Succession (TV Program)

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      ‘Succession’ Season 4 Premiere Recap: Many Happy Returns

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      The Roy family is back for a fourth and final season, and everyone came out swinging. Let the humiliations begin.Season 4, Episode 1: ‘The Munsters’Have you ever noticed that “Succession” is a show about deal-makers in which hardly any deals are ever completed? Every major acquisition or transfer of power always seems to be 48 hours away. Everyone always needs to iron out a few more details, get a few more stragglers from the board into the fold, toss in a few more sweeteners for the major shareholders, et cetera. How many times over the course of this series have the principals actually signed on the dotted line?I can think of one: when Siobhan Roy (Sarah Snook) married Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen). And even then, Shiv blew up the deal on the couple’s wedding night by telling Tom she wanted an open marriage. Given a choice between no wife and barely a wife, Tom chose to stay in the mix, hoping Shiv might one day wake up and realize she had already found her true companion. But the string of humiliations over the past few years has not been easy for Tom. As Season 4 begins, the two are on the brink of divorce.Yet even when it comes to dissolving a contract, these two cannot quite finish what they started.Tom and Shiv are at the center of both halves of this lively and highly entertaining premiere of the show’s fourth and final season. After betraying his wife and allying with Logan Roy (Brian Cox), Tom is starting to realize that his father-in-law perhaps values him mainly as a way to keep tabs on his rebellious kids. Tom even broaches the subject of a Shiv-free future, asking (after a hilariously rambling prologue), “What would happen were a marriage such as mine, and even, in fact, mine, were to falter to the point of failure?”Logan’s typically cryptic reply: “If we’re good, we’re good.”The Tom half of this episode takes place in New York, at Logan’s birthday party, which for the guest of honor is a miserable occasion. (We know this night is going to be a bummer when Nicholas Britell’s typically mournful string cadence plays as Logan mingles.) He gets so fed up with all the cheerful “Munsters” scarfing up his food that he ducks out with his bodyguard and “best pal” Colin (Scott Nicholson), escaping to a diner where he grimly ruminates on how, if you really think about it, people are just economic units, and how once we die, our place in the market dies with us. “I think this is it,” he mutters. “Realistically.”What eventually rouses Logan on this deeply depressing evening is what is happening across the country in Los Angeles, where Shiv, Kendall (Jeremy Strong) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) are plotting revenge for the vicious way Logan blocked their recent coup attempt. These “new-gen Roys” are planning to launch “a high visibility, execution-dependent disrupter news brand” called The Hundred, with insights provided by the 100 top thinkers in all the major fields usually covered by the media — business, tech, food, politics and the like.This all sounds great to Shiv — really, it does, she over-insists — until she gets a tip from Tom that in addition to Waystar’s impending megadeal with GoJo, Logan wants to land a big fish he has been salivating over for years: the left-leaning, Roy-hating Pierce Global Media, which Nan Pierce (Cherry Jones) is desperate to sell. Sure, The Hundred had potential investors lining up outside Roman’s fancy hillside house. Nevertheless, Shiv, Kendall and Roman still jet up to Nan’s palatial estate and vineyard, where they become the ones who have to line up and wait.Shiv wants primarily to be taken seriously so that Nan will stop thinking of the Roy kids as “fake fruit for display purposes only.” The younger Roys know that they can offer Nan assurances about preserving the P.G.M. brand that Logan would never honor (despite Tom’s promise to the Pierces of “a little tummy-tickle on culture”). And they are pretty sure they can line up the financing after their dad’s GoJo deal goes through and they cash out of Waystar, netting about $2 to $3 billion. The real question is: Do they want this?Kendall clearly does, because he is driven by a hunger to beat Logan. Shiv wants to do something big, which is probably not The Hundred. (I mean … it is The Hundred, not The Billions.) Roman, though, is skittish about going another round with their dad, having just been soundly whipped.Roman eventually falls into line, and with as much fake enthusiasm as he can muster, gets ready to “talk to an old lady about newspapers.” But Nan is tricky. She insists there is no way to back out of her tentative deal with Logan and groans that she is tired of hearing about numbers, while sneakily steering her new suitors toward an offer well beyond the $7 billion Waystar was planning to spend. The kids settle on $10 billion, which turns out to be a “definitive,” conversation-ending bid.Earlier, Logan’s children had gotten a call from his friend, assistant and adviser Kerry (Zoe Winters). (Who is also possibly his lover and the future mother of his child? Logan’s love life is another deal that never quite seems to close.) She suggested that maybe they could ring him up and wish him a happy birthday. Instead, Logan’s party ends with him demanding Tom call Shiv so he can growl at “the rats,” hissing, “Congratulations on saying the biggest number.”This brings us back to Shiv and Tom. They end their busy day by meeting awkwardly in their New York apartment, where Shiv has popped by to pick up some outfits Tom thought she did not want. (“I don’t want to be restricted to my favorites,” she says, a tossed-off remark that says a lot about Shiv’s whole vibe.) They bicker a bit about how Tom and Cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) have been tomcatting around, calling themselves “the Disgusting Brothers.” She suggests they “move on” from this marriage, to which he offers a Logan-esque, “uh-huh.”Then they collapse next to each other on the bed and hold hands. They are not going to talk things out. They are not going to reconcile. They are not going to have sex. But neither of them wants to leave, so they are going to stay in the same space together a little while longer. Whatever is going to happen with them, they will figure it out tomorrow — or maybe never.Due DiligenceCousin Greg comes in hot in the season premiere, bringing an un-vetted rando named Bridget (Francesca Root-Dodson) to his uncle’s birthday party. Bridget is “a firecracker” and “crunchy peanut butter,” who at one point sneaks off with him and has “a bit of a rummage” in his pants. She also posts pics from the party on social media, asks Logan for a selfie and carries what Tom describes as a “ludicrously capacious bag” that one would slide across the floor after a bank job. So when Colin indicates that he needs to eject her, Greg does not stop him. (“I don’t want to see what happens in Guantánamo,” he says. “Do your ways, and God be willing.”)Connor Roy (Alan Ruck) is in a funk all episode because he has been told he needs to spend another $100 million on his presidential campaign just to maintain his current 1 percent in the polls. So he asks his fiancée, Willa (Justine Lupe), if she would let him drum up some free publicity by having their wedding underneath the Statue of Liberty with “a brass band” and “bum fights.” (Y’know, hoopla and razzmatazz.)You may be thinking, “What about The Hundred?” This promising start-up may have just stopped, but we will always treasure the many ways its founders tried to define it. It is “like a private members club but for everyone.” It is “an indispensable bespoke information hub” with “high-calorie info-snacks.” It “has the ethos of a nonprofit but the path to crazy margins.” (Tag yourself! I’m “Substack meets Masterclass meets the Economist meets The New Yorker.”)Always remember: Logan is not being horrible. He is being fun. More

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      The Key to Gerri on ‘Succession’? ‘Inside She’s a Nervous Wreck’

