Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Succession Season 3.
When the rich will throw their own family to the wolves, what chance do the rest of us have?
This burning question has been on my mind while watching the year’s best show on television, Succession. It is a dark, comedic satire about the wickedness of wealth and power whose third season just recently wrapped up with its most viewers yet. The story of three siblings trying to jostle for power and control of the family media empire, Waystar, ended with a devastating betrayal that was wholly unexpected. The siblings united beside each other, though when it was far too late to be of any difference. This was because Logan Roy, played by a formidable Brian Cox at his very best, abandoned all three of his children in an act of backstabbing and cruelty that proved to be a new low for the lowest of men imaginable.
The revelation left the usually measured Shiv (Sarah Snook), the wisecracking Roman (Kieran Culkin), and the broken Kendall (Jeremy Strong) all completely shattered at their father’s most brutal blow yet. All the actors give outstanding performances as their facades are broken. Shiv is left uncharacteristically speechless when she realizes that her husband, Tom (Matthew Macfadyen), was a key part of the betrayal by tipping off their father that they were coming. Kendall, already on a spiraling descent, folds back in on himself. Perhaps most notably, Roman is reduced to begging and pleading for his father to not do this to them. He tries and fails to appeal to Logan's nonexistent better self by telling his father that he loves him. The children are left broken versions of their former selves.
As an audience, we feel their devastation. Even as all of the siblings are deeply unlikeable in their own distinct ways, the pain and abuse they have faced at the hands of their father are real. Vox’s Emily VanDerWerff put it best when breaking down all the ways, big and small, we see the Roy children quietly grapple with the trauma of having an abusive monster for a father. Logan has governed his world around controlling all those that he can, expanding his power and wealth by any means necessary. That is how he has always lived his life and how he will continue to do so, even if it means turning on his own children that he was meant to care for yet never did. You feel sympathy for his children, not just for their lives now, but what must have happened to them in their upbringing to make them all such broken adults.
For some, this invitation to sympathy has provided some hangups. After all, the three of them are cruel and cold in their own ways. Shiv convinced a woman who was going to come forward about the widespread abuse of women on Waystar’s cruise ships to remain silent so that the company would never be held accountable. Kendall lied to a group of workers that he would protect them before subsequently firing everyone in one fell swoop and leaving them with nothing. Roman has persistently been willing to do anything, no matter how callous, in order to benefit himself, including aligning himself with deeply hateful people. Can a show offer an honest look at all their flaws while still getting us to care about them? Should it?
Not only is the answer yes to both those questions, but it is what makes the show as truthful a portrait of power as you'll ever see. It is brutal that their father, even after they have done despicable things to defend him, will abandon them without a second thought. This doesn’t absolve them of their sins; far from it. It shows how that willingness to sell their souls for power over and over again reveals how intoxicating it was. The fact that they found themselves on the losing side of the underhanded tactics they were all playing only drives this point home further.
Their father remains so paranoid and power-hungry that he will stop at nothing to maintain his grasp on it. Even as he is ailing and in his older years, Logan is so desperate to cling to this status that he will sell out his own children to do it. The world of Succession is defined by cruelty, though, so is our own. The vile acts of each character are far from extreme. If anything, it may even undersell the evilness of reality. We live in a world that is ruled by such cruelty and bottomless selfishness. Succession is able to thoroughly capture that central reality, and that's what makes it so terrifyingly real, leaving us with some hard truths to swallow.
It all gets to the bigger point that, even as we remain entertained over each new move the characters make to outdo each other, there is a feeling that there is no winning. Whoever controls the company, it will be used for nefarious means built around money and power. While Logan does declare himself the winner, with multiple uses of his favorite expletive to punctuate it, there is no feeling of triumph to be felt for anyone. What did he truly gain from this that he didn’t already have? He has more money than most could ever dream of having. And at what costs did he win? Was it truly worth hurting your children so thoroughly like this? To Logan, it's worth it as this is the only thing he has. His life has found value through controlling and dominating others. By reducing others to nothing, he is able to make himself into something.
It all sounds extremely bleak, but that's exactly what it is. Not just for the characters left trying to sort out what just happened in the aftermath of their father’s betrayal, but for the rest of us. What chance do we have in facing down those not just willing to do anything to maintain power but with the means to do it? If Shiv, Roman, and Kendall are not able to come out unscathed, then we are left with an unwinnable position. It is notable that Succession doesn’t show many average people who aren’t decadently wealthy. When they do, they are being either outright killed or manipulated by the Roy family. Some have argued that this makes it hard to relate to the show, and while that is certainly understandable, it's not what the show is seeking to do. Succession doesn’t exist to be relatable, it exists to reveal the depraved way in which power is maintained that we do not otherwise like to think about. The show has many hilarious jokes and is truly funny, though, at its core, it is at its best when confronting that central anxiety.
With the dust still settling on season 3, inevitable speculation now abounds on what will happen in season 4. Will fortunes be reversed? And who will find themselves back on top? While fun to imagine, it also is a way of avoiding the inevitable that nothing much will change. The Roy family has the money and power to never be held accountable as multiple seasons of failed attempts to do so have thoroughly shown. Even if they were by some strange turn of events, someone else will take their place and the cycle will continue. The same is true within their own family. They are all more alike than they are different, united in an obsession with power and a willingness to do whatever they can to take it. No matter who “wins” in their endless struggle for power against each other, their victory is a loss for humanity. That inescapable truth is what makes the comedic show a tragedy forever true to our time.