A Short Note On The SUCCESSION Finale - “A Meal Fit For a King” (Patreon)

Spoilers and such!

Gotta keep working on the huge Barry essay, but I wanted to touch on all this. Because last year I actually wrote the big piece about the modus operandi of the show, specifically the way it characterizes the lives of these proud and pitiful people, and crucially does so without ever once wanting our empathy. And here in the end, I just had to take a second to write about the core idea of the finale. For it was not what I expected exactly, but it was the only way it could have gone. Precisely because everyone reverted to their natures. Kendall went alpha smug. Roman caved inward. Shiv made her moves, got screwed for mostly sexist reasons, and in the end could not abide the propagation of the system (and family members) who don’t even really see her. And as a result, Kendall came short in yet another big vote. But of course that happened. Because there was no reason to believe anything had really changed in them. There was zero growth here. I mean, even in the end, Kendall even remained in denial of the kid he left for dead. That’s because Kendall was still a seven year old, desperately clinging to the thing his dad promised.

What made it all so disarming was the fake out. Well, less of a fake out, and more the way the show suddenly opened up and showed the biggest elements of what little warmth they have in their humanity. The siblings got playful and were too loud for their mom. Roman licked the precious cheese of their stepdad as they all concocted childhood games. There was even a video of Logan Roy singing an old British folk song. It started going on so long that there was some small part of me that thought “wait, could this really end HAPPILY?!?!?!” But of course not. Not for these people. And the scene that conveys so much about why is the “meal fit for a king,” clearly their childhood rendition of spoons where the loser has to eat a spoonful of something nasty. Of course, Kendall turned it into his inverted crown on top of him. The gross crown of shit. And it was then it all struck me. They can never have those positions…

Because they don’t understand what power actually means.

To wit, there’s the amazing scene in The Wire where an old mayor explains why he he never sought reelection and he goes onto to tell the story about how he thought it would be some prestigious job, but every day he had to eat the bowls of shit from the interest groups at large. That’s all the job turned out to be. Every day. Just eating bowls of shit. So he went into comfy law. But in the end that’s the people who climb ladders and get named for prestigious positions where really they have to is eat the bowls of shit and “yes” along the machines of power.

So of course it was Tom.

He was the one who was always happy to eat the bowls of shit (or not happy, but he did it). Or you can put him in his little shit crown and he knows what people think of him. He doesn’t care as long as he moves up. The crown is the crown. But the Roy kids? Oof. They are their father’s children and thus inherited his ego. See that’s the whole thing. Logan Roy created his empire precisely because he could never do any of this. I even quoted Logan in that old piece where he says it outright: “I can't eat shit. I just can’t do it.” But hey, he knew deeply the pains of poverty and smallness and thus became the old school empire builder precisely so he could get away with it. But it’s the successors who have to play a different game. Only problem is that they were born into a life of luxury and the only shit they could ever eat was from each other.  Which is why they’re so thin skinned with every other human being. Kendall HAD to be taken seriously or he’d literally lose his mind. Roman constantly fell into his complexes. And Shiv had to fight to even get in the conversation. So it was Tom, the one who remained hopelessly inelegant in his shit-eating capabilities all the while.

Somehow, he was the most serious person.

<3HULK