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      For decades the New York theater world paid homage to J. Smith-Cameron, a veteran stage actress who has often been compared to Carole Lombard for her precise timing and comic verve. When she wasn’t doing Molière or Shakespeare, she was impressing critics and her fellow actors with her performances in plays by Paul Rudnick, John Patrick Shanley and Beth Henley.Now her hard-won local fame has been eclipsed by her breakout role on “Succession,” the HBO drama about a venal Murdoch-like family locked in a “King Lear”-like power struggle. As Gerri Kellman, the long-suffering general counsel and consigliere to Logan Roy, the vicious, vacillating patriarch played by Brian Cox, Ms. Smith-Cameron has turned an ancillary player into a surprisingly complex character. It’s a grown-up role for a grown-up woman.Gerri’s cool gaze, raised eyebrows and clipped interjections, along with her shrewd analyses of corporate shenanigans, have made her an avatar of female power for women of all ages, especially young professionals who find that attaining success in their fields may require them to tiptoe around monstrous male egos. As a result, Ms. Smith-Cameron has gone from a darling of the stage to social media star, with memes galore and Twitter accounts dedicated to Gerri’s every eye roll.“Characters like hers are often written as these barracuda businesswomen or hard-boiled lady detectives, people who are impenetrable or invincible,” Ms. Smith-Cameron said. “What I like about Gerri is she’s very powerful, but inside she’s a nervous wreck. She’s not impervious to things. That’s why I think she strikes a note. There’s a vulnerability to her and a jittery, thinking-on-her-feet quality. She’s not just coming in and blasting people.”On a brisk March afternoon, Ms. Smith-Cameron, who goes by “J.,” settled in with a cup of coffee onto a squashy blue velvet sofa in her living room. Brownie, a grizzled and wary 12-year-old terrier mix, was napping, fitfully, among the pillows, occasionally rousing herself to bark at a guest.For the last eight years, Ms. Smith-Cameron and her husband, Kenneth Lonergan, the playwright, screenwriter and director, have rented this cozy, two-story apartment in a Federal-style townhouse in downtown Manhattan from the actor Matthew Broderick. Mr. Broderick and Mr. Lonergan have been pals since high school, and they and Ms. Smith-Cameron have worked together, on and off, for decades.Ms. Smith-Cameron with Mr. Broderick in a 1999 production of Emlyn Williams’s “Night Must Fall” at the Lyceum Theater in New York.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“It’s been thrilling to watch J. cross over from a fixture on the New York stage into the collective consciousness,” Mr. Broderick said in a phone interview. “She’s so smart and her humor is so slyly funny. She doesn’t miss a joke.”There are a few Broderick touches in the apartment, notably paintings by Mr. Broderick’s mother, Patricia. “This one is called something like, ‘No matter how old or sick they are, no one likes to look a wreck,’” Ms. Smith-Cameron said, pointing out a piece above the fireplace, an expressionist image of a stately woman in disarray. “Isn’t it great? It’s so thought through.”Gerri has been good to the Smith-Cameron-Lonergan household.“She’s been supporting us for the last six years,” said Mr. Lonergan, who is known for the films “Manchester by the Sea” and “You Can Count On Me.” “No qualms with her whatsoever. Whatever she needs to get done it’s fine with me.”He mused about what, if anything, the character has in common with his wife.“J. has pointed out that Gerri is very anxious,” he said. “J. is sometimes anxious but not in a maneuvering way — she just gets anxious and overwhelmed. Her wheels are always turning. When you hug her, she’s very nicely hugging you back, but you get the sense she’s thinking of other things.”“I’m sorry,” Ms. Smith-Cameron said.It was Ms. Smith-Cameron’s rapport with Kieran Culkin, who plays Roman, the youngest, sassiest Roy, that inspired a “Succession” subplot that completely unhinged the internet. Gerri and Roman were in a jousting and affectionate mentor-mentee relationship as she took him under her wing. But the show’s writers, noting the actors’ off-camera banter, pushed the relationship further. (Off the set, the prankish Mr. Culkin teases Ms. Smith-Cameron as relentlessly as Roman does Gerri. This summer, during a cast dinner, she said, she was so exasperated with him she threw a drink in his face.)Ms. Smith-Cameron, with Kieran Culkin, in a scene from Season 3 of “Succession.” She went off script to call his character a “little slime puppy” in one episode.HBOMidway through the second season, Roman’s Gerri-baiting and his off-color jokes, and Gerri’s snappy retorts, had morphed into a queasy dominatrix-submissive scenario. During a phone call with Roman, Gerri realizes, to her horror, that her tart insults are turning the conversation into phone sex, at least on his end. Ms. Smith-Cameron found herself improvising, which was how the phrase “little slime puppy,” a put-down she coined on the spot, entered the popular lexicon. Or at least the vernacular of “Succession” fanatics.By the end of Season 3, things had gone completely off the rails. Roman tried to text Gerri a close-up of his anatomy, only to misfire, sending the photo to his father. For the first time in her career, Gerri found herself in a vulnerable position. That precariousness, and her response to it, will define her path in the show’s fourth and final season, which has its first episode Sunday.“Gerri is in a restless, insecure place through the whole season, but also, I feel, getting wise to her heft,” Ms. Smith-Cameron said. “I always felt like there was something kind of on the boil with her. I can say that it’s the first time in her career that she’s not felt on solid ground — and she’s angry about it. She’s angry with both Roman and Logan. She’s of an age and has accrued money and could easily retire, but she’s not the type. She’s a workaholic and I think she feels like she’s in her prime. People are always asking me, ‘Why does she take it?’ I think it’s thrilling for her, it’s a high, like surfing in a dangerous sea.“I don’t know that I could be Gerri in real life, and yet acting is very insecure,” she continued. “You have to go out and kill for food every time.”Ms. Smith-Cameron started acting in plays in New York in the 1980s. “I wasn’t trying to be on a big hit show,” she said.Justin J Wee for The New York TimesMs. Smith-Cameron, 65, was born Jean Isabel Smith in Louisville, Ky., the youngest of three children, and grew up in Greenville, S.C. Her father was an architect and engineer; her mother worked at Head Start and as an assistant librarian. Ms. Smith-Cameron studied at the Florida State University School of Theater in Tallahassee but dropped out, because she was working so much in regional theater and small films.She changed her name in stages: First to J. Smith, because Jeannie, as she was known, seemed too flimsy for an actor. She then exchanged Smith for Cameron, a family name, for additional heft. The hyphenate Smith-Cameron came a bit later, and by accident, after a director printed her name on a film poster that way.In the early 80s, Ms. Smith-Cameron moved to Manhattan and has worked to growing acclaim ever since. In the 1997 Off Broadway production of Douglas Carter Beane’s “As Bees in Honey Drown,” she played an irresistible con artist, delivering a manic mash-up of Auntie Mame and Holly Golightly in a role that won her an Obie. Ben Brantley called her performance “deliriously pleasurable” in his review for The New York Times.“In my 60s, to have this attention, it’s just weird,” she said. “It’s not like I didn’t have notice before, but I always did these off-the-beaten track things. I wasn’t trying to be on a big hit show.”Ms. Smith-Cameron has long been a booster of independent film. You can see her right now in “The Year Between,” by Alex Heller, a comedic drama based on the filmmaker’s own experience with bipolar disorder, which caused her to drop out of college and move back home with her parents. Ms. Smith-Cameron plays the tart Midwestern mother, and Steve Buscemi is her kindly husband. It’s not the first time they have been married onscreen. “He’s so great,” she said of Mr. Buscemi. “We both love to champion independent movies because they’re not built on the premise of making money. They’re exhausting, you have to work really hard fast, but when it fits, it’s a joy.”The actress in an ensemble scene from the 2022 film “The Year Between.”Gravitas Ventures“J. lifts people up,” said Zoe Winters, another fine stage actor scooped up by the “Succession” team who plays Kerry, Logan Roy’s immaculate assistant. “I’ll get texts from her that say, ‘You’re quite something. You’re dazzling.’ She has an endless capacity for that. Ultimately, I think what she’s always trying to do is make people feel good and make really good art.”Ms. Smith-Cameron and Mr. Lonergan met cute, as she put it, while working on a series of one-act plays in the mid-90s. She said she found him appealingly grumpy and quietly hilarious.As she recalled, “I was like, ‘Why have I never met this actor? He’s of an age, he’s really good, he’s really smart! Is he gay? Is he married?’ I began to do a little research.”She learned he was a playwright, acting in another’s scene, who had also written what she thought was the best play of the program. When they collided one night on the stairs of the theater, she complimented his work, comparing it to a William Inge play. When he looked blank, she challenged him, saying, “Don’t you know who William Inge is?”“I had been married and divorced in my 20s,” she said, “and I was going through a chilly spell. I didn’t think I’d fall in love or get married or have kids. So I was a little bitter and a little saucy. But I had never been this brazen.”The couple married in 2000; their daughter, Nellie, is 21.Ms. Cameron-Smith and Mr. Lonergan at the Season 4 premiere of “Succession” at Lincoln Center this month.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York Times“There’s something conspiratorial about J., as if she can’t wait to let the world in on the most delicious secret,” said Mr. Rudnick, who cast her in his 1994 Off Broadway comedy, “The Naked Truth.”“She was helplessly, magnetically funny,” Mr. Rudnick continued. “I kept making this one speech longer, just so I could watch J. perform it. She developed a brilliant set of almost balletic gestures, which she informed me were called ‘puppet hands.’ And over the course of an especially long rehearsal, we developed a system where if J. performed her monologue flawlessly, I’d give her a chocolate chip cookie. She of course ended up with an entire bag of Chips Ahoy!”Frank Rich, the former New York Times theater critic and an executive producer of “Succession,” said he had taken delight in Ms. Smith-Cameron’s stage work for years. Even though she has often been known for playing more flamboyant characters, he is not surprised by the nuanced quality she has brought to her character.“For Gerri, J. found this astringent comic tone that suggests she’s in on the joke of working for these entitled jerks who think they know what they’re doing but often have no idea,” he said. “She’s their corporate babysitter even as she has to be subordinate to them. There’s a tragicomedy to her situation, and J. is an actor who can deliver on that.”Ms. Smith-Cameron at home.Justin J Wee for The New York TimesMr. Lonergan, who had been puttering in the kitchen, wandered back into the living room, still mulling over the question of whether his wife has anything in common with the Waystar Royco general counsel.“The other thing I was going to say is, J. doesn’t take full command of things but they kind of go the way she wants them to go, sooner or later,” he said. “She’s very strong-willed. At first I would have said there wasn’t any similarity between J. and Gerri, but they both have their eyes on the main point. Both are extremely observant and notice shifts in what’s going on around them. They’re both interested in substance, and neither of them needs to be the center of attention in a room — and nobody is smarter than either of them in a room.”Ms. Smith-Cameron was beaming. “Thank you,” she said. More

