🛑 Contains SPOILERS for the show Succession! 🛑

These days, in between weekly episodes of Paradise and Ultimate Baking Championship, there’s really not much on TV.

It makes me long for something, anything, that’s even half as good as my favorite show of all time, a show that I wish I could remove the memory of having watched from my brain in order to experience it again for the first time.

Succession is, imo, the single greatest TV show ever. (Greatest scripted series, that is; obviously — baking competition shows are my special favorite; but among serial dramas, nothing beats Succession.)

I’m a really stupid person, as you know, and this show is actually way over my head — my appreciation of it is like that of a dirty little illiterate street urchin pressing his chapped little ear against the door of a grand lecture hall, gaping and wondering at the eloquence and brilliance of what he hears from within — so I honestly feel ambivalent even trying to say anything about it; I worry that some ~Smart~ fan out there who really ~Understands~ the show, will read this and laugh at me. But I love it so much that I will attempt to say something nonetheless:

Because really: how often do you find a show that doesn’t jump the shark after one or two seasons? Not a second of filler, in all four seasons; not a single moment where the writing feels lazy or the energy dips.

“What’s so great about it,” some ask, in response to all the critical acclaim. If I, being the dimwit that I am, had to take a guess, I’d say that it comes down to two things: the characters, and the subtlety of the delivery.

The characters are, for the most part, despicable. Just awful individuals. They are “not serious people.” But, they aren’t just boring two-dimensional villains. They are a believable kind of despicable. There are depths, layers, complexities. They are as rich figuratively as they are literally. They are vivid and pathetic and human and fascinating; you kind of start to adore them.

Some have said that they couldn’t get into the show because they don’t find the characters likeable enough. I agree that I would hardly want to hang out with these characters irl – but as characters, viewed through a TV screen, I love them; for me, there’s a huge difference there.

For me it’s the subtlety. The writers used such a light hand, such a masterfully soft touch, in telling us about these characters; it’s really elegant. One of the best examples I can think of off the top of my head is the way Kendall’s infertility is implied, but never explicitly addressed, all the way up until the end of the last season. Even though it’s a huge, defining element of his character and the whole plot of the show.

It’s been a few years since I watched it, but there are still quite a few moments that live rent-free in my head. Here are the top ten:

13. Siobhan being disparagingly referred to by some business bigshot at a conference as “Kinder, Küche, Kirche” because she was pregnant. (S4 E9) Dismissing her. Like, she can’t possibly be taken seriously in this world because she’s just a little ol’ mom now. Similarly, the way Shiv told her own mom “it’s not like I’m gonna see it,” (referring to her child); “we’re gonna do it the family way.” The attitudes about parenting in this world are so twisted.

12. The three sibs at their mom’s house late at night eating the forbidden cheese and goofing off in her kitchen. (S4 E10) They weren’t supposed to be eating the cheese because it was the mom’s new boyfriend’s special cheese. (Not from this scene, but “New Dad just dropped” is one of my favorite Roman quotes of the whole show.) It was at once hilarious and sweet/poignant, to see these three ridiculous unserious and arguably evil people just having a silly funny time like normal siblings. A little reminder of their humanity.

11. Kendall: ah, Kendall, poor, disgusting, pitiable, wretched Kendall. So many moments of Kendall being Kendall:

• 11a. Absolutely flabbergasted and pearl-clutching because he asked poor little Cousin Greg to bring him some cocaine, and Greg brought “park coke,” i.e. procured it from some rando in the park at night, as if Kendall Roy were some kind of peasant drug addict, lmao, y’all know this is like my favorite moment of the whole show, I quote it all the time.
• 11b. The infamous Logan Rap. “L to the O-G”, ugghh!, I’m dying just thinking about it.
• 11c. Indirectly killing the bunny rabbit by ordering the housekeeper to “just give it some bagel.”
• 11d. Casually shitting the bed while passed out and wasted at that one party, and waking up and just hiding it inside the sheets and going on with his day.
• 11e. Once again flabbergasted, unable to comprehend that money can’t get him somewhere in the helicopter in season one, because the skies were closed i.e. air traffic was literally prohibited and the pilot wasn’t about to break the law for him.

