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 through the family implosion portrayed on TV's best show, HBO’s Succession.
The term "subversion" gets thrown around too much when it comes to television, but the latest episode of Succession was truly unexpected. It shouldn't have been. I've seen my fair share of prestige TV. I should have seen the trap Jesse Armstrong and his team were walking me into from a mile away, but the Succession writers are just too smart to keep up with.
The shareholder meeting: this is the set-piece Succession has been building up to for two and a half seasons. If we are to believe that Succession will run for five, "Retired Janitors of Idaho" serves as the midway point of the series–the climax if we're abiding by Aristotelian story structure. All signs pointed to something earthshaking, a culmination–like the tense battle for skulls and survival in "This is Not For Tears" or the grand failure at the Argestes conference.
Instead, Logan went piss-mad.
"Retired Janitors of Idaho" is a climax, just not the one we were anticipating. Maybe referencing Aristotle is pretentious for a television recap, but the Waystar crew sure do love their Shakespeare. Coriolanus, Hamlet, King Lear… Armstrong and Co. are constantly referencing the British playwright's oeuvre in both dialogue and plot, though normally favouring the Bard’s tragedies. While Frank tries to filibuster his way out of an official vote on stage, he references a different kind of Shakespeare play: Much Ado About Nothing, one of Shakespeare's most revered comedies.
With this reference, writers Tony Roche and Susan Soon He Stanton tip their hand. The shareholder meeting does not intend to be a tragedy; it's a farce–a brilliant one at that.
The concept alone sounds like a stage play. Two media titans, Logan Roy and Sandy Furness are ready to duke it out for control of Waystar. Both are too proud to bow down to the other, but their underlings and children know that a vote would be disastrous for everyone involved. The clock is ticking. A deal has to be made. To complicate matters further, Logan has a urinary tract infection that is sending him into a state of delirium. Everyone around him is trying to make sense of his decisions and by the time they find out he's not operating at full capacity; it might already be too late.
What ensues is a comedic plunge into madness. We watch everyone, even a character like Stewy who always seems to have the upper hand, scramble and maneuver like their life depends on it. Gerri and Frank take turns rambling on stage for time; Roman exchanges words with the resigning president while his father is down for the count; at one point, Colin runs out an imaginary cat at Logan's request.
It all harkens back to Roche and Armstrong's earlier work with Simon Blackwell and Veep-creator Armando Iannucci. The episode's best scene, where the Waystar C-suite finds out Logan has gone piss-mad, plays out like a sequence of In the Loop, each line of dialogue presenting a new issue, every character complicating an unmitigated disaster with their own motivations, all of which amounts to nothing of substance to anyone outside their deranged little world. The power of the gods rest on these people's shoulders and their ranks range from the incapacitated to the idiotic. Just when it feels that the scene has reached its crescendo, Kendall comes in and throws a temper tantrum provoking the ire of the whole crowd.
When the episode is over, nothing narratively has been accomplished. The Roys get to keep their dynasty. Who cares? None of this matters. It's empty, the positioning of power for power's sake. No one goes home happy and the Roy family are more resentful of each other than they started out. I shouldn't have expected a climatic shareholder meeting since for it to be climatic would prescribe it of importance. This family and their empire have nothing to offer and the way this episode played out may very well be indicative of where these characters are headed.
Oh my darling, Greg egg. You're really in it now, aren't you? Greg's been playing a very dangerous game this season, operating as a triple agent. Now he's facing fire from all sides–losing his inheritance from Ewan, getting burned by Kendall, or facing whatever fire and brimstone that may fall upon him if he betrays Logan. I may be a self-professed Ewan-hater, but he does have a line to Greg that, like him, made me pause this episode. "Because you need to take yourself seriously, kid," he says to him after revealing he's donating his inheritance to Greenpeace. As much as I detest Ewan, I do feel that he is trying to help Greg because:
1. He's telling Greg to find what "principles" he stands by and stick to them.
2. He's trying to save Greg's soul from what happens if you get too close to the Roy family.
This week on Tom's slow descent into a nervous breakdown: keeping track of Shiv's menstrual cycle so he can impregnate her before he goes to jail?! I could give my interpretation on this, but it honestly speaks for itself.
The Raisin is stepping down! The Con-Heads are gonna love this one! It's too soon to tell what the implications of this will be for Waystar, but I know the last thing they want is Gil Beavis as POTUS. But if that means more Eric Bogosian, I'm cool with it.
Kendall, it might be time to get off your Rainbow-coloured soapbox and start making some moves. Even Jess, Kendall's loyal assistant, was having a tough time keeping her composure after Rabbit-gate. This comparison has been made by other publications, but the tonal shift from Kendall taking the mic this episode and when he did in the Season 2 finale is startling. It wasn't a complete loss. He made a counter-play against Greg, he told Shiv that Sandi (Hope Davis) was the key to making a deal (which Shiv might have not needed, but the reassurance didn't necessarily hurt her), and despite the performative theatrics of the #MeToo publicity stunt, it did lead to some good PR traction. Still though, step it up, Kendall. None of this may matter… but watching you make a fool of yourself is so painful.
Speaking of Jess, shout-out to Juliana Canfield for absolutely killing it as Jess Jordan. She takes an ancillary character and does so much with just a look or a hand gesture. Her background usage certainly adds to the show's scope. If The Sopranos has taught us anything, a show is only as good as its tertiary characters. With that being said, I'm okay if Jess is destined to be Succession's Patsy Parisi, but I want more Canfield. If not in Succession then in other creative ventures (still need to check out Y: The Last Man).