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      ‘Succession’ Recap Ahead of Season 4: Which Rat Could Win the Race?

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      Logan Roy, who compares his children to rodents, still needs a successor going into the final season. Who seemed most likely when we left off?From the start, the HBO series “Succession,” returning Sunday for its fourth and final season, has kept us dangling. The first ever episode teased a retirement announcement that never came, and ever since, the characters have fought over who should succeed the powerful media titan Logan Roy (Brian Cox) as head of the Waystar Royco empire. Should it be one of his spoiled adult children, who haven’t exactly instilled confidence, or a favored employee, whose motivations are often murky?For three seasons, the hierarchical possibilities continually shifted as the father and his heirs played out power dynamics worthy of Roman history, or Greek tragedy, or Shakespearean drama. Siblings fell in and out of favor as they tried to curry respect, or just fatherly attention. The final season should at least answer some crucial questions: Who, if anyone, will take Logan’s place? And will there even be a Waystar left to helm?Here’s a closer look at the candidates most likely to succeed Logan should he die, go to jail or otherwise abdicate his throne before a planned acquisition.ConnorOdds of succeeding: Not bloody likelyPoor, pathetic, peripheral Connor (Alan Ruck), the overlooked eldest, the witless wonder. While his younger half-siblings scheme and maneuver, his presence is never required. “Everybody thinks you’re a joke,” Logan tells him. “You’re irrelevant,” says Kendall. “Generally speaking,” Roman adds, “people don’t like you.”And yet, although he was never groomed to take over Waystar, Connor has his eye on an even bigger prize: the presidency of the United States. By the season premiere, he is barely polling at 1 percent, and even that seems tenuous. Logan could bankroll his campaign, or ATN could back him instead of Jeryd Mencken (Justin Kirk). But these things are unlikely to happen, especially given the pending company acquisition by new-media mogul Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgard). It’s beginning to look as if Connor may just have to settle for being incredibly wealthy.The Rat Pack: Kendall, Siobhan and RomanOdds of succeeding: It’s an outside bet.Logan calls his other children “the rats.” We might call them nepo babies. These backbiting siblings usually work in opposition to one another — see the open letter from Shiv (Sarah Snook) about Kendall (Jeremy Strong), just for starters. For now, though, those two and their younger brother, Roman (Kieran Culkin), are presenting a united front.Might they succeed together? In the Season 3 finale, they form an alliance to prevent the sale of Waystar, but that effort fails. If they want to beat their father at his own game, there are only a few options. They could use their inherited wealth (and the billions they stand to make from the Waystar sale) to start their own media company. Or they could just buy a successful rival. But can they ever stop obsessing about their father? Dreaming of patricide — symbolically, for now — is the glue binding them together at present.Kendall (Jeremy Strong) has proved a little too volatile — and Oedipally inclined — to wind up with Waystar thus far.Claudette Barius/HBOKendallOdds of succeeding: Not the family favoriteOnce Logan’s likeliest successor, Kendall, a recovering drug addict, has proved to be too much of a Ken doll: too easily played with, manipulated and broken. He is a lost soul, still tormented by the accidental killing of a waiter at his sister’s wedding. (Word of that could still surface.)The only thing that seems to give Kendall a purpose — or pleasure — is making moves on Logan. He has made three tries so far, with the bear hug (Season 1 finale), the news conference (Season 2 finale) and the failed coup (Season 3 finale). Will a fourth do the trick? It takes a killer instinct — and success — to earn Logan’s respect.RomanOdds of succeeding: The best value on the boardRoman is the neediest of the Roy children, and his insecurity has led him to make some stupid moves. Lately, though, he has gotten smarter — or at least feels he has. (“I think I might be the best businessman in America,” he tells himself.) When he is actually working (and not engaging in self-destructive psychosexual dalliances), he has proved himself to be capable, although still morally weak. (Supporting Mencken might be good for ATN, but is it good for the country?)Roman’s strong ties to both Mencken and Matsson also put him in the best position to return to Waystar’s inner sanctum — he now has something his father needs, if he’s willing to put the sibling alliance aside. But he is still vulnerable, thanks to those inappropriate photos he meant to send to Gerri (J. Smith-Cameron). Don’t send nudes to your dad, especially if your dad is Logan Roy. It’s just ammunition.Shiv (Sarah Snook) may in many ways be the best suited to take over, but she also seems a little too willing to sell out her own principles.Claudette Barius/HBOSiobhanOdds of succeeding: Coin flipLogan once offered his daughter, Shiv, the top job, but he had second thoughts: “You’re a young woman with no experience.” She might not have run a global media company before, but she has proved herself capable — brokering deals and fending off a hostile takeover. The real problem was that Logan wanted a female face to represent the company only while it was facing allegations of sexual abuse. He doesn’t really recognize Shiv’s acumen. And doing his bidding, and suppressing her own liberal values, hasn’t earn her points, or respect. It only contributed to her getting stabbed in the back. If Shiv wants to prevail, she will have to start doing some shivving of her own.TomOdds of succeeding: A close front-runnerFaced with a difficult choice between his wife Shiv and his father-in-law, Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) chose Logan. It’s a decision that will likely destroy his marriage. Worse yet, a divorce could also affect his future standing with Logan. Right now, though, Tom is the head of the broadcast news division, he is Logan’s son-in-law, and he has put Logan in his debt by saving the merger deal (and by offering to serve prison time for the cruise line scandal).But Logan has a short memory for the favors he owes, and he doesn’t respect obsequious yes-men. So Tom will have to continue to prove himself.Cousin GregOdds of succeeding: LongTom’s accomplice and protégé, Cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun), is a bit of a dark horse, but he has come a long way from the days when he had to beg the doorman to cover his cab fare. Greg isn’t immediate family, but he somehow manages to be at all the important family events and becomes privy to much dangerous information. While he once seemed the most morally grounded member of this bunch, he was willing to sell his soul to Tom. What might he do if Logan asks?Granted, Logan would probably have to remember Greg’s name and existence before that happened, and even then, he would be more likely to grant control of a theme park than of Waystar. It’s still possible that Greg’s aged grandfather, Logan’s brother (James Cromwell), might change his mind again and bequeath his estate to Greg, which would give Greg a controlling stake in Waystar.Gerri (J. Smith-Cameron) has already been acting as chief executive. Her odds of taking over seem decent.Macall B. Polay/HBOLogan’s Lackeys: Gerri, Frank, Karl and HugoOdds of succeeding: Gerri alert!Logan doesn’t trust most of his C-suite colleagues — namely, Frank (Peter Friedman), Karl (David Rasche) and Hugo (Fisher Stevens) — enough to give them the keys to the kingdom. Gerri is the exception: He does recognize her business skills and wisdom. Gerri is cool and unflappable, and if she plays it smart, her current interim position as chief executive could become permanent, depending on how Matsson rates her. And whether she takes action against Roman for sexual harassment.The WivesOdds of succeeding: The juice is worth a squeeze.Each of Logan’s wives is a bit of a mystery. What do we know about the first one, other than that she was Connor’s mother? Does she have a stake in the company? Logan’s second wife, Caroline (Harriet Walter), did, but she gave up her claim — and her children’s supermajority of votes — in exchange for a London flat.And his estranged third wife (soon to be ex?), Marcia (Hiam Abbas), seemed to have a stake in the company — or at least Logan wanted her to — along with an extra vote on the board when he dies. It’s unclear exactly how that was resolved, but she did get a larger financial stake when he cheated on her. There’s also the matter of her son Amir (Darius Homayoun), who can implicate Kendall in the waiter’s drowning. So Marcia, as Logan would put it, has some juice.KerryOdds of succeeding: All bets are off.Logan’s friend, assistant, and adviser — and probably new lover — has managed to get very close to the tycoon in record time. And we know what sometimes happens with Logan’s mistresses — they are offered top positions. Remember Rhea Jarrell (Holly Hunter)? Kerry (Zoë Winters) may have growing ambitions, so she is one to watch, and not just for a baby bump. If she continues to smirk at and mock various members of the Roy family, it could be because she knows something we don’t. More

