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Succession Season 1 Review

Succession is a drama television series that premiered its first season on HBO in 2018.

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“I can promise you that I am spiritually and emotionally

and ethically and morally behind whoever wins“

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It depicts the Roy family, the dysfunctional owners of a global media and hospitality empire, who are fighting for control of the company amid uncertainty about the health of the family’s patriarch. This is a very business-oriented show that isn’t for everybody and it certainly bored me in some of the more business-heavy parts, but mostly I was very much engaged due to its brisk pace and strong storytelling.

The show is populated with these horrible people who are all uniformly bad human beings with almost no redeeming qualities and I have to say that is what I like about it. I was always drawn into these kinds of shows, and this one is particularly realistic in that area having in mind that its subjects are business people.

Let’s talk about the characters. Logan is in my opinion the most irredeemable, the most purely unlikable person of the bunch, which says a lot, but it’s the truth. As the founder of this entertainment conglomerate, he is overly aggressive, arrogant and plain manipulative. He is terrible toward all his children, let alone his firm subordinates. The bulk of this season dealt with his bad relationship with his kids and those parts were among the best ones.

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I actually liked Kendall the most among all of these people. I know that he is also terrible, but somehow, some way I couldn’t help but root for him, which might be explained by his nature as a protagonist. The show doesn’t really have a protagonist, but you can undeniably see that he gets the most focus out of them all, so naturally we as the audience gravitate toward him more than others. In particular, his relationships with others are superbly realized.

Roman is extremely unlikable. He was fun at first, but then he became really off-putting in his arrogance and sometimes he was so punchable. Again, this works for the show to add to the realism and his relationship with his sister is excellent. I also found the brotherly relationship wonderful and a rare ultimately healthy relationship on the show.

Shiv is a manipulator and a cheater, but a rare strong female character nonetheless on what is a very male-oriented show, so she’s essential to the proceedings. I love Tom and Greg. Their dynamic is absolutely hilarious every single time with the dialogue exchange being always funny and interesting. It was fascinating following Tom’s mocking attitude toward Greg while at the same time seeing his submissive attitude toward every other person on the show. As for the other characters, they are less important with Connor being too silly and Marcia still being a mysterious wild card at this point.

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Succession is technically solid, but nothing special. The cinematography, direction, structure and everything else are just serviceable. The dialogue, though, is the driving force of the series. It is clever and even humorous at times. The humor should have been more present as the show became too much of a drama at times while clearly it should aim at the dramedy genre. The final episode is amazing and so was the potential takeover by Kendall, but most of the first half of this season took its sweet time to get us there in terms of the drama and conflicts.