#succession meta
So, I have finally joined the Succession fandom, and I regret to inform you all that I am a Roman girl. Though that should come as no surprise, as Gerri/Roman was what drew me in to watch the show…
Anyways. During my short time in the fandom I have come across some discussion about whether Roman is acting out of character in the million dollar check scene in the first episode of season one. Now, that first episode is, frankly, pretty weird. The tone is not quite right, the character dynamics are a little off. And it’s not just the vibes, but certain more concrete elements are off too. Marcia is called “Marcy” by a lot of characters who never call her that again in later episodes. Roman wears a wedding band. Stuff like that. (I’ve decided to justify all that by imagining that Logan’s personal gravity is so strong that his pre-stroke confusion pulled even the show’s perceptions off kilter, heh.)
Some people feel like Roman’s behaviour in the check scene is part of that Early Installment Weirdness. And I have to admit that upon rewatch, the check scene did feel off to me too. A post I saw recently wrote that reaction off as Roman girls not wanting to admit that Roman is an asshole. Now, I might be working on a post about how Roman isn’t really an asshole deep down yadda yadda, but let’s ignore that for now lol. Because honestly, I don’t think that’s it.
A short recap of the scene in question: As part of Logan’s birthday celebration, the family flies out to a random field to play baseball. When it’s Kendalls turn to (*googles baseball terminology*) bat, he gets a perfect hit, but before he can start running, his phone rings. Kendall leaves, and Roman tells a random kid (who’s presumably there because his parents work for the Roys in some capacity) to take Kendall’s place. Roman offers the kid a million dollars if he hits a home run, and when the kid fails, Roman rips up the million dollar check and gives him a piece of it with the words “Take this back to your… life. It’s a quarter million”.
I think the reason that the scene feels off is that it plays like it’s meant to be an establishing character moment that establishes Roman as an asshole, but the writing team hadn’t yet nailed whatkind of asshole he is. Because as the series goes on, we learn that Roman Roy is a fundamentally reactive character. He’s rarely an asshole out of the blue, he’s an asshole who punches down when someone else has made him feel small. A very clear example of this is in the bachelor party episode (season 1 episode 8, “Prague”), where Logan berates Roman, and Roman immediately goes to punch Greg hard on the arm. But in the million dollar check scene, Roman seems to be assholing unprovoked.
Seems to, that is. After giving it some thought, I think Roman actually is reacting in the check scene. Because what happened right before? The whole reason that Roman calls on the kid to come play is because Kendall leaves. And Kendall leaves because he gets a business phone call. Throughout the episode Roman has repeatedly failed to hide how sore he feels about being on the outside of the family business. So by walking out on the baseball game, Kendall is rubbing it in Roman’s face that he’s the important son.
And he’s doing it in a way that echoes their father’s behaviour. Kendall and Logan’s whole conflict in that first episode is about how Kendall should have put business before family, right? It’s easy to imagine Logan up and leaving any number of important family moments as the kids grew up. And now Kendall is doing the same (and not just to Roman, but to his own kids as well, and we all know how irked Roman is by Kendall’s absentee father ways).
So Roman feels abandoned and unimportant, and he takes it out on an innocent working class boy, because that’sthe kind of asshole he is.
i think the reason why kendall was seeking ketamine at the rhomboid party is because he was in a depressive state, possibly even suicidal, and single-dose ketamine treatments have been found to rapidly decrease suicidality in bipolar patients. he wasn’t looking for recreational drug use (and honestly i believe he may have been several days sober at least), it was an attempt to self-medicate.
since austerlitz, kendall says he’s been working on apps, tech, “rebalancing away from crypto into eco,” artifical sun solar cells, stanford grads with hydrogen lamps. everybody gets a different answer and it all sounds like the bullshit you come up with when you’re at your brother in law’s stupid bachelor party and the last time you were all together you had just relapsed and smoked a bunch of crank with strangers. i assume he’s spent the weeks or months since trying to get something going, anything, and failed utterly because his reputation tanked with the vote of no confidence and his public relapse.
further evidence of his depressive state is that he turns down sex, saying “business is my fucking,” and we all know he seems to only have sex when he’s manic. he also maintains a very flat affect until he sees angela, the dust founder, and believes he’s made traction on a deal. which it turns out he hasn’t because she thinks he’s just like his father. and that’s when the 5 lines of coke come in.
and then connor tells him “dad always said, you got two fighting dogs, you send the weak one away, you punish the weak one. then everyone knows the hierarchy, then everyone’s happy. so away [roman] went.” confirming that the weird game kendall used to play with his little brother had resulted in some of the worst years of roman’s life all because logan had thought he was weak. all because of a stupid game. so maybe kendall is just like his father, maybe he is responsible for roman’s bedwetting, for him being sent away. he is a roy, just like angela said.
so instead of ketamine, he gets coke and psychological stressors. and just like that. hypomania. he starts speaking very confidently and smoothly. he thinks he can kill his dad. fuck his family, they’re clueless. he knows what to do, he sees it all. he’ll be ceo, he’s the only one who can.
so maybe, just maybe, greg should’ve got him some fucking ket, is what i’m trying to say.
It has come to my attention that there are people who watch Succession and think it’s romanticizing capitalism. To which I have to say: are these folks on glue?
Please consider Logan’s UTI debacle. This man has skipped his meds and gone coocoo for cocoa puffs in the middle of a crisis. His children and underlings are scrambling to figure out precisely when his decision-making went from cogent to “piss mad” because they’re terrified of overturning his (HORRIBLE!!) choice that will implode the company. With their livelihoods and lifelong ambitions on the line, they are *still* afraid to fix Logan’s mistake even when he’s completely incoherent. They’re problem-solving how to dispose of an imaginary dead cat when they should be handling their shit.
All because Logan is a narcissistic tyrant who can terrorize an army of otherwise competent businesspeople with the power of his $$$. If this man was one of the Poors working through his golden years at Mickey D’s instead of a morally bankrupt multi-billionaire, his stint of piss madness would have gotten him fired. Instead, his opinion is catered to even when he’s utterly incapable of making sane decisions.
It’s absurd. And the absurdity is the point.
Succession couldn’t possibly be a clearer condemnation of capitalism. It paints an ugly picture of the Roys at every turn (while still allowing them to be fully-fleshed out characters with complexity). This show is an unflinching indictment of the mega-wealthy and the corrupt system that allows them to exist.
I’m not sure when audiences started equating the portrayal of a topic with narrative approval of it, but it’s a trend I’d like to see disappear yesterday.