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      Matthew Macfadyen Has Mixed Feelings About the End of ‘Succession’

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      Could there be a more excruciatingly awkward TV character than Tom Wambsgans in “Succession”? Played with understated comic glee by the British actor Matthew Macfadyen, Tom manages to simultaneously exist on all points of the show’s power spectrum: bullied, bullying and wafting helplessly in between.Over most of three seasons, Tom has stayed one and a half steps behind the machinations at Waystar Royco, the company run by his imperious father-in-law, Logan Roy (Brian Cox), while being treated with casual contempt by his wife, Shiv (Sarah Snook).So it came as a shock when Tom pulled himself together at the end of Season 3 to orchestrate a stunning power play, teaming with Logan against Shiv and two of her brothers in an epic battle over Waystar’s future.Not that this guarantees Tom will end up on top in the fourth and final season of “Succession,” which begins Sunday on HBO. (Whatever “on top” really means when the pole is as greasy and compromised as this one.)“Tom may be in Logan’s camp, but it’s not an easy camp to be in,” Macfadyen said on a February afternoon, sipping a bitters and soda in Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle Hotel. “He still doesn’t feel particularly secure, and he’s still worrying about his relationship with Shiv. And everyone else is still maneuvering and jockeying and competing.”If Macfadyen is operatically ill at ease in “Succession,” in reality he is the opposite: relaxed, easygoing and affable, his voice deep and self-assured, with none of his character’s nervous tics or frantic efforts to read his fate in others’ eyes. While Tom is beset by inner demons and crippling insecurity, Macfadyen comes across as remarkably well adjusted, someone happy to do his job and not get too wound up about it. He uses the word “lovely” a lot.Long a familiar face to British viewers, Macfadyen had been mostly under the radar on this side of the Atlantic before “Succession.” If Americans knew him at all, it was likely in his guise as a different Tom — Tom Quinn, an arrogant yet vulnerable spy in the first two seasons of the British series “Spooks” (known in the U.S. as “MI-5”), starting in 2002. Or they might have seen him playing a brooding, tortured Mr. Darcy in Joe Wright’s “Pride and Prejudice” (2005), or a Victorian detective in the BBC series “Ripper Street.”Macfadyen and Nicholas Braun, who plays Cousin Greg, in the new season of “Succession.” The actors have teamed in some of the show’s funniest scenes.Macall B. Polay/HBOIn “Stonehouse,” from earlier this year, Macfadyen teamed with his wife, the British actor Keeley Hawes. “It was fun to get a chance to see Keeley at work,” he said. BritBoxIt was a different role that won over Jesse Armstrong, the “Succession” creator: Macfadyen’s turn as the drunkenly bumptious Sir Felix Carbury in “The Way We Live Now” (2001), a British mini-series based on the Trollope novel.“He’s well known in the U.K. as being able to play all sorts of parts, though most people wouldn’t necessarily know him as a comic actor,” Armstrong said.While Tom began “Succession” largely on the fringes, “I knew this role would be significant and important,” Armstrong said. As the series went on, the writers played to Macfadyen’s antic comic skills and ability to show Tom’s poignant vulnerability in quieter moments.“In a show that’s about power and its manifestations, Matthew is very good at playing a character who is the crux of a number of different power relationships,” Armstrong said. “He’s good at showing Tom’s willingness to shape and adjust his personality to fit into the power structure.” (As Macfadyen explained recently on “The Tonight Show,” one way he does this is by raising and lowering the pitch of Tom’s voice depending on who else is in the scene.)Macfadyen, 48, was born in England but raised abroad, including for several years in Jakarta, Indonesia, because of his father’s job in the oil business. He went to boarding school back home, skipped college and enrolled instead at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. After graduation, he toured internationally in the Cheek by Jowl theater ensemble, performing in plays like “The Duchess of Malfi” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”He had a breakthrough when he was cast as Hareton Earnshaw in the 1998 British TV adaptation of “Wuthering Heights,” followed quickly by a two-part BBC film, “Warriors,” in which he played a U.N. peacekeeper in Bosnia. He has worked steadily since. “You just get a momentum,” he said.Macfadyen has a tendency, common to English actors, to downplay his own work, as if it all flows effortlessly from him. He also has a predilection for supporting roles.“I feel sometimes you can get in a rut when you play leading men,” he said. “It’s much more fun being the baddie or the clown.”Tom has stood out from the start of “Succession,” but Macfadyen has never felt compelled to demand more airtime. “I don’t feel like it’s my character,” he said. “It’s Jesse’s, and I’m the conduit for it.”Mark Sommerfeld for The New York Times“Succession” is full of big names and memorable characters, including the three Roy boys: Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Roman (Kieran Culkin) and Connor (Alan Ruck), each appalling and damaged in his own special way. But Tom Wambsgans — mercurial yet sensitive, diabolical yet almost constantly hapless — stood out from the beginning.There is the matter of his strange last name, its awkward B bristling aggressively in a string of consonants, defying casual pronunciation. There is his status as a Roy punching bag, a man whose wife announced on their wedding night that she wanted an open marriage and whose father-in-law dangles power before him but uses him as a scapegoat and bagman. There is his loopy relationship with Cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun), a sadomasochistic romp that Armstrong describes as a “homoerotic power play.”While Tom is no dummy, his awkwardness is so easy to mistake for stupidity that sometimes even Macfadyen does it. “Jesse will remind Nick and me, ‘He’s running a billion-dollar wing of this company; he’s not a total moron,’” he said.Over four seasons of filming in New York City, the “Succession” cast became particularly close, and it was not unusual to see them dining around town in various configurations in what Macfadyen called “the ‘Succession’ supper club.” He often had dinner with Snook, his fictional wife, and other cast members.“I don’t know how he’s managed to make such an obsequious and bullying character likable, but he has,” Snook said. “He’s one of those actors who’s got such love and empathy and compassion and curiosity for the world that he can really fashion a character into anything he wants.”Macfadyen seems to be that rare thing: an actor without a huge ego. (Or perhaps he is such a good actor that he can hide his egotism.) Among other things, he said, he has never felt compelled to demand more airtime or a better story arc for Tom.“I’ve seen actors get very proprietorial about their ‘journey,’” he said. “But I don’t feel like it’s my character — it’s Jesse’s, and I’m the conduit for it.”Also, he added, “You don’t want to get attached to a possible story line, because they may change their minds.”Braun said that Macfadyen has a genuine selflessness, a helpful quality in a series in which numerous actors are often in a single scene. He also praised Macfadyen’s uncanny ability to stay in the moment while performing, and to do so with an un-showy absence of vanity.“He doesn’t expend a lot of extra energy before a scene,” Braun said. “He’s not, like, ruminating or taking a lot of private time or ‘staying in the energy’ of Tom.”(In this way, Macfadyen would seem to be the opposite of his co-star Strong, whose intensity and extreme immersion into his characters have been extensively chronicled in The New Yorker and elsewhere. Macfadyen was loath to discuss this topic. “I think enough has been said about that,” he said.)Though “Succession” is carefully scripted, the actors are encouraged to improvise and play around with alternative dialogue. Braun and Macfadyen, who have shared some of the show’s funniest scenes, were famous on set for cracking each other up. “The guy is abusive in a way that isn’t super on the nose,” Braun said, of Tom.“They evidently just find each other amusing,” Armstrong said dryly.Macfadyen is married to the British actor Keeley Hawes, whom he met when both played spies in “MI-5.” They had a highly public affair — she had a husband and a baby at the time — but married in 2004, after her divorce, and had two more children together. Macfadyen said that everyone has become great friends and co-parents. “It was a bit bumpy at the time, but it’s fine now,” he said.“It was a really lovely bunch of actors,” Macfadyen said about his “Succession” colleagues. “It’s a weird thing, the grief when you finish a job.”Mark Sommerfeld for The New York TimesMacfadyen missed his family when he was off shooting “Succession,” and often flew home to England when he had a break in filming. But he sounded wistful about the end of the show.“It was a really lovely bunch of actors,” he said. “It’s a weird thing, the grief when you finish a job. It’s sort of awful and heartbreaking but at the same time, there’s a slight relief — a complicated mélange of feelings.”Macfadyen has worked steadily on other things between seasons. In the British series “Stonehouse,” which debuted in January, he starred as the real-life 1970s Conservative politician John Stonehouse. It was a juicy role: Stonehouse spied (badly) for Czechoslovakia, got involved in dodgy business schemes, cheated on his wife, faked his own death and turned up under a false name in Australia.Mrs. Stonehouse was played by Hawes, whose character soon gleans that her husband is not all that he seems. “It was fun to get a chance to see Keeley at work,” Macfadyen said, “especially her withering looks.”Macfadyen’s next project, with Nicole Kidman, is “Holland, Michigan,” an Amazon thriller about the secrets that lurk in a small town. He seems deeply unfussed about what comes next. Unlike Tom Wambsgans, Macfadyen is very much content with his place in the world.“The whole art of being an actor is to imagine what it’s like to be someone else with sympathy and empathy, to not make it about you,” he said. “The job is great. I like the old-fashioned thing of putting on a costume and sounding different and doing things you would never dream of doing in real life.” More

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      Alexander Skarsgard’s Viking Dream

