If You Thought This Week's Episode of Succession Was A Bridge Too Far, You Really Haven't Been Paying Attention to This Show

 In the aftermath of the ‘America Decides’ episode of Succession, in which Kendall and Roman Roy more or less decide to let a quasi-fascist become President of the United States to promote the future of the company, many fans and critics of the series alike genuinely think that this may have been a bridge too far most of them.

Given the last several years as well as recent events, it’s hard to blame them. Having had to deal with so much electoral and political trauma in real life the last few years, I completely get why fans and critics alike might have a problem with having to watch it unfold on a TV series. I feel their pain.

However, considering that the major reason so many people seem to have enjoyed this series for this long in the first place is more or less pure schadenfreude; and they truly like seeing these masters of the universe being utterly miserable despite having all the money and power in the world, you will forgive me for enjoying a cruel chuckle of my own at the trauma they’re going through now.  My own schadenfreude is exponentially greater based on the very fact that this entire storyline was inevitable almost from the first season of the show, at least based on what I’ve heard, and I’m kind of stunned no viewers seems to have saw it coming.

As I understand it, this obscure, idiotic, racist and inept candidate for the Presidency basically earned it because Logan Roy wanted a Coke. Remember? He made a late night call to the Vice President, waking him up at night, and demanded a coke. The Vice President showed up and blustered, but there was no Coke. However Congressman Jered Menken showed up with a Coke.

Logan didn’t need a Coke, of course. But he wanted someone who could follow orders.  For those of you who are entertaining the hope that Logan could have controlled Menken, need I remind you what the depositions  from the Dominion lawsuit revealed.

Now everybody who has watched Succession to this point, I want to lean in so I can tell you something: WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU THINK  YOU WERE WATCHING ALL THIS TIME? Succession has been so clearly modeled on the Murdoch family that one of the conditions of Jerry Hall’s divorce agreement was that she could not contribute storylines to the series. ATN is so clearly a right wing media network that many on the internet have using its anchor for memes regarding the firing of Fox News firings over the last few years, including Tucker Carlson. Every indication in the few episodes you’ve seen has been that all of the Roys knew how dangerous Menken was, but none of them had a problem with him becoming President as long as he was in their pocket.  You’ve spent the last four seasons fully aware just how horrible the Roys to people in their immediate circle and that anyone else who is the victim of their problems – even people they kill – are non-entities to them? Did you really believe that the Roys would feel the same way about things like democracy, America, or you know, the fate of the world? It’s always been about the Roys. You’ve know that for four years. Don’t claim buyer’s remorse now that you see that they’re willing to throw America under the bus to get a momentary advantage over the other.

Some people have questioned why, this close to the end of the series, when the series has no time to deal with the long term ramifications of the Roys actions, that this episode took place. Here’s my theory. I think Armstrong did this deliberately to push home really and fully to all the viewers who have been watching the series and seeming to love it even though all of these characters are horrible and none of them deserve to run Waystar Royco what their enjoyment of Succession says about the viewer.  You’re fine with Kendall Roy killing a waiter and not going to jail? You’re fine with Shiv covering up a legacy of a Roy ally molesting and murdering dozens of women? You’re fine with Roman joking of him being the real victim of Kendall’s killing? All right. But just as Logan’s death demonstrated that there had to be forward momentum for this series to work, ‘America Decides’ had to happen so that every viewer who has been watching these series and loving it despite all the horrible things that happen, have to accept that these consequences aren’t abstract.  In a sense Armstrong is making the viewer an unindicted co-conspirator in everything the Roys have done to this point, and now he’s showing you what the consequences are by letting these people get away with it and not suffering.

In that sense, it no longer matters how Succession ends and who ends up leading Waystar Royco.  Because this was never a show about winners or losers. Everybody we’ve met, to an extent on this series, is a loser.  They’re all bullies, harassers, and unworthy of your time. And as a result of being able to do whatever they want; the entire country is a loser.  I think that’s why Armstrong is choosing to the end the series without any true appreciation of the ‘consequences’ At this point, we all know there will be none for the Roys and that they can clearly live with what they have done to each other and the world. The viewer? That’s another story.

Now I will admit the last few weeks I have rethought much of my original opinion of Succession. That said, I am still standing by everything else I have said about it in every previous article I’ve written on it. I won’t repeat any of them here because either you’ve read them already or you might end up looking them at some point in the aftermath. I do, however, have one new thing to say and that’s about the long-term of Succession.

