Over the last month, I’ve joined the SUCCESSION bandwagon by immersing myself with the Roy family. I was hesitant to watch it because all the characters are awful. Yet, what had me binge thirty-eight episodes at a breakneck speed was the writing, acting, and sheer technical wizardry in the world that Jesse Armstrong has created. For the uninitiated, SUCCESSION deserves the abundance of critical and audience acclaim it continuously receives. And season four has done the miraculous by making unrelatable characters relatable through empathy.Â
The penultimate of the series is the bittersweet eulogy that will be remembered. The three key highlights for me were:
- Roman and Kendall’s arc –Â The rise and fall of these two in CHURCH AND STATE brilliantly set up the finale (especially Roman and his journey). Even more notably, you might shed a tear at what happens to one of them by the end.
- Mark Mylod‘s direction – When you see Mylod’s name attached to an episode of SUCCESSION, you know it will be fantastic. That rings true tonight as he expertly captures a single location and keeps the emotional intensity up throughout the longest episode.
- Kindness – I’ve been rooting for more than one of the characters to do the right thing, and most of the time, they disappoint. However, when they are not acting in the interest of themselves, they are surprisingly supportive, kind, and loving of one another. But even with kindness, this series remains complicated and best summed up by the quote, “Life isn’t nice. It’s contingent. People who say they love you also f*ck you.”
Last week, Roman says, “We just made a night of good TV.” Congrats to the entire SUCCESSION team for not making a night of good TV but four seasons of great TV. I don’t know what will fill the gap to “succeed” it when the show ends next week.
It’s available on HBO Max.
