betrayal started when they went to Logan's old office and Kendall sat in the chair. Rather than get down to work, he swung back and forth, like a child in his father's chair. I think it hit Shiv (and Roman a little bit too) that Kendall was a child pretending to be their father.

“I sorta see Colin as Logan reaching beyond the grave, not to save his son from death, but to sentence him to life, an utter non-life” oooooooof 🔥🔥🔥

Marcia was Logan's 3rd wife. We never actually meet Logan's first wife.

This is one of the best discussions of a television show I've ever seen. As a media scholar, I tip my hat to you for how you organized, constructed and presented all of your arguments. I truly enjoyed it and will be showing it to graduate students as an exemplar.

I really wish we saw more of Stewy. He was like a breath of fresh air in the show because he always added great commentary and different perspective

One thing I realized watching your video, though I don’t know for sure if it was intentional, is that Shiv’s pregnancy in season 4 even further mirrors the Nero and Sporus anecdote as one detail in that story that Tom didn’t mention was that Nero pushed his pregnant wife down the stairs in order to castrate and subsequently marry Sporus. I feel like the ending of the show really cemented everyone’s roles in this story with Tom as Nero becoming the “emperor” of Waystar/Royco as its CEO and Greg’s betrayal of Tom and then his hiring on as Tom’s right hand man shows that in a business sense, his upward mobility is castrated in the corporate world since he can go no higher while Shiv, being pregnant and pushed down the metaphorical stairs that she’d climbed on her way to the top of the corporate ladder by Tom’s ascendency as CEO and her being relatively insignificant in the company. I feel like with how masterful the writing is that the show did make this intentional but even if they didn’t it’s a very nice callback to the story from last season.

I thought your comment of Shiv possibly having an ED is interesting, since Kieran did comment in an interview that he always played Roman as if he had an ED. It's not adressed directly on the show, but it fits so well and if you rewatch you notice he barely touches food. So, I think because the cast was so talented and commited, there are lots of tiny details open to interpretation. So, your view is not far off...

I love your take on the "power vacuum" - you're the first one to mention it in the videos I've seen. Kendall is happy to be with his siblings and away from the office and it's the subsequent episodes - when he finds his father's maybe-will that says his name, maybe, where the potential for power sucks him back into evil. This reminded me more than anything of Lord of the Rings. The Ring of Power and how it makes everyone evil but they still want it. That strange addiction to something so terrible.

I've just started rewatching the show these past few days and one of the things I've noticed is the criticism you highlighted in the video. They shower you with a firehose of plot (like Marcia's role in the trust during the first few episodes) that ultimately never goes anywhere. On the one hand I do find it frustrating as a viewer, but on the other, it highlights something important about these power worlds (business, politics,...). They live in a state of perpetual crisis and stress. Every detail seems entirely relevant (it's very apparent to anyone who follows politics for even a month) and yet its relevance is only meaningful as long as people keep mentioning it. For example, Kendall's accident/murder could have gone away by the next episode but because Logan uses it and keeps using it until his death to loom large over him it stays at the foreground. Meanwhile, Cruises is forgotten until it pops back up or Hugo's insider trading is entirely forgotten because no one talks about it or uses it in any way to hurt him. Every plot point in those worlds is meaningless until someone imbues it with meaning by using it.

I am in no way as eloquent as you or the other people in this comment section, but I did want to thank you for this incredible video. I specifically want to thank you for your section on Shiv. She has easily become one of my all-time favorite characters due to her complexity. It is so, so easy for me to sympathize with her, only to be slapped across the face with her ability to act like a monster a moment later. I've been quite frustrated with the videos I've watched about Succession disregarding Shiv or not wanting to get into her character due to not being able to make sense of her true intentions. She is so, so interesting precisely because she (via the phenomenal writing and through Sarah Snook's monumental acting) doesn't spell her thoughts out to us! It was refreshing to see someone delve into her character like you did, so... thank you so much!

16:35 another example is when shiv makes a successful deal in season 3 episode 5 to get stewy and sandi to back off while logan is senile bc he forgot to take his uti pills, and when logan becomes lucid again he ignores shiv and belittles her

I like the way you trust your audience.

I have listened to most of the succession commentary/analysis and yours is mind-blowingly THE ABSOLUTE BEST- so tragic that so few have heard it / liked becauseyou are so much at the level of the creators in intellect, literacy, just sheer brilliance. I have a phd from harvard and your analysis is up there with the best minds i have been privileged to learn from. What a gift u are and i hope it gets wider exposure. What do u do " in real life?" Your scorpion analysis! With all the great analysis out there, noome comes close. I hope Jesse A. is aware of you, he would be honored to see what you have accomplished here. Thank you so much - you gave this miraculous show the analysis it deserves.

I think Tom might be a window into some of the information that we're missing about Logan. So much is lost because of pride, shiv literally had the throne handed to her and dropped it out of insecurity and ego. Even the Pierces who are portrayed as being better than the Roy's in many ways, though at their core not that different, end up having to eat humble pie when they sell to the Roys for much less than was originally discussed in the first deal. Not only does Tom marry an upper class woman for status just like Logan, Tom has shown to have a similar level of pettiness and cruelty to the siblings but he directs it in a much different way. All three of the siblings blow it by saying the wrong thing to the wrong person, meanwhile Tom acts subservient while pouring malice into Greg and other lower people on the totem pole. Logan might have achieved success in the same way, sucking up to the right people while domineering those he could. I think your observation that Logan doesn't actually seem to be smart is on purpose. One of the first things I noticed was that all of the siblings are essentially attempting to mimic their father. "Fuck off/fuck em" "you're fired" etc etc but they don't seem to understand why it works when their father does it. It usually works because the people around him snap into focus and do everything they can to make the stupid plan work, because he's the big boss who can't fail. It's not directly quoted but someone says that Logan once said that his favorite employee was someone who ate shit without him knowing. They're trying to be their father but they can't because A. Logan literally has no one above him to accidently mouth off to and B. He's the one who holds all the cards and might screw you over. Tom demonstrates and understanding of his place in the hierarchy, he scrambles to the top viciously but you aren't going to catch him contradicting the boss. Also, shiv is not a feminist by any stretch of the imagination. But I love how her femininity is ultimately her downfall, the only time she really brings it up is when she's trying to use it as a sledgehammer to get pity points. But ultimately she refuses to actually reject patriarchal power schemes, in fact she attempts to act like her father and her brothers by being cruel and vindictive. In the end, I choose to believe that she has realized that her place on the totem pole is (excuse my crudeness) to be fucked, literally. Matteson rejects her explicitly because he loves her as a candidate but surely whoever is LITERALLY fucking her, is somehow better. In the end her only access to power is through a man, explicitly this is patriarchy. Rule of the Father, before her only access to power was through her father and now it is through the man who is fathering her child. It might be a little reductive of me to think that, and you definitely proposed some good alternatives but that's just what I think.

"Because to be meager is to shy away from the true difficulties of life: empathy, kindness, forgiveness, values perhaps traditionally associated with femininity, and even weakness, but they should be universal."

This is a great in depth video, immediately watched it twice, your hard work did not go unappreciated

I forgot to mention that noone captures the most important theme of the show as you have- the economic thrust/ thirst for power in our culture- what has to be " shedded " what the " meager," forego- all the humane values, the connection between the personal and the societal. Congrats and heartfelt thanks , again

Thank you, that was so well written. Informed and well structured, I feel smarter after having watched.

This was the best video essay I've seen on Succession yet. Beautifully articulated a lot of thoughts I couldn't put to words and opened up a lot more interpretations and more ways to look at this amazing show. Thank you