10. Shiv’s little speech at her own wedding reception. (S1 E9) The jokey way she calls her new husband by his last name — people say she’s “emotionally avoidant,” but I think it’s pretty clear that she just isn’t that into him, and just thinks of him as a tolerable accessory that she can use to her advantage, who won’t compete with her nor interfere with her business ambitions. It’s pretty sad. This moment really encapsulated their whole dynamic, for me.

9. Speaking of Tom, the way that one lady, Cyd, in S2 E4, called him out for his “hundred dollar haircut” as if that were such an insult, lol (and speaking of insulting Tom, there was also the scene where the three sibs are not-so-playfully picking on him, and Shiv, his own wife, points out that he has an “agricultural walk”, lol what was even that?!)

8. And speaking of Tom + Shiv, their final scene (S4 E10) in the back of the car as they’re riding off after it’s been announced that Tom, humble Tom with his $100 haircut and agricultural walk, is going to inherit the company… and now Shiv is just his pregnant wife who works for him… the silence between them as they’re both looking in opposite directions was 🤌.

7. Connor’s Wedding (S4 E3). Just the way the episode is named “Connor’s Wedding,” but it ends up being about Logan’s death. The way Connor’s whole life and identity and psyche are so overshadowed, and so completely messed up, by his father. He can’t even have his wedding day. For me that was even sadder than Logan’s death, since we’ve known that was coming since Season One (the show is literally called “succession”). Connor is undoubtedly most tragic character in the whole show and I think about him frequently.

6. President picking party (S3 E6). This one lives rent-free in my head because I’d known, in theory, that it’s the ultra-wealthy who wield the power in this country, but somehow, seeing it played out in this episode (which, who knows how realistic that was, anyway), ngl, it kinda affected my feelings about how the US government actually works; I’ve been just a bit more cynical, since this episode.

5. Lukas Mattson’s revelation that he hasn’t bought a mattress for his big fancy house yet, because he has all the money in the world so could afford the very best on the planet, but keeps researching what the best one is and can’t make up his mind; he’s overly analytical and slightly insane and has contracted choice paralysis. (S4 E2) I also am prone to choice paralysis sometimes, but dang. What a nutjob. I think about this one all the time, I’ll just be shopping for groceries and I randomly think about Mattson’s mattress.

4. The opening credits. I always looked forward to it, and never wanted to skip it. Best intro in the history of TV. It’s not just the song, which fits the vibe of the show to a T; it’s the imagery as well. It actually adds something to the show that we don’t get anywhere else: a bit of backstory. Elsewhere in the story it’s alluded to, but in this intro, we get to actually see it. But again, as always, impeccably subtle. How often do a show’s opening credits actually add something of substance to the story?

3. The house where Logan grew up. (S2 E8) There was so much build-up to their visiting this place; for the three siblings, it’s legendary, a part of their family lore, and they talk about it as if it were a slum, a barely-habitable shack with an outhouse in the backyard, just unfathomably uncivilized, like it was so unbelievable that their noble, respectable father had come from such a place… and when you get there, it’s just… an ordinary suburban house. 😂

2. Logan eating fast food cheeseburgers alone (S1 E6, and I think a couple other times throughout the show as well). His love of fast-food cheeseburgers is one of the most telling things about his character imo. He’s really just a regular guy who busted his butt and worked hard and did some unethical stuff to build this empire – so unlike his children, who never knew anything other than extreme wealth and would find the concept of eating poor people food unthinkable. Logan says that everything he did in life, he did for his kids, and I believe he really meant that – but I think we see him also experiencing some kind of regret (to the extent that he is capable of experiencing that emotion) for the way that they’ve turned out. As a young man, he wanted a better life for his kids, and would go to any lengths to achieve that – but now, at the end of his life, look at where that’s gotten them. The way I see it, that’s kind of a hub for the whole plot.

And finally, the one moment that I think about the most:

1. The server in the kitchen at Nan Pierce’s house when the Roys are over there for dinner (S2 E5). There’s a brief moment when everyone at the table is gushing praises for the entree, and Nan is standing there thanking them with fake humility as if she’d prepared it herself. And just for a second, you see a hired woman, the one who actually did prepare the food, peeking in through the doorway with a peculiar expression. That one little fraction of a second told a whole story. It’s things like that that make this show so remarkable.