Yup, they are horrible people and even when they fail, they are still billionaires. Think about it, they were fighting to control what is essentially the Fox empire, it doesn’t matter which rich sociopath owns it, it’s still a cancer on our democracy.
Roman actually sums the theme of the show up perfectly, “we’re bullshit, we’re nothing.” That’s what stings for Kendall, that deep down he knows Roman is right. That’s why all the various machinations fail, it doesn’t matter. That’s the theme of the show; you don’t end up envying these people like you do on a wealth porn show like Billions, you end up pitying them.
Not me. I started out despising most of them, but thinking some (eg, Shiv and Greg) might be better than others, and ended up despising all of them pretty much equally. Not a drop of pity in me for any of them except peripheral characters like Rava and the kids.
Thinking about the show more, the failure of all of the schemes feed into the other theme of the show that hurt people hurt people. Their constant scheming and engagement with one another replicates the family’s cycle of abuse and dysfunction. Logan’s own childhood was apparently horrific and he has the literal scars on his back to prove it, he then abused his own children right up until he died. His kids took turns abusing each other and sticking up for one another.
They keep breaking from one another and then re-engaging the way that broken people do, because they don’t have any tools for healthy engagement and they don’t have the self awareness to just walk away.
The only way the cycle ends for them is to blow the whole thing up and maybe some survivors can stagger out of the wreckage. Maybe.
Sure, but that’s saying it doesn’t matter to us. But that’s very different than saying it doesn’t matter to them.
I mean, if we interviewed Jesse (sp?) Armstrong (creator of Succession) and said to him “hey, it kind of felt like the Marcia-gets-more-votes-in-the-family-trust-and-is-clearly-becoming-a-capital-P-Player plotline from early in season 1 was just kind of dropped”, do you think he would say something like “yeah, it just wasn’t working, so after a few episodes we just went in a different direction” or maybe “yeah, COVID got in the way of season 1 production and it was a bit disjointed” or even “it was actually wrapped up in episode 7, you must have just missed it” or would he instead tap his forehead and say “you’re right, that was a deliberate artistic choice, intended to convey the extent to which the Roys’ billions insulate them from ever facing consequences…”?
I feel like what you are complaining about are actually the thematic elements of the show that didn’t resonate with you. I am saying that it was explicitly stated in the finale, “we’re nothing.” It was meaningless and that was the intent of the author.
I see what you’re saying, and I think it’s something similar, but definitely distinct.
For instance, I can certainly imagine a story similar to the story of Succession, where there’s some incredibly dramatic and titanic struggle for who gets to be in charge of some big company… and then the last scene returns to, I dunno, the mailroom of the company where we first met one of the characters back at the very beginning, and we see that the same people are doing the same things for the same piss poor wages that they were always doing, and none of it matters, and all the so-called drama we saw, all the seemingly-so-important ups and downs that the rich people experienced didn’t really matter at all in the “real world”. But “things that seem important to the protagonists are all revealed to be self-indulgent bullshit that is irrelevant to the real world” is very different from “things that seem to be important to the protagonists in episode 4 are wrapped up in episode 5 in a way that the protagonists themselves believe to be important to those selfsame protagonists… and then never mentioned again, and in fact seem to have had zero impact whatsoever”.
Again, I think there are thematic elements that did not resonate with you. The show was saying this is all bullshit, the battle for control, America’s “democracy,” America’s aristocracy. It was all bullshit. None of it mattered. The show was profoundly nihilistic and I loved it for it. I don’t know if there’s a point for more discussion to me. America is bullshit. The end.
Ok, so I missed something somewhere. Or they did. The inheritance. Was it ever discussed? Logan had the biggest chunk of shares, right? And whoever had those might well have changed the result of the vote in the end. It wasn’t discussed near the end, or was it discussed before? Did the vote take place with the shares distributed to those who are in effect owners? I sense this was forgotten about…
The stock was held in a family trust of some sort, so Logan’s portion would have been in there as well. The Trust continues to exist as an entity, so the stock doesn’t get distributed when Logan dies, it just stays in the Trust until the Trust is dissolved.
Logan, of course, would have had his own property, which would be distributed via a will. But it’s pretty established in the show that there is a family trust and this thing holds the shares for Logan and the kids, and possibly ex-wives.
I just binged all four seasons over the last few weeks. Here are a few random thoughts:
My favorite moment not mentioned happens way back in Season 1. Greg has started working for RoyCo and is going through the bullshit corporate trainging videos. He’s watching a video all about how important diversity is at the company and looks up to see Tom coming out of an executive meeting filled with nothing but old white men.
Speaking of Greg, he’s basically become the new Hugo at the end of the show. He’ll be an overpaid errand boy with a meaningless executive title that doesn’t really describe what he does.
It weird how emotionally invested this show makes you get in genuinely terrible people. I was really rooting for them once they all agreed to work together in the last episode, and then got upset when it all fell apart. I had to sit back and think, “Why would I want Kendall in charge of this company?”
I don’t think the “dropped storylines” issue is a big of a deal as some people say. Most of them are just lingering effects. For example, the deal with Sandy and Co is what basically puts them in a tie vote in the end. However, I do wish we got to see more of the guy Roman found working at the theme park, but only because Zach Cherry is hilarious.
Was thinking the other day how the Roy kids and the three older Trump kids are rough doppelgangers of each other:
Kendall, first born, has a drug problem and thinks he is King Shit when, in fact, most hold him in contempt. Not even half the person his father was, Kendall is obviously Don Jr.
Shiv. Looks great! Competent, even! But, wait, you say she hasn’t done anything of consequence in her real life except marry some ambitious, amoral shit in a suit? Hi, Ivanka!
Roman. Little dweeb, definite daddy issues, largely ignored because he is 3rd in “line”, will never be taken seriously no matter how hard he tries because… well, look at him! He’s Eric Trump!
I mean, back in season 1 she was (to all appearances) a competent individual living her own life, as a political consultant. If the show was trying to imply that in fact she was shit at that job and only had it due to family connections etc., I certainly never got that message. That said, I also feel like that backstory was pretty quickly all-but-abandoned.
If you want to continue the analogy, Cousin Greg is a bit like Barron (who turned sixteen this year and is taller than the rest of the family). Both are a bit outside the core part of their family.
And Tiffany’s a bit like Conner. The “Oh yeah, I forgot about him/her!” child. Born from a different marriage than the “favored” kids, largely raised away from dad.