Beginning of the End: Succession S4E9
A Recap of the HBO Drama's Pre-Finale
WARNING: SPOILERS
"Wow, this was the only episode I paid attention to this whole season."
Those were the first words my husband said to me when we finished Episode 9 of Succession Season 4. Finally! I had been waiting for an episode of this caliber, the type of nuanced, choreographed drama that got me hooked on Succession in the first place.
If you know me, I’m very bad at keeping up with TV shows. Also, I’m a lawyer. Who has time for Netflix and chilling when I could be billing? But today the best writing, acting, and cinematography have migrated from film to TV. Succession Season 1 introduced an epic battle between heirs for the throne. More crass than The Crown, more insidious than Arrested Development, and less gratuitous than Game of Thrones or House of Dragons, Succession resolves the issue I had with other dramas about family machination: I didn't give a shit about the problems of the 0.0001%. I was never invested in the battle for the Iron Throne because it never affected me.
But Succession feels so much more realistic. Before I became an M&A lawyer, I once was a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed aspiring journalist. I even worked for a prestigious newspaper (at its sidecar international bureau), naively believing I had the will and talent to make my writing matter. But my 22-year-old self still got a taste of how influential media is. All I had to do was wave my little press badge, and I was ushered into press tents during presidential elections and invited to dine with candidates.
The other reason I love Succession is that it's my favorite lawyer show. This is a question lawyers are often asked. Nothing on TV I've watched thus far (caveat: remember I suck at watching TV) has realistically portrayed what being a corporate lawyer is like, particularly in M&A. Probably because a realistic show about M&A would be FUCKING BORING. That's why Suits deployed sex and snide remarks and Partner Track pandered to minorities.
Succession delivers family drama that appeals to mass audiences and allows me to finally explain to my friends in tech how intense my job actually is. During my first month at a NY BigLaw firm, the partner on my deal told me to research members of a very prominent family, because we were going to help sell their corporate kingdom. The name was unfamiliar to me. But as soon as I typed it into Google, I realized that this family’s megacorporation owned the bank where I deposited my paycheck and the trading platform where my parents parked their retirement investments. The family's corporate lineage was not unlike Waystar’s. The patriarch started as a branch manager of a Midwest brokerage firm. Of his multiple children, one is now a politician, the others own major sports teams and local news networks, and all are active in philanthropy. Whether the kids ever fought to control the empire before it was acquired by a third party, I can only guess.
Before we announced the merger at 6 am on an ordinary Monday, I had stayed up nearly 48 hours straight working on the legal documents while the principals negotiated on last-minute roadblocks about voting rights. When I had finally slept for more than six hours, before I had to deal with all the SEC filings, I called my husband and told him what deal I had been working on and why I had barely spoken to him during the past month. I ranted into the phone like a mad woman, as if I had seen continents shift. It was a multibillion-dollar deal. One of the largest financial industry mergers in history. He feigned excitement and jokingly asked why I didn't share this insider information when it was still profitable.
What keeps Succession interesting even for the non-M&A nerds are the characters. Each character is developed so holistically that, even if you can't relate to them, you can still sympathize with them. There are even moments when the show manages to convince me that maybe having that much money isn't worth it. Crazy family members and toxic work environments exist at every income bracket. The show lets you glimpse each character’s inner worlds as they are lived, fleshed out with thoughtful choices about music, costumes, set design, and cinematography (all shot on film, lending the show a photojournalistic style).
And the writing is absolutely *chef’s kiss*. In Succession's best episodes (like the pilot and S4E9), no line is superfluous. As with Arrested Development, I sometimes had to watch with my cursor on the pause button. I would rewind to rehear a quip because I hadn't grasped its cleverness quickly enough. Just like Game of Thrones fanatics who waited eight seasons to see their favorite characters persevere or perish in a grand finale, I eagerly anticipated watching the Roy siblings spar — whether in oblique corporate-speak or crass insults.
Admittedly the show got formulaic midway through Season 2. I'd gotten to know all the characters during Season 1 — their fighting styles, allies and foes, follies and redeeming qualities. Until Logan’s death this season, following the show felt like watching these players practice a sport. Sometimes they learned a new skill or deployed a new strategy, but they never strayed too far from fundamentals.
S4E9 felt, at long last, like the battle our players had been training for. First, bravo to the writers for staging the arena as a funeral. Critics may say it's low-hanging fruit, but I think it's a fitting trope. The Roys are a family after all, and nothing brings together families (and your favorite side characters) like weddings and funerals. The season started with Connor's wedding. It aptly ends with Logan's funeral. Cinematically and thematically, a funeral also allows for both grandeur and intimacy, theatrics and vulnerability.
Second, funerals are orchestrated affairs in which each family member is assigned a role. In this episode, what role each character was slated to play and how they actually fared, was critical. There have been many types of combat in Succession. Mergers and acquisitions, hostile takeovers, proxy fights, Congressional hearings, divorces, debates, elections. But I couldn't have expected… a battle of eulogies?
Roman, who yearned for his father to take him seriously, tries to fill Logan's shoes and reveals himself to be an emotionally stunted man-child. (But the performance will probably win Kieran Culkin an Emmy.) Kendall, the insecure but expectant heir, thinks he can inspire the audience but only solidifies his image as a narcissistic megalomaniac who alienates his wife, his kids, and even his paid personal assistant. Shiv, who apparently is the only sibling to display both EQ and IQ (what, because she's a woman?), is also the only one who thrived under Logan’s tough love. She lets her brothers perform first and fumble. Then she deftly cleans up the scene with a sufficiently honest reflection of Logan's terrible but awe-inspiring nature.
Later we see her collect herself from her public display of waterworks (recall that she's a pro at compartmentalizing and scheduling her breakdowns). Cool, calculating, and looking hella fine in her funeral garb, Shiv completely abandons her Democratic principles, flips to the dark side, and brokers an alliance between the neo-Nazis and neo-Vikings. Shiv, you nasty, manipulative, boss bitch. You’re just as bad as Logan and worse than your brothers.
But the real winner of the eulogy-off is not Shiv. It’s not even Ewan. Though listening to his speech led me into a rabbit hole of watching “eulogies” on YouTube, because that shit slapped.
No, the winner for me is Roman. If all you can recall is him whimpering at the altar, no no no, please rewatch the beginning of the episode. Those first 10 minutes of Roman delivering a Taxi Driver-esque mirror monologue, freewheeling in his 5,000 square-feet Manhattan apartment, high and away from the sirens and protests breaking out in the streets below and the crumbling of democratic institutions blasted by his machinations. Roman’s eulogy is pure poetry. Like Succession at its best, it is a moment of impeccably crafted dialogue, punctuated by dark humor and raw emotion, delivered by an all-star cast.