“Previously Wrong” takes us week by week through the unpredictability of post-Golden age television and how our hindsight is sharpening for contemporary series. For this season, resident TV/Film columnist Jared Marshall takes us week by week for the family implosion portrayed on the best show on TV, HBO’s Succession.
What happens when you challenge God?
In the Season 3 premiere of Succession, the smugly titled "Secession", multiple references are made to Zeus, Roman at one point asking who gets to be the "new" Zeus as Logan considers who to make his puppet CEO. It continues a long standing tradition of Succession creator Jesse Armstrong and Co. utilizing mythological allusion. These allusions speak volumes about the subject of "Secession", our number one boy Kendall Roy.
In Season 2, we saw a reversal of the Kronos/Zeus dynamic displayed in Kendall and Logan. Tacitly blackmailing Kendall after covering up his cocaine-induced manslaughter, Logan had effectively made Kendall his errand boy. He didn't banish him to Tartarus, but, in Roy World, being transferred to Logan's office for direct supervision is a fitting parallel.
And then came the blood sacrifice.
In the wake of the Cruises scandal, Logan decided to make Kendall the scapegoat for the cover-up of Uncle Mo's sexual assaults. What Logan did not prepare for, in the most memorable and excruciating cliffhanger of recent years, further exacerbated by over a year of COVID-related delays, was for Kendall to flip the script on national television. Kendall blamed Logan for the cover-up at the press conference, backed up by documents provided by Greg the motherfucking Egg, a double role reversal as he hucks his first lightning bolt at Mount Olympus in the closing moments of Season 2. Blackmail or no blackmail, Kendall is taking his father down even if it means scorching his own earth.
So, I ask again, what happens when you challenge God.
Well, this is Kendall Roy we're talking about, folks. He isn't exactly Gilgamesh, no matter how many Ted Talks he wants to show his subordinates, and, no matter what Naomi Pierce was trying to feed him over the phone in "Secession", he is far from the best man in the world ("who said I haven't killed anyone?" he says to Greg with a sinister smirk in the premiere's most chilling moment). Is it much of a surprise that the opening moments of the season, no more than an hour or so after the press conference, is Kendall cowering in his swanky hotel bathroom?
He retreats to the bathtub as Greg and Karolina try to get him out, slinking down and out of frame in an image that resembles him returning to the womb, attempting to hide from his father's inevitable retaliation. But if we know anything about Lady Caroline Collingwood, whose presence is always felt by the Roy children even when the magnificent Harriet Walter isn't on screen, we know Kendall will find no comfort in anything regarding her. Son of an abusive father and a neglectful mother, Kendall is on his own. When he finally leaves the bathroom, he is ready to do corporate battle. Is it cocaine or is it pure adrenaline? So far it's been left ambiguous.
As the wombic imagery suggests, Kendall's relationship with women plays heavily into "Secession". Succession is masterful at showing how the Roy family's exploitation of the real world mirrors itself with their own personal dysfunction. Kendall is taking a horrific, decade-spanning case of violence against women perpetrated by his family's company and reshaping the narrative to suit his petty power grab. A smart business decision–but absolutely insidious.
Meanwhile in his personal life, he's using his ex-wife's home (welcome back, Rava!) as his base of operations, criticizing her for having a boyfriend over while asking if he can have Naomi over in the same breath. Why is he using Rava's home exactly? He's either expressing resentment for her abandonment or searching for absent maternal support, Jeremy Strong is such a nuanced actor that you can interpret hints of both, but either way it's incredibly exploitive behaviour towards the mother of his children.
We're able to root for Kendall because, goddamnit, the boy is in a lot of pain. The hidden sadness in that smile he gives Greg in the car or the unreciprocated "I love you" he give Naomi over the phone are all understated reasons for why I'm still rooting for this bastard. But make no mistake, he is a bastard. Kendall isn't the messianic figure he's shaping himself to be. He's the Waystar antichrist. It's telling in an early scene with Rava, after a season of abandoning her to be a single parent, that he tells her he's making this power grab for her and the kids. As he tries to "kill" his father, he's stolen one of his most trite manipulation tactics. Luckily it appears that Rava sees right through him, but it's foreboding of what's to come with this damaged spawn of Satan.
On the other side of the trenches, Logan mobilizes the troops. Engaging in his usual Machiavellian antics, watching Logan plot how he's going to destroy Kendall while pitting Gerri and Rome against Shiv and Tom is Succession playing comfortably in the pocket–continuously cutting between Kendall and Logan's camps like the night before war. But with an oncoming investigation and the shareholder meeting only weeks away, the vulnerability he exudes as he walks out the hotel is not the impenetrable Logan Roy we are used to. "Secession" is a perfectly constructed hour of television, bookending the episode with shots of both corporate rivals cold, scared, and completely alone, setting the stage for what looks to be the fall of an American dynasty.
