Looking At Succession Through The Lens Of Family

The final season of Succession shows a prolonged moment of tenderness mixed with some affectionate malice among the Roy siblings. Sprinkles of sibling love have been found in almost every season of Succession and more often than not, those moments of shared trauma and love generally pave the way for something horrible. Those moments almost always foreshadow the terrible events that are to take place; the ones that will pile up on the already existing trauma and the bond will fall apart with stronger forces than the ones holding it. 

At her father’s funeral, Shiv recalls, with sad fondness, how the four of them would make noise in front of their father’s office simply to make him come out and shout at them. To bask in his warmth, they risked getting yelled at. These children, since their very childhood, have known love in the form of abuse. To make sure that their father noticeed them, they would go to any extent, cause a rucksack even after knowing its after-effects. The same pattern is constantly repeated by them even as adults. They make the moves they hope would make their father consider them as human beings, look them in the eye, and perhaps acknowledge their presence and efforts. But their father being Logan Roy, the best they get is, “I love you, but you’re not serious people.”

In the finale, when the three of them are laughing and swirling around in the kitchen after finally deciding to accept Ken as the CEO, their mother comes down only when there is too much noise. She comes down to shut them up, to tell them how their laughter might wake up Peter, her present husband, and how Roman should not touch Peter’s cheese. In the list of bad mothers, Caroline Collingwood is a whole competition in herself. But still, of all the places he could have gone, Roman went to her only. He went to a mother who is so emotionally unavailable that she left Ken the night he wanted to share something with her; something she knew was eating him up. He went to a mother so terrified of dealing with her own child when he is emotionally vulnerable that she calls Shiv and tells her she doesn’t know what to do. And Shiv, pregnant with a baby, and her decision to let ‘the thing barely see her’ and make ‘it grow the family way’ comes rushing down not because she is particularly worried about Roman but because she has to secure his vote. The siblings, grown up on twisted love, have more often than not got each other's back. But never in a simple and healthy way. The love they received, the kind that came only after creating ripples enough turned them into adults who cannot follow through the promises of love they make; even when that’s the most logical thing to do. 

Shiv’s last-minute decision to not let Ken become the CEO can be cited as a glaring example of how trauma works. It comes back in bits and pieces and when you are suddenly relieving all the moments of betrayal and lies, you realize how hurt you still are and you lose the ability to think straight. Even after knowing Tom will be the CEO, someone she always considered subordinate to herself, she did not have the stomach to watch Ken sit in his father’s chair; the chair that was once promised to her; the chair that the great Logan Roy had promised to all three of his children (sorry Connor) at different points of their lives.

The final line of Roman, ‘we are all shit’ serves as the final chapter of acceptance of their grief; or rather his grief. After having gone through all four stages, blatant denial, acute anger, mindless bargaining, and severe depression, Roman finally gives up. By the end of the show, he is probably the only one among the siblings who realizes the pointlessness of the whole thing. He accepts things as they are and he lets go. This very act of Roman shows he can probably start healing from the trauma of being the son of Logan Roy and his death for which they were almost always prepared but never ready. 

As for the other two, who knows where the visible physical disgust of Shiv toward Tom when they share the car or Kendall’s sitting down on the bench in front of the river he could have jumped into would take them? We can perhaps only hope that they will eventually reach a world where Ken does not end up taking the plunge and Shiv’s baby does not grow up emotionally stunted.

For everyone else, may the Gregging of Greglets go on.