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 through the family implosion portrayed on TV's best show, HBO’s Succession.
The term "subversion" gets thrown around too much when it comes to television, but the latest episode of Succession was truly unexpected. It shouldn't have been. I've seen my fair share of prestige TV. I should have seen the trap Jesse Armstrong and his team were walking me into from a mile away, but the Succession writers are just too smart to keep up with.
The shareholder meeting: this is the set-piece Succession has been building up to for two and a half seasons. If we are to believe that Succession will run for five, "Retired Janitors of Idaho" serves as the midway point of the series–the climax if we're abiding by Aristotelian story structure. All signs pointed to something earthshaking, a culmination–like the tense battle for skulls and survival in "This is Not For Tears" or the grand failure at the Argestes conference.
Instead, Logan went piss-mad.
"Retired Janitors of Idaho" is a climax, just not the one we were anticipating. Maybe referencing Aristotle is pretentious for a television recap, but the Waystar crew sure do love their Shakespeare. Coriolanus, Hamlet, King Lear… Armstrong and Co. are constantly referencing the British playwright's oeuvre in both dialogue and plot, though normally favouring the Bard’s tragedies. While Frank tries to filibuster his way out of an official vote on stage, he references a different kind of Shakespeare play: Much Ado About Nothing, one of Shakespeare's most revered comedies.
With this reference, writers Tony Roche and Susan Soon He Stanton tip their hand. The shareholder meeting does not intend to be a tragedy; it's a farce–a brilliant one at that.
The concept alone sounds like a stage play. Two media titans, Logan Roy and Sandy Furness are ready to duke it out for control of Waystar. Both are too proud to bow down to the other, but their underlings and children know that a vote would be disastrous for everyone involved. The clock is ticking. A deal has to be made. To complicate matters further, Logan has a urinary tract infection that is sending him into a state of delirium. Everyone around him is trying to make sense of his decisions and by the time they find out he's not operating at full capacity; it might already be too late.
What ensues is a comedic plunge into madness. We watch everyone, even a character like Stewy who always seems to have the upper hand, scramble and maneuver like their life depends on it. Gerri and Frank take turns rambling on stage for time; Roman exchanges words with the resigning president while his father is down for the count; at one point, Colin runs out an imaginary cat at Logan's request.
It all harkens back to Roche and Armstrong's earlier work with Simon Blackwell and Veep-creator Armando Iannucci. The episode's best scene, where the Waystar C-suite finds out Logan has gone piss-mad, plays out like a sequence of In the Loop, each line of dialogue presenting a new issue, every character complicating an unmitigated disaster with their own motivations, all of which amounts to nothing of substance to anyone outside their deranged little world. The power of the gods rest on these people's shoulders and their ranks range from the incapacitated to the idiotic. Just when it feels that the scene has reached its crescendo, Kendall comes in and throws a temper tantrum provoking the ire of the whole crowd.
When the episode is over, nothing narratively has been accomplished. The Roys get to keep their dynasty. Who cares? None of this matters. It's empty, the positioning of power for power's sake. No one goes home happy and the Roy family are more resentful of each other than they started out. I shouldn't have expected a climatic shareholder meeting since for it to be climatic would prescribe it of importance. This family and their empire have nothing to offer and the way this episode played out may very well be indicative of where these characters are headed.
Oh my darling, Greg egg. You're really in it now, aren't you? Greg's been playing a very dangerous game this season, operating as a triple agent. Now he's facing fire from all sides–losing his inheritance from Ewan, getting burned by Kendall, or facing whatever fire and brimstone that may fall upon him if he betrays Logan. I may be a self-professed Ewan-hater, but he does have a line to Greg that, like him, made me pause this episode. "Because you need to take yourself seriously, kid," he says to him after revealing he's donating his inheritance to Greenpeace. As much as I detest Ewan, I do feel that he is trying to help Greg because:
1. He's telling Greg to find what "principles" he stands by and stick to them.
2. He's trying to save Greg's soul from what happens if you get too close to the Roy family.
This week on Tom's slow descent into a nervous breakdown: keeping track of Shiv's menstrual cycle so he can impregnate her before he goes to jail?! I could give my interpretation on this, but it honestly speaks for itself.
The Raisin is stepping down! The Con-Heads are gonna love this one! It's too soon to tell what the implications of this will be for Waystar, but I know the last thing they want is Gil Beavis as POTUS. But if that means more Eric Bogosian, I'm cool with it.
Kendall, it might be time to get off your Rainbow-coloured soapbox and start making some moves. Even Jess, Kendall's loyal assistant, was having a tough time keeping her composure after Rabbit-gate. This comparison has been made by other publications, but the tonal shift from Kendall taking the mic this episode and when he did in the Season 2 finale is startling. It wasn't a complete loss. He made a counter-play against Greg, he told Shiv that Sandi (Hope Davis) was the key to making a deal (which Shiv might have not needed, but the reassurance didn't necessarily hurt her), and despite the performative theatrics of the #MeToo publicity stunt, it did lead to some good PR traction. Still though, step it up, Kendall. None of this may matter… but watching you make a fool of yourself is so painful.
Speaking of Jess, shout-out to Juliana Canfield for absolutely killing it as Jess Jordan. She takes an ancillary character and does so much with just a look or a hand gesture. Her background usage certainly adds to the show's scope. If The Sopranos has taught us anything, a show is only as good as its tertiary characters. With that being said, I'm okay if Jess is destined to be Succession's Patsy Parisi, but I want more Canfield. If not in Succession then in other creative ventures (still need to check out Y: The Last Man).
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