“Previously Wrong” takes us week by week through the unpredictability of post-Golden age television and how our hindsight is sharpening for contemporary series. For this season, resident TV/Film columnist Jared Marshall takes us week by week for the family implosion portrayed on the best show on TV, HBO’s Succession.
What happens when you challenge God?
In the Season 3 premiere of Succession, the smugly titled "Secession", multiple references are made to Zeus, Roman at one point asking who gets to be the "new" Zeus as Logan considers who to make his puppet CEO. It continues a long standing tradition of Succession creator Jesse Armstrong and Co. utilizing mythological allusion. These allusions speak volumes about the subject of "Secession", our number one boy Kendall Roy.
In Season 2, we saw a reversal of the Kronos/Zeus dynamic displayed in Kendall and Logan. Tacitly blackmailing Kendall after covering up his cocaine-induced manslaughter, Logan had effectively made Kendall his errand boy. He didn't banish him to Tartarus, but, in Roy World, being transferred to Logan's office for direct supervision is a fitting parallel.
And then came the blood sacrifice.
In the wake of the Cruises scandal, Logan decided to make Kendall the scapegoat for the cover-up of Uncle Mo's sexual assaults. What Logan did not prepare for, in the most memorable and excruciating cliffhanger of recent years, further exacerbated by over a year of COVID-related delays, was for Kendall to flip the script on national television. Kendall blamed Logan for the cover-up at the press conference, backed up by documents provided by Greg the motherfucking Egg, a double role reversal as he hucks his first lightning bolt at Mount Olympus in the closing moments of Season 2. Blackmail or no blackmail, Kendall is taking his father down even if it means scorching his own earth.
So, I ask again, what happens when you challenge God.
Well, this is Kendall Roy we're talking about, folks. He isn't exactly Gilgamesh, no matter how many Ted Talks he wants to show his subordinates, and, no matter what Naomi Pierce was trying to feed him over the phone in "Secession", he is far from the best man in the world ("who said I haven't killed anyone?" he says to Greg with a sinister smirk in the premiere's most chilling moment). Is it much of a surprise that the opening moments of the season, no more than an hour or so after the press conference, is Kendall cowering in his swanky hotel bathroom?
He retreats to the bathtub as Greg and Karolina try to get him out, slinking down and out of frame in an image that resembles him returning to the womb, attempting to hide from his father's inevitable retaliation. But if we know anything about Lady Caroline Collingwood, whose presence is always felt by the Roy children even when the magnificent Harriet Walter isn't on screen, we know Kendall will find no comfort in anything regarding her. Son of an abusive father and a neglectful mother, Kendall is on his own. When he finally leaves the bathroom, he is ready to do corporate battle. Is it cocaine or is it pure adrenaline? So far it's been left ambiguous.
As the wombic imagery suggests, Kendall's relationship with women plays heavily into "Secession". Succession is masterful at showing how the Roy family's exploitation of the real world mirrors itself with their own personal dysfunction. Kendall is taking a horrific, decade-spanning case of violence against women perpetrated by his family's company and reshaping the narrative to suit his petty power grab. A smart business decision–but absolutely insidious.
Meanwhile in his personal life, he's using his ex-wife's home (welcome back, Rava!) as his base of operations, criticizing her for having a boyfriend over while asking if he can have Naomi over in the same breath. Why is he using Rava's home exactly? He's either expressing resentment for her abandonment or searching for absent maternal support, Jeremy Strong is such a nuanced actor that you can interpret hints of both, but either way it's incredibly exploitive behaviour towards the mother of his children.
We're able to root for Kendall because, goddamnit, the boy is in a lot of pain. The hidden sadness in that smile he gives Greg in the car or the unreciprocated "I love you" he give Naomi over the phone are all understated reasons for why I'm still rooting for this bastard. But make no mistake, he is a bastard. Kendall isn't the messianic figure he's shaping himself to be. He's the Waystar antichrist. It's telling in an early scene with Rava, after a season of abandoning her to be a single parent, that he tells her he's making this power grab for her and the kids. As he tries to "kill" his father, he's stolen one of his most trite manipulation tactics. Luckily it appears that Rava sees right through him, but it's foreboding of what's to come with this damaged spawn of Satan.
On the other side of the trenches, Logan mobilizes the troops. Engaging in his usual Machiavellian antics, watching Logan plot how he's going to destroy Kendall while pitting Gerri and Rome against Shiv and Tom is Succession playing comfortably in the pocket–continuously cutting between Kendall and Logan's camps like the night before war. But with an oncoming investigation and the shareholder meeting only weeks away, the vulnerability he exudes as he walks out the hotel is not the impenetrable Logan Roy we are used to. "Secession" is a perfectly constructed hour of television, bookending the episode with shots of both corporate rivals cold, scared, and completely alone, setting the stage for what looks to be the fall of an American dynasty.
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