Yeah, I waffled on moving it to Downer Ending when I was editing yesterday. The fact that Roman smiles at the end and Tom and Shiv end the series holding hands made me hold off on moving it, however meager those might be. It also seems like the audience might interpret the Roys losing control of the company as a good thing. I could still see it being a downer ending though, so whatever.
Please do not PM me, I have a job and a life, if I make a mistake just correct it and don't worry about informing me
I have created a Shout Out page because as well as the various examples listed, there are also a great number of references to Peep Show, The Thick Of It and In The Loop (ie, Jesse Armstrong's earlier work) that non-UK viewers might have missed. I will be adding these next. Cheers!
Removed:
- Never a Self-Made Woman: None of the main female characters are remotely self-made, with it being lampshaded by people about Shiv, Logan's only daughter. Willa is a prostitute who is paid by Connor to sleep with him then pays for her show to be on Broadway as a way of convincing her to be exclusive with him. It's possible in only Marcia's case, as her Mysterious Past leaves it open how much money she made before marrying Logan. However, her previous husband is mentioned as being influential. Even Logan's Distaff Counterpart in Season 2, Nan Pierce, is the head of a huge empire of family money rather than making it herself as Logan did.
Nepotism and privilege are the main thrust of the show, so there are few self-made characters at all. Further, Gerri is self-made, and she's a reasonably important character
Removed:
- Spiritual Antithesis:
- To The Righteous Gemstones; both are HBO comedies that air together on Sunday nights during the summer, each is about a Big, Screwed-Up Family involved in the media business, with the family members having more money than sense. Succession is set on the East Coast, and is darker and more dramatic in tone, while The Righteous Gemstones is lighter and set in the Deep South.
- To Dallas and Dynasty, which were also about Big, Screwed-Up Families of oil tycoons. However, where the older shows are soap operas, Succession is more of a black comedy, with an "eat the rich" tone.
- Succession is also a darker, less whimsical version of Arrested Development. Both shows center on an uber-rich Big, Screwed-Up Family of Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonists who are constantly engaged in backstabbing and petty in-fighting, while trying to keep the family business (which involves some illegal activities) afloat. Both start the same way, with the second son and heir apparent informed that his father is staying on at the family business. There are even character parallels: Logan is George, as the family's terrible patriarch; Kendall is Michael, as said heir apparent and the only child with anything resembling a conscience; Roman is Gob, as the resident agent of chaos; Shiv is Lindsay, as the only daughter and the child with a career in politics; Tom is Tobias, a rube in an open marriage with said only daughter; Connor is Buster, as the weird, harmlessly insipid half-brother to the rest of the children; and Greg is George Michael, as the youngest and most naive/innocent of the characters.
- Spiritual Successor: to Billions, another contemporary show about the conflicts of ultra-rich in New York City, which is likewise populated with morally bankrupt characters.
You can compare any show to another and come up with comparisons, similarities, and shared subject matter, but the show clearly isn't intending to be a response to any of these shows. If anything, it's just a modernized King Lear.
Removed from No Celebrities Were Harmed:
- Shiv has shades of Ivanka Trump in her characterization, and Connor is a Trumplica.
Other than being rich, I'm not seeing much of the Trumps in Shiv or Connor, and definitely not enough to make them a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of a Trump.
Removed:
- Fire-Forged Friends: Despite Tom's early mocking of Greg's social status, and Greg's own duplicitous schemes, the two end the first season with what is perhaps the closest thing to a genuine friendship anyone in the family has, with no doubt some credit going to their shared lower rungs of respect within the family.
I've seen a few entries on this page describing Tom and Greg as friends, but I think that's far from the truth. Tom condescends, mocks and outright bullies Greg at virtually every opportunity. The fact that Tom sometimes pretends that they're friendly is pretty true-to-life about how many bullies interact with their victims. For his part, Greg is terrified of Tom and describes their relationship as "abusive" to Logan when trying to escape Tom's authority over him. As I recall, the last two things Greg does is get attacked by Tom and then blackmail Kendall about Tom's incriminating files. These guys are by no means friends.
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It is definitely not far from the truth. While it is true that Tom bullies Greg initially, their dynamic does develop over the course of the season. Around the time of the "fancy dinner", Tom stops overtly bullying Greg and it is gone by the bachelor party. Instead both instances have them enjoying themselves and their time together. At the wedding Tom welcomes Greg with a joyous "thumbs up" and when he attacks Greg it isn't to "shut him up" but because he is wracked by the signs of Shiv's infidelity. He later shares a smile with Greg, laden with thanks, after he kicks out the person Greg warned him about. To deny /that/ is a bit disingenuous.
Tom is still bullying Greg by the fancy dinner. Greg keeps begging Tom to not force him to eat any more because he's already full from a previous dinner, but Tom won't let him. And the whole "teaching Greg how to be rich" dinner is just a way for Tom to show off and keep Greg close while they deal with the cruise issue.
Immediately before the bachelor party is when Greg describes Tom as abusive, and it continues at the party. When Greg snorts the cocaine and panics about what's going to happen to him, Tom stands there and mocks him mercilessly, describing how his heart is probably going to explode. It's really one of the meanest things Tom does to him in the whole season. Greg ultimately describes the party as "hellish."
I don't deny that Tom often behaves as if they're friends, smiling and waving and giving the thumbs up, but he's just using Greg to amuse himself, prop himself up and protect himself. He never passes an opportunity to kick Greg and candidly dismisses him as "expendable" without a shred of hesitation.
I didn't deny the element of the bullying at the dinner, just stated overtly, but they do enjoy themselves well into the night. And we all acknowledge that /both/ are using each other at this point to some extent.
I found the cocaine bit pretty funny, since, well, Greg DID snort a huge amount and it's part of the darkly comedic atmosphere that the show dips into. I see it more as the veneer between them breaking down a bit more, especially with Greg's reaction to the "snowball" that Tom receives.
And, yeah, initially Tom only puts up a friendly act to keep Greg around, by the end - especially at the wedding - he's the closest bond that he has with any of the other cast. The kicking of Greg definitely stops a whole load of the way through.
I don't know if Greg is ever enjoying himself. He doesn't want to eat the dinner, can't understand why you would want to go to "a place where the club isn't," and wakes up the next morning complaining of a stomach ache. It seems like Tom just dragged him around to do things Greg didn't want to do.
And yeah, the coke scene is definitely funny, but if Tom were anything close to a friend, he wouldn't look at a guy who just did a dangerous amount of cocaine and laugh at the possibility that he might overdose.
Tom's thumbs up to Greg at the wedding might signal a change in their relationship, but I think only next season will offer the proof of it. It would definitely make Greg's betrayal of Tom with the cruise documents more meaningful.
Yeah, I guess we'll have to leave it at that then. This is definitely slipping into a YMMV area because I definitely see what you're saying - but I'm finding some of the nuances in the performances (specifically Tom's) tipping it into the "his insecurities push others away and Greg begins to provide something /close/ to companionship" but yeah I'll take how Odd Couple is worded for now since - well, it's nothing quite concrete yet.
At most, maybe "Alternate Character Interpretation" for the YMMV page. But definitely, we'll have to wait until next season.
On the main page the series finale is appearing as Bittersweet Ending, but on the recap page it is appearing as Downer Ending. Which one is it? In my opinion, it felt like a Downer Ending, as none of the three protagonists were happy with the results.
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