Creator: Jesse Armstrong
Cast: Nicholas Braun, Brian Cox, Kieran Culkin, Matthew Macfadyen, Alan Ruck, Sarah Snook, Jeremy Strong, Peter Friedman, Scott Nicholson, J Smith-Cameron
Streaming on: Disney + Hotstar
Succession season 2 had ended with Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong), once considered the heir apparent to Logan Roy (Brian Cox), a Rupert Murdochish media mogul plus King Lear like figure, outing his father in a press conference and exposing dirty secrets of his multi-billion dollar conglomerate. Kendall had been (unfairly) chosen as the fall guy, sent by Logan to take a hit for the team when in his moment of truth, he does something as unexpected as brave.
Logan is powerful and toxic. And to have someone like Kendall, who we have seen struggle to stand up to his bullying father in the first two seasons, declare war on him was a twist that made the season 2 finale so cathartic. It elevated Succession to the status of one of the great current TV shows, as well as one of the most hotly anticipated ones. So where do things go from here? In that regard, the season 3 premiere, titled “Secession”, is an important episode.
The season 3 opener hits the ground running. “It’s a war. F*ck off,” Logan responds to the situation like a wounded lion. Kendall’s war-cry is groovier. “So are you in for this f*cking revolution?,”
Thing pretty much pick up from where they had left. The family is in transit, making their way back from their abruptly ended yacht sojourn in Croatia. Decisions are being taken on the fly. Logan, who’s stepping down, and his old company men Frank and Collin, along with Tom, will go to Sarajevo, one of the countries with no extradition treaties with the US. The others, that include Shiv (Sarah Snook), Roman (Kieran Calkin), and Gerri (J Smith-Cameron), go a different direction.
Meanwhile in New York, Kendall is stealing a moment of quiet by shutting himself down in the hotel bath, deep breathing and processing the magnitude of what he has done (with Greg knocking on the door politely threatening to break it down). The season 3 opener hits the ground running. “It’s a war. F*ck off,” Logan responds to the situation like a wounded lion. Kendall’s war-cry is groovier. “So are you in for this f*cking revolution?,” he asks an associate, as though a hip-hop guy in a CEO suit.
Logan and Kendall represent two opposing forces. Logan is old-school. Kendall is zeitgeisty. In a way, the show rests on their relationship and the season 3 opener is when the clash fully comes to the fore. Succession is also a marriage of this zeitgiesty-ness and drama worthy of Shakespeare—Nicholas Britell’s superb theme mirrors this combination of classical and contemporary. (The research by the team of writers, led by Jesse Armstrong, include the family politics of the Roman empire; in a throwaway moment, Logan calls Roman “Romulus”, and in another, Roman references Zeus’ reign over Olympus).
Moments after Kendall’s patricidal act, that recalls greek mythology, he asks Greg to keep a check on his “cultural temperature”–a made-up phrase so typical of the verbal creativity of Succession. As always, it’s through sharp, witty writing and words spoken by its characters that the show expresses itself most distinctly, elevating trash-talk into high art, producing instant classics like Karl describing the crisis as “a 12 foot sub of poisonous tree frogs”.
The show revels in the nastiness of its characters, and with the throne up for grabs, there’s enough of that in this episode. Roman’s fatally cool snarks meet with Shiv’s evasiveness as they both ask each other what the other is thinking.
Succession has always been about who is going to replace Logan. And even though only Logan has the power to choose his successor, he has his way of throwing it open to his people. In this episode, that moment both comes and it doesn’t. Like the scene in season 2 finale where everyone politely chose a person they’d like to vote out—which resembled a refined version of an elimination round in a reality show—we get a scene where he asks a group of people their candidate for the temporary CEO. Cliques are formed, backroom politics played, and ultimately Logan arrives at his own conclusion. You’ll be surprised.
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