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      LONDON — In Alexander Skarsgard’s telling, the idea for what eventually became his latest film, “The Northman,” has its roots on a long, slender island off the coast of Sweden called Oland, where his great-great grandfather built a wooden house a hundred years ago.“Some of my earliest memories are from walking around with my grandfather on Oland and him showing me these massive rune stones and the inscriptions,” he explained on a recent rainy Monday over lunch at a hotel tucked away in central London. “Telling tales of Vikings that sailed down the rivers, down to Constantinople.“So, in a way,” he continued, “you could say that the dream of one day making or being part of a Viking movie was born in that moment.”Wearing a gray crew-neck sweater and dark jeans, he was centuries away from the bloody, muddy berserker he plays in “The Northman,” the much-anticipated action-adventure that marks the director Robert Eggers’s leap into big-budget filmmaking.Six-four, blond and indisputably handsome, Skarsgard would seem a no-brainer to launch a Viking film, but getting this film made took awhile. Skarsgard said he spent years working with the Danish film producer Lars Knudsen trying to determine what shape the project would take. Then, in 2017, he met with Eggers, who had fallen in love with Iceland during a visit two years earlier, to talk about another project.Skarsgard and Eggers both describe that meeting as “fated,” and it eventually led Eggers, along with the Icelandic poet and author Sjon, to write “The Northman.” Eggers, who said he had $70 million to make the film, took some inspiration from the 1982 “Conan the Barbarian,” which he watched as a kid.The actor in full Viking mode in “The Northman.”Aidan Monaghan/Focus FeaturesSkarsgard’s character is a Viking prince, Amleth, bent on vengeance after his father is murdered. Skarsgard is a producer of the new film, which opens on April 22 and also features Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicole Kidman and Björk, among others.“It was a real treat as an actor to be part of the project from the genesis,” Skarsgard said. “To be part of that journey and to be able to continuously have these conversations with the screenwriters as they are shaping the story, talk about the arc of Amleth, the story, the essence of it — that was very inspiring to me.”The star, 45 and unfailingly polite, has played a Viking before. In fact, he’s played a Northman before: Eric Northman, the proudly undead, ultrasexy Viking vampire on the HBO series “True Blood.” But the title character of “The Northman” is a Viking after Skarsgard’s own heart — one faithful to the medieval lore of the Icelandic sagas, one who doesn’t question fate or faith. And one who, by design, doesn’t have a lot to say.The sagas on which the film is based are “very laconic,” he said. And the characters “don’t really speak unless absolutely necessary.”Skarsgard himself is open, with an easy smile. He’s aware of the world around him, including being up-to-date on the latest news from Ukraine and knowing that asparagus season is upon us. He gave questions his full attention, pausing to gather his thoughts before answering — and not once glancing at a cellphone.Though he grew up hearing Viking stories, Skarsgard read books and watched lectures on them to prepare for his role. He said the most interesting thing he learned was that Vikings believed each person had a female spirit guiding them.“I thought that was quite fascinating, the juxtaposition between that and the brutality you see when you first meet Amleth,” Skarsgard said. He added, “That he would have believed that there’s a female spirit inside of him that guides him, I really liked that idea.”Though he grew up hearing Viking stories, Skarsgard read books and watched lectures on them to prepare for his role.Robbie Lawrence for The New York TimesHis preparation complete, it looked as if everything was coming together on the film. Just as shooting was set to begin, the pandemic hit.“For about 48 hours we were still moving forward, but everyone was like, ‘Is this happening? Are we doing this? What’s going on?’ And then finally, they pulled the plug and said we have to break and that we’re going home.”Though Skarsgard considers New York his base, going home meant heading to his hometown, Stockholm.He holed up with his large family at his mother’s country house. He’s the oldest son of the actor Stellan Skarsgard and his first wife, My, and one of eight siblings. Three of his brothers are also actors, including Bill Skarsgard, who played Pennywise, the creeper clown in the “It” movies; another brother is a doctor who kept them apprised of developments in the Covid crisis. Skarsgard said that despite the frightening circumstances, he enjoyed getting to spend time with his family.“We cooked dinners and hung out, worked in the garden,” he said, adding that gathering the whole family can be difficult because work gets in the way. “I really enjoyed it. Then I felt almost guilty because it was a pandemic and people were dying.”Family and Sweden, where Skarsgard grew up and spent some time in the military, are important themes in his life.“We’re all a very tight group,” he said. “Everyone lives within two blocks of each other in South Stockholm and we see each other all the time when I’m home.” (He is not married but answered with a resounding “no” when asked if he was single.)He started out as a child actor but took a break beginning in his early teens before fully embracing an acting career in his 20s. He has said in the past that he didn’t like the attention acting brought him when he was young.His path to “The Northman” runs through dozens of roles in film and TV, some seemingly different sides of the same coin. He’s played an Israeli spy (“The Little Drummer Girl”) and a German man coming to terms with life after World War II (“The Aftermath”). A young Marine who helps the United States invade Iraq (“Generation Kill”) and a sadistic Army sergeant who leads young recruits astray in Afghanistan (“The Kill Team”). An abusive husband (“Big Little Lies”) and an achingly sweet stepdad who steps in to care for his neglected stepdaughter (“What Maisie Knew”).Skarsgard won several awards, including an Emmy, for his turn as an abusive husband opposite Nicole Kidman in “Big Little Lies.”HBOHe also snagged a small but pivotal role in HBO’s prestigious dramedy “Succession,” playing Lukas Matsson, a Swedish tech billionaire.Mark Mylod, an executive producer on the show who directed Skarsgard in two of the three episodes in which he appears, said the actor “was really the only choice for the character because of the intelligence of his work.”The makers of “Succession” had envisioned a character with “that kind of Elon Musk” charisma but not necessarily based on the Tesla chief executive. The Matsson character had to have the gravitas to be a genuine rival to the family behind Waystar Royco, the fictional company at the heart of “Succession,” Mylod said.“He found a way to make that character so fantastic and watchable and totally credible,” Mylod said. “With a small number of scenes, he made such an impact.” (Mylod wouldn’t say if Matsson is returning in Season 4.)Rebecca Hall, an actor who had worked with Skarsgard on “Godzilla vs. Kong,” said she had struggled to get financing for her own passion project, “Passing,” her adaptation last year of the 1929 Nella Larsen novel about the friendship between two Black women in New York, one of whom is passing as white.While working on “Kong,” Hall got up the courage to ask Skarsgard to read her script. He did and agreed to play the part of a racist husband. “I got the sense that he cares about good art being in the world and will do what he can to support that,” Hall said in an interview, adding that the character was the kind he had played well. “He’s no stranger to complicated characters who do bad things.”For Skarsgard, “there is zero strategy or plan” to his career. “The sweet spot is when I’m intrigued by the character, and I understand aspects of him and he makes me curious to learn more,” he said. “That’s superfun because then that means that I’ll probably enjoy diving in and exploring that a bit deeper.”On “The Northman,” diving in meant bulking up. He is also reunited in the film with Kidman, who played his wife in “Big Little Lies,” for which he won an Emmy, a SAG Award and a Golden Globe. This time she’s his mother.The two actors traveled with the rest of the cast to Northern Ireland, Ireland and Iceland for the grueling “Northman” shoot. Skarsgard described it as “seven months in the mud.”Eggers, an exacting and meticulous director, said that he was “not a sadist to be a sadist,” but that he was dead serious about detail and accuracy, which will come as no surprise to viewers of his earlier films, like “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse.”Skarsgard has spoken in interviews about being shackled and dragged through the muck. But Eggers said that, like him, Skarsgard wanted the best result. “When we embarked on this together, he was after nothing but perfection.”Eggers added, “Alex has sort of talked about me driving him to the edge, but there were many times that I can remember him asking for another take because he’s just as much of a perfectionist as I am.”The director acknowledged that the working conditions were difficult. “I am not trying to make things hard for us,” he explained, “but when you’re telling the story of the Viking Age in Northern Europe, you’re going to seek punishing locations, with extreme weather and terrain. And that’s just what it needs to be to tell this story.”When shooting was delayed, Skarsgard returned to Stockholm, where he enjoyed time spent with his family. “I felt almost guilty because it was a pandemic and people were dying.”Robbie Lawrence for The New York TimesWorking with such a large budget and cast were perks, Eggers said, but also meant a great deal of pressure. “If this movie doesn’t perform, that will be a problem,” he said.After all of the work, Skarsgard said, “I just want people to see the movie, that’s it,” adding, preferably on the big screen.As is pretty standard fare for a Skarsgard project, he’s naked in parts of “The Northman,” including during a fight scene in a volcano.Does he ever just say no to taking off his clothes? He said he had recently done just that at a photo shoot after being asked to take his shirt off, saying, “I think there’s enough nudity in the movie.”Skarsgard, who had spent the morning doing press by Zoom and had traveled around Europe promoting in the days before we talked, had by the end of the interview kind of slid down the banquette, resting his head against the cushion. He said he realized his films tend to be heavy. “I might have to do a comedy soon,” he said, adding that he would like to work with the satirist Armando Iannucci or the British comic actor Steve Coogan.“The Northman,” he said, “was so intense. It was the greatest experience of my career but, God, it was intense.” More

