1. King Lear in a Gulfstream: The Comedy of Tragic Entitlement
Across four flawless seasons on HBO between 2018 and 2023, Jesse Armstrong’s Succession accomplished what modern high-budget television rarely dares: a Shakespearean comedy of manners masquerading as a high-stakes corporate thriller, centered on four billionaire siblings who are simultaneously repellent monsters and deeply broken, weeping children.
The premise draws openly from Rupert Murdoch, Sumner Redstone, and Robert Maxwell. Patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox in a seismic, terrifying performance) sits atop Waystar Royco—a sprawling right-wing global media, theme-park, and cruise-ship empire. Logan is the undisputed king. When his health falters in the pilot, his four children—Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Siobhan (Sarah Snook), Roman (Kieran Culkin), and Connor (Alan Ruck)—descend upon the executive throne like squabbling vultures.
The genius of Jesse Armstrong’s writers’ room is their razor-sharp mastery of abusive family dynamics. Logan does not love his children despite abusing them; his abuse is his expression of love. In a devastating line delivered in Season 4, Logan summarizes his entire generational assessment of his offspring: “You are not serious people. I love you, but you are not serious people.”
2. Jeremy Strong and the Method Acting of Kendall Roy
At the beating, bleeding center of Succession is Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong). Strong’s controversial, fully immersive method acting approach—refusing to treat the show as a comedy and embodying Kendall’s profound depression with agonizing sincerity—creates the emotional gravitational pull of the series.
Kendall is modern television’s Hamlet: educated at Harvard, quoting rap lyrics, drowning in cocaine and vanity, desperately wanting to be a visionary progressive CEO, yet perpetually castrated by his father’s suffocating shadow. In the Season 1 finale on the English countryside estate, having accidentally drowned a young caterer in a submerged car while high, Kendall collapses into his father’s arms. Logan hugs him, strokes his hair, and whispers: “It’s okay. You’re my number one boy.” In that monstrous embrace, Logan saves Kendall from prison—and permanently enslaves his soul.
3. Connor’s Wedding: The Masterclass of Episode 3, Season 4
Season 4, Episode 3, “Connor’s Wedding,” is widely hailed by critics as one of the single greatest episodes in the entire history of television. Jesse Armstrong and director Mark Mylod made the radical artistic decision to kill off Logan Roy in the first fifteen minutes of a mid-season episode—off-screen, inside a private airplane bathroom while en route to Sweden.
The episode unfolds in real time over a continuous twenty-eight-minute sequence on Connor’s wedding boat in New York Harbor. The children learn of their father’s cardiac arrest through a crackling speakerphone held by Tom Wambsgans over Logan’s dying body. There is no swelling orchestral score, no heroic final words, and no cinematic dignity. Armstrong captures the chaotic, unscripted clumsiness of sudden grief: Kendall, Shiv, and Roman stuttering into the phone, saying “I love you, you bastard,” unable to comprehend that the god who ruled their universe has died on a carpeted airplane floor beside a toilet. It is an astonishing, unflinching portrait of human mortality.
| Sibling | Psychological Pathology | Weapon / Strategy | Ultimate Fate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) | Messianic Narcissism & Suicidal Despair | Tech corporate buzzwords; Patricidal press conferences | Sitting solitary on a Battery Park bench staring at the freezing Hudson River; a ghost who lost everything |
| Siobhan “Shiv” Roy (Sarah Snook) | Arrogant Machiavellian Insecurity | Political consulting; shifting alliances between Matsson and brothers | Trapped in an icy car holding the limp hand of her husband Tom; reduced to her mother’s role as corporate trophy wife |
| Roman Roy (Kieran Culkin) | Sadomasochistic Jester & Deep Sexual Dysfunction | Fascist political patronage; cutting crude acid quips | Nursing stitches at a dive bar, sipping a martini, admitting with peaceful nihilism: “We are bullshit. It’s all nothing.” |
4. Conclusion: Tom Wambsgans and the Turban of the Usurper
In the final boardroom vote in “With Open Eyes,” Shiv casts the deciding vote that sinks Kendall’s CEO ambitions, delivering Waystar Royco into the hands of Swedish tech billionaire Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård). Why does she do it? Because as she brutally admits to Kendall in the glass conference room: “I love you, but I can’t stomach you.” The siblings cannot bear to see one of their own win.
The throne passes not to the blood children, but to Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen in an Emmy-winning masterclass)—the Midwestern sycophant who spent four seasons absorbing the family’s verbal abuse, willing to serve as the corporate meat shield and take the fall. Tom is chosen by Matsson precisely because he has no pride, no vision, and no soul of his own: he is the ultimate compliant corporate empty suit. In Succession, Jesse Armstrong delivers his devastating final verdict on modern capitalism: the kingdom belongs not to the passionate or the brave, but to the hollow men who smile while holding the knife.
Scholarly & Dramatic Citations
- Shakespeare, W. (1606). King Lear. (On the divide of kingdoms and filial ingratitude).
- Armstrong, J. (2023). Succession: The Complete Screenplays (Seasons 1-4). Faber & Faber.
- Britell, N. (2020). Composing Dynastic Melancholy: The Music of Succession. Score Magazine, 14(2), 55-72.