Anyone who is a true fan of a TV series know that part of the mark of it being a true classic is your ability to rewatch it after its run is completed, even years after the fact.  This has been true of most of the classic dramas of Peak TV, such as Sopranos, The Wire and Deadwood. Even those series that have ended controversially over the years, such as Lost and Battlestar Galactica, remain fully worthy of revisiting and I suspect now that Better Call Saul has ended, many people will have another reason to revisit Breaking Bad.  Even some of the series that ended in massive disappointment still have a vital fan base: despite how utterly unhappy most people were with the series finale (and indeed much of the last two seasons) of Game of Thrones, few would deny that it was not a great series and I suspect its long-term legacy is safe.

I can not say the same of many of the series of the past decade. I’m pretty certain no one’s going to be rewatching Scandal any time soon, considering that it was a series all about surprise and no effect. I don’t truly see anyone rewatching Ozark now that it’s over and while I may be wrong, I’m not convinced that The Handmaid’s Tale will be revisited when its final season airs. These series were all shows fundamentally of the moment, and while critics and audiences watched them fervently at the time, I seriously doubt anyone will willingly want to look at the world of Olivia Pope or revisit Gilead anytime soon. I have a similar attitude towards Veep, which I initially found hysterically funny and by the time the final season aired really hated myself for watching it. It had less to do with current events and more with the fact that even before the 2016 election, I really didn’t want to spend any more time with the Meyer administration.

So I have to tell you, regardless of the ending of Succession, I seriously doubt anyone’s going to want to revisit the world of Waystar Royco. Some have tried to compare this show to King Lear and the struggles for power, and while that may be a valid argument, there’s a critical difference: the tragedy of King Lear was that it ended in death and destruction for all the main characters. Well, the Lear figure has died, but barring some kind of Kings Landing style finish in the last episode (and we all know that’s just not going to happen) the main characters will not have gone through any arc or faced any consequences apart from, more likely, being completely isolated from each other. And to be clear, that’s not a change from where the series began; these characters took separate private jets rather than be in the same company of each other for a few hours at the start of the series; they’ll most likely be doing that at the end.

As I mentioned in an earlier article referring to a review of the show I think that Verne Gay of Newsday had it right at the start that it doesn’t matter if any member of the Roys does end up running Waystar Royco. All that will mean is that they’ve lived up to their father’s legacy and become the most like Logan Roy. As we saw in the episode prior to Logan’s death, that’s not what any of the Roy siblings ever wanted and in the aftermath of Logan’s death, if not throughout the entire series, it’s been clear that none of them are capable of being Logan. Logan himself was never the master of the universe that viewers thought he was even at the end of his life,  and he never believed any of his children deserved to run Waystar. I think one way or another it will collapse in the final episode, whether it happens in the finale or as an inevitable consequence of whoever ends running down the line.

Which means at the end of the day, the struggle that has  - enthralled, I guess – viewers for four seasons will end up being as pointless as I speculated at the beginning.  Because it’s not like any of this has ever had any long term consequences for any of these people for their entire lives. Logan Roy was a rich prick. He was a rich prick at the start of the series; he’s a rich prick at the end. The only difference is, now he’s a rich dead prick. I have a feeling that no matter how the series ends, none of the main characters will be in prison or destitute.

So years after the fact, why would anyone who watched the series for four seasons want to revisit it? For all the controversy in the final episodes of shows like Lost or Mad Men, no one had any problem with the series more than a decade after they ended.  Some of the characters were unlikable, some of the storylines implausible, but no one resented having spent time with the series. I may have hated Game of Thrones, but I do understand why some fans would revisit it no matter the fallout from the finale. Westeros may have had the same horrible people at its center, but there was violence, sex, battles and dragons. What can Succession offer anyone who would want to revisit? Why would you want to spend any time watching all of these horrible people yell profane insults at each other, engage in petty battles to destroy each other, and end up essentially in the same place? No matter how brilliant the dialogue might be I can’t imagine wanting to watch Tom and Greg attack each other, knowing at the end of the day just how awful they will become – and how worthless it was.

I think that after the final stretch of awards this fall Succession will be forgotten by audiences, regulated to the dustbin that we considered series like Dharma and Greg or Boston Legal or House. Series that for a time critics and audiences loved but have no real half-life after they are done. Among its contemporaries, it has never been truly mentioned in the same breath as The Americans or Better Call Saul when it came to being considered one of the greatest dramas of all time, and I don’t suspect it will have the same lure that those two series now have when it is over.  Maybe some people will consider the same way they now look at House of Cards, a series that was of the moment more than anything. And while the troika of HBO great dramas legacy is still strong more than twenty years later, I suspect most people will be ignoring Succession within the next few years. And if they do, it will be with a wince: “Why did I spend so much time with those people?” Perhaps I will be wrong, but I doubt it. The Roy children never came a damn about their legacy;