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      Actress Dagmara Dominczyk Burns Bright in ‘Succession’ and 'The Lost Daughter'

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      The Polish actress also stars in “The Lost Daughter,” directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal.Evening Leather? Too leathery. Bahama Mama? Too beachy. Peaches and Cream? Out of season. Sweet Kitty? No.On the Sunday before Christmas, in a windowless basement under a braiding salon in Downtown Brooklyn, the actress and novelist Dagmara Dominczyk searched for the perfect aroma. A candle devotee since her undergraduate days at Carnegie Mellon University (“I burn them morning to night,” she said), she had arrived for a “Sip & Smell Experience”: a free two-hour workshop hosted by Kately’s Candles that she had found on Eventbrite.Upon arriving, Kevin Pierre-Louis, the organizer, seated her on a greige vinyl sofa and presented her with a caddy of about 50 small bottles with hand-printed labels. His assistant handed her a glass of sparkling rosé, which she sipped with care.“I’m a spiller,” she said. “I spill. I stain.”“You’re too pretty,” Mr. Pierre-Louis said. “I don’t see you spilling.”“I’m pretty because I did my makeup,” Ms. Dominczyk, 45, replied.He brought her more bottles and she sniffed them, rejecting most. “Not Mistletoe,” she said. “I used to like candles that smelled like a Christmas tree, now it’s too much.” She reached for another bottle and read the label out loud. “Creamy Nutmeg — that’s what they used to call me in high school,” she said jokingly.Ms. Domińczyk sniffs scents for her candle.OK McCausland for The New York TimesEarthy and elegant, Ms. Dominczyk, the eldest of three daughters, immigrated to the United States from Poland when she was 6. (Her father, active in the trade unions movement, had become a persona non grata.) Encouraged by a friend, she auditioned for the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, where she blossomed as an actress. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon, she booked the female lead in a lush 2002 film adaptation of “The Count of Monte Cristo.”Her career seemed assured.Instead, she spent the next few years staying out, sleeping in, eating Polish food and working only sporadically — a movie here, a television episode there. She dated the actor Patrick Wilson (they briefly overlapped at college), married him the next year, had their first son the year after, and a second son three years later. They live in Montclair, N.J.Work remained occasional. Her body had new curves. When her husband appeared in a 2013 episode of “Girls” as Lena Dunham’s sex interest, some online trolls suggested that a conventionally attractive man like Mr. Wilson would never have a tryst with someone like Ms. Dunham. Ms. Dominczyk snapped back on Twitter, saying: “Funny, his wife is a size 10, muffin top & all, & he does her just fine.”Casting directors — some of whom asked her if she could lose 20 pounds — didn’t know quite what to do with her silky surface, steelier interior and obvious intelligence.That changed in 2018, when she was cast as Karolina Novotney, the unflappable public relations executive on the HBO drama “Succession.” She was quickly upgraded from a recurring role to a series regular.She has asked the producers if Karolina could act out in ways that the Roy siblings do, but they have so far declined. “I want to play,” Ms. Dominczyk said. “I want to have sex with one of the brothers. Or Shiv? I don’t know. But the role is such that Karolina stays in her lane. She’s there to do the job.”Ms. Dominczyk, seen here with Jeremy Strong, plays an unflappable public relations executive in “Succession.”Craig Blankenhorn/HBOShe also stars in “The Lost Daughter,” a film directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal.NetflixMs. Dominczyk can also be seen as a waspish mother-to-be in the much-lauded Netflix film “The Lost Daughter,” directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal. And she has recently wrapped the lead role in the HBO limited series “We Own This City,” in which she plays an F.B.I. agent investigating police corruption. “The more settled I became and the less apologetic for it, the less thinking I had to look a certain way or act a certain way, that was exciting for people,” she said.If she prefers complicated characters, her taste in fragrance skews simpler. “I’m much more of a sweet, cozy, pumpkin pie, fall candle person,” she said.A bottle labeled Dulce de Leche made the cut. And Pumpkin Patch and Pumpkin Rum Cake. Also Smoked Chestnut. (“Chestnut is a very Polish thing,” she said.) And Holiday Basket, though she joked that Mr. Pierre-Louis should have named it Holiday Basket Case. She sniffed the mixture with approval.“I want to down this like a shot,” she said.She brought her choices to the back of the room, where Mr. Pierre-Louis was melting coconut wax and castor oil in a cauldron set over a camping stove. He turned a spigot and the wax pooled into a pineapple shaped mold. Ms. Dominczyk measured out a spoonful of each chosen scent, then added burnt orange coloring and a smattering of dried flower petals.“I don’t cook,” she said. “This is the closest I’ve gotten to cooking all holiday season.”Ms. Dominczyk decorated her candle with flower petals and orange dye.  OK McCausland for The New York TimesMr. Pierre-Louis told her to name her scent and after a moment she settled on Smoked Dag. “That’s also the name of a sausage in Poland,” she said. “Just kidding.”While the wax set, she went back up the creaky wooden stairs and out onto a commercial stretch of Livingston Street to stretch her legs and vape a mint-flavored Juul. Was she ready for the holidays?She reached for her phone and pulled up a picture of her decorations — an orgy of lights, trees and tinsel. “It’s like Christmas vomited all over,” she said happily. That night she would meet friends and family for dinner, then she would help with a Feast of the Seven Fishes and a Christmas dinner that mixed Polish and American traditions.“Last year, we were like, Patrick has been in the family for 15 years — if he wants a Christmas ham, let’s give it to him,” she said, using an expletive.Back in the basement, the wax mostly set, Mr. Pierre-Louis presented her with a pair of scissors so that she could snip the wick. “Like an umbilical cord,” she said.Ms. Dominczyk sniffed, delighted. “Oh my God, it smells so good,” she said. “Bottle it. I don’t even need any commission.” More

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      How ‘Succession’ Turns Getting What You Want Into Hell

