“Previously Wrong” takes us week by week through the unpredictability of post-Golden age television and how our hindsight is sharpening for contemporary series. For this season, resident TV/Film columnist Jared Marshall takes us week by week for the family implosion portrayed on the best show on TV, HBO’s Succession.
The characters of Succession, the Roys and Roy-adjacent, are some of the most impenetrable characters to ever grace the small screen. They're not impossible to understand, but Jesse Armstrong and Co. make you work for it.
There's no Dr. Melfi-led psychoanalysis for Kendall. Skip Macdonald isn't cutting us up a Better Call Saul-esque montage to update us on the current state of Shiv and Tom. The words of all three characters mean nothing and their actions are often just as illusive. The only truth in this show is reaction. We learn nothing about Kendall from watching him play "Rape Me" at Shiv's conference, but we learn a hell of a lot about Shiv from how she reacts to it.
Yes, acting is reacting. I'm not saying anything groundbreaking about performance or psychology. But this principle is essential to understanding Adrian Brody's Josh Aaronson and the gamut he runs Kendall and Logan through in "Lion in the Meadow". Josh spends the episode testing them, particularly Kendall, and they fail that test in spectacular fashion.
We've seen the Roys engage in a battle of wits before and we've seen them come up short. But their loss has never been a result of being intellectually bested. When the Roy family went to Tern Haven, their opponents were equally as deluded in logic and morals as themselves. It just so happened that the Roy family's particular delusions did not comply with the Pierce family's self-aggrandized narrative.
Josh is a different beast. There's no bullshit sense of morality or past resentment to contend with. With Josh, it really only comes down to one thing: "what's my ROI?" Is his money safer if he sticks with Logan or is he better off switching to Sandy and Stewy? Logan and Kendall can spin Josh whatever yarn they like, but to really understand the state of Waystar's leadership, he needs to see how father and son treat each other when he has (to paraphrase Josh) a gun up against their heads.
Is Josh a poker player? Lines like "I think that you think that I'm some dipshit who had a lucky night at the casino" seem to allude to this. Hell, the guy might have a background in psychiatry the way he prods at each of their sore spots. Kendall's leadership skills and Logan's age have been major psychological wounds since the beginning of the series. Josh uses both of these triggers to pit them against each other and, more importantly, against themselves. In his mind it's the only way he can get the truth out of them and he's probably right.
Do I think Kendall and Logan could have flown off that island with Josh on their side for the shareholder meeting? I do. Josh makes his decision in the episode's climax–the walk back through the meadows. Logan gives a good speech and Kendall does himself a favour and, well, shuts the fuck up. But what Josh really wants to see is how they act after the meeting.
Josh isn't a Bond villain. I'm not saying he was trying to give Logan heat stroke. But he's listening. The phone call is a ruse. Josh wants to see how the kids play when dad's not in the room. What he hears is a father taunting his insecure son followed by a son turning into the devil as his father potentially starts to have a heart attack. The nail in the coffin comes when Kendall tries to use his father's failing health as a tactic in the same breath as getting him medical help.
Josh sandbagged Kendall and Logan by playing them against each other. Early in Season 1, Kendall has a line that sets the tone of the whole series. "Words are just… what? Nothing. Complicated air flow." Josh understands that words from a Roy mean nothing. He put Kendall and Logan in a situation where their actions did the talking.
“Previously Wrong” takes us week by week through the unpredictability of post-Golden age television and how our hindsight is sharpening for contemporary series. For this season, resident TV/Film columnist Jared Marshall takes us week by week for the family implosion portrayed on the best show on TV, HBO’s Succession.
The characters of Succession, the Roys and Roy-adjacent, are some of the most impenetrable characters to ever grace the small screen. They're not impossible to understand, but Jesse Armstrong and Co. make you work for it.
There's no Dr. Melfi-led psychoanalysis for Kendall. Skip Macdonald isn't cutting us up a Better Call Saul-esque montage to update us on the current state of Shiv and Tom. The words of all three characters mean nothing and their actions are often just as illusive. The only truth in this show is reaction. We learn nothing about Kendall from watching him play "Rape Me" at Shiv's conference, but we learn a hell of a lot about Shiv from how she reacts to it.
Yes, acting is reacting. I'm not saying anything groundbreaking about performance or psychology. But this principle is essential to understanding Adrian Brody's Josh Aaronson and the gamut he runs Kendall and Logan through in "Lion in the Meadow". Josh spends the episode testing them, particularly Kendall, and they fail that test in spectacular fashion.
We've seen the Roys engage in a battle of wits before and we've seen them come up short. But their loss has never been a result of being intellectually bested. When the Roy family went to Tern Haven, their opponents were equally as deluded in logic and morals as themselves. It just so happened that the Roy family's particular delusions did not comply with the Pierce family's self-aggrandized narrative.
Josh is a different beast. There's no bullshit sense of morality or past resentment to contend with. With Josh, it really only comes down to one thing: "what's my ROI?" Is his money safer if he sticks with Logan or is he better off switching to Sandy and Stewy? Logan and Kendall can spin Josh whatever yarn they like, but to really understand the state of Waystar's leadership, he needs to see how father and son treat each other when he has (to paraphrase Josh) a gun up against their heads.
Is Josh a poker player? Lines like "I think that you think that I'm some dipshit who had a lucky night at the casino" seem to allude to this. Hell, the guy might have a background in psychiatry the way he prods at each of their sore spots. Kendall's leadership skills and Logan's age have been major psychological wounds since the beginning of the series. Josh uses both of these triggers to pit them against each other and, more importantly, against themselves. In his mind it's the only way he can get the truth out of them and he's probably right.
Do I think Kendall and Logan could have flown off that island with Josh on their side for the shareholder meeting? I do. Josh makes his decision in the episode's climax–the walk back through the meadows. Logan gives a good speech and Kendall does himself a favour and, well, shuts the fuck up. But what Josh really wants to see is how they act after the meeting.
Josh isn't a Bond villain. I'm not saying he was trying to give Logan heat stroke. But he's listening. The phone call is a ruse. Josh wants to see how the kids play when dad's not in the room. What he hears is a father taunting his insecure son followed by a son turning into the devil as his father potentially starts to have a heart attack. The nail in the coffin comes when Kendall tries to use his father's failing health as a tactic in the same breath as getting him medical help.
Josh sandbagged Kendall and Logan by playing them against each other. Early in Season 1, Kendall has a line that sets the tone of the whole series. "Words are just… what? Nothing. Complicated air flow." Josh understands that words from a Roy mean nothing. He put Kendall and Logan in a situation where their actions did the talking.