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      The characters in HBO’s prestige hit let us set aside judgment and just marvel at how ardently, how comically, people will chase after the worst thing for them.Two years ago, as HBO’s “Succession” finished its second season, we saw Logan Roy, the head of a right-wing media empire, looking for someone in his inner circle to serve as the scapegoat for a corporate scandal. One candidate was his hapless son-in-law, Tom Wambsgans. But Shiv, Logan’s daughter, asked him to spare her husband, and Logan’s sights turned instead to his second-born son, Kendall. For once, though, Kendall would not do the old man’s bidding: He showed up at a news conference and, instead of taking the heat, blamed his father.The pandemic kept “Succession” from continuing the story until this fall; its third season, nine episodes in all, ended Dec. 12. But it featured, midway through that run, a remarkable moment that captured the series’ great trick: Whenever these One Percenters succeed, the outcome is worse than if they had failed.Because with Kendall gone rogue, it is indeed Tom who volunteers for sacrifice and resigns himself to facing criminal charges. He assumes he has few days left as a free man, so he spends them reading prison blogs and trying to get used to cheap food. It’s only in the seventh episode that he learns the federal investigation he was afraid of will most likely end in a financial penalty. Suddenly spared years behind bars, he heads to the office of his wary sidekick Greg and destroys it in celebration: Screaming, he flips over a desk and leaps atop some filing cabinets, pounding his chest. But his ecstasy is short-lived. An episode later, Shiv — under the guise of role play — tells him she doesn’t really love him, though she would consider having the child he wanted. Having avoided prison, Tom gets to remain in a loveless union, trapped in a cage of wealth he lacks the audacity to leave. He wins, and he may well be worse off for it.Tom’s fate seems to have taken a very different turn in the season’s finale. But those earlier scenes reminded me, more than anything, of “Peep Show,” the sitcom that Jesse Armstrong, the creator of “Succession,” made in Britain between 2003 and 2015. The series, which used point-of-view shots and voice-overs to reveal its protagonists’ inner thoughts, centered on two characters: Mark, a cynical and awkward loan manager, and Jez, his perpetually out-of-work roommate. Its humor derived from many things — Mark’s repressed fury and anxious conservatism, Jez’s sexual carelessness and delusions of cool — but the writer Jim Gavin, creator of the AMC show “Lodge 49,” reported in 2016 that he had discovered the “central narrative conceit” beneath all of it. “Mark and Jez,” he wrote, “ALWAYS get what they want” — and it inevitably turns out to be terrible. “Getting what you want is a form of hell,” he wrote, “and ‘Peep Show’ is nothing if not a complete and terrifying vision of hell.”“Succession,” a prestige hit, attracts far more attention in America than “Peep Show.” Perhaps that’s why, amid obsessive discussion of each episode’s winners and losers, it’s not often noted how much this tradition continues among the Roys. Look at both shows together, and you sense a creeping, overarching worldview. Each sets its characters in looping environments where it’s rare for them to face lasting consequences. Instead, they are constantly humiliated by their own desires — and then, even more so, by the fulfillment of those desires.Throughout the early seasons of “Peep Show,” for instance, we watch Mark pine after a co-worker named Sophie, played by Olivia Colman. But when he finally succeeds in his romantic pursuit of her, it becomes clear that they have little in common — a fact that Mark, clinging to what he suspects is his sole chance to be a normal man, strains to ignore. The two become engaged based on a miscommunication, and Mark spends an entire season trudging toward a wedding he dreads, fearing it will be too embarrassing to back out. But there, again, he gets what he wants, in the worst way: After a catastrophic ceremony, Sophie flees, seeks an annulment and convinces all their co-workers that Mark is a monster.“Peep Show” was unquestionably a comedy, an unglamorous half-hour of laughs. “Succession” is an hour long, with remarkable acting and an HBO budget. As a result, critical discussion around it has often focused on form: Is this a comedy? A drama? A “sitcom trapped in the body of a drama” (as Slate had it)? “Seinfeldian in its cyclical efforts” (The New Yorker)? Has its repetitive nature made it boring? The Nation said the show has a “repetition compulsion”; The Atlantic explained its stasis by asserting that “late capitalism will always insulate the extraordinarily privileged from real consequences.”It’s true that the patterns of a sitcom, in which hardly anything ever truly changes, run the risk of disappointing prestige-TV viewers who tune in anticipating real stakes or didactic punishment for the superrich. But the circularity of such comedy is, typically, cozy. Sitcoms assure us that their worlds will remain stable, that the characters will arrive each week to behave in exactly the manner we’ve become so fond of. This was true of “Peep Show,” but in the most unsettling way possible. Mark and Jez were self-aware enough to realize how hopelessly stuck with each other they were; they knew full well that whenever either of them achieved what he wanted, the other would promptly help ruin it. As Gavin noted, “Virgil makes clear to Dante that all the souls in Hell remain there by choice,” unable to let go of the very thing that damned them in the first place. Mark and Jez will repeat their mistakes forever.It’s as if he literally can’t perish, as if hell cannot exist without the devil.What makes “Succession” a variety of sitcom is the way it, too, relishes this vision of the afterlife. The Roy children’s battle for status mostly immiserates them, yet they can’t abandon it. Each time they help save the family empire, their father lambastes or humiliates them for their trouble. Even Logan’s death scares repeat: It’s as if he literally can’t perish, as if hell cannot exist without the devil. As the show’s third season ended, we saw his children scramble once again to maintain family control of the company — to remain in the very cycle they’ve all toyed with escaping. They failed. But can there be much doubt that the situation will reset, as it has in the past, just as surely as a sitcom character’s new adventure will resolve itself in 30 minutes, leaving things right where they began? In Armstrong’s hands, character flaws are not simply quirks to be blithely repeated for our amusement. They are anchors that are constantly degrading the characters’ own lives. “Peep Show” let that degradation sit, awkwardly and hilariously, on the screen. “Succession” finds the tragedy at the heart of the sitcom form, the structure whose characters can never break free of it.The Roys’ corporation feels like their show’s Sophie. I’ve never had any trouble imagining what would happen if Kendall or his siblings wrested control of it from their father, or what they would do to address its many failings: They’d have absolutely no idea. Like Mark on “Peep Show,” they’d struggle to admit their victory was hollow from the start. This is the joy of Armstrong’s shows: They let us set aside judgment and just marvel at how ardently, how comically, people will chase after the worst thing for them. People, each season suggests, do not change that much. What we share with the Roys and two inept London flatmates might be, simply, that we only think we want them to, and would probably hate it if they ever did.Above: Screen grabs from HBO and YouTube.Alex Norcia is a writer in Los Angeles. He last wrote for the magazine about John Krasinski’s YouTube show “Some Good News.” More

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      ‘Succession’ Season 3, Episode 8: Italian Ice

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      Kendall didn’t come out of the last family wedding so well. His mother’s Tuscan nuptials don’t look any more promising.Season 3, Episode 8: ‘Chiantishire’At the end of this week’s episode of “Succession,” Kendall Roy is floating on an inflatable raft in a swimming pool, face down and clearly intoxicated. From underwater, in a shot aimed toward the pool’s surface, we see Kendall drop his bottle of beer into the water. From the camera’s perspective, it appears his face is also submerged. He looks … dead?Whether this is a literal or figurative death remains unresolved when the closing credits roll. (Surely the show wouldn’t kill off a major character in such an ambiguous way?) We do know, though, who is responsible — in a roundabout way — for putting Kendall into that pool. It’s the same people who brought him into this world: his mother, Caroline (Harriet Walter), and his father, Logan.This week, Kendall joined his family in scenic Italy for the wedding of Caroline and her old flame Peter Munion (Pip Torrens). He appears to be on a mission to straighten out his life after last week’s calamitous birthday party. His hair is buzzed down to stubble — “stripping down,” he says — and he seems determined to make peace with his siblings and to settle his Waystar business.But as soon as Kendall arrives, his mother pulls him aside and tells him about Peter’s awful “itinerary of events,” asking if her son can help divvy them up in such a way that he won’t be in the same space as Logan — per Logan’s request. That is the first blow to Kendall’s confidence.The second comes when Kendall is talking with Comfry about some last-ditch opportunities to keep his crusade against corporate malfeasance alive in the media. A popular podcast is investigating “the Curse of the Roys” and would love to have him participate. The problem? The hosts are going to dig deep into all the family scandals … including the death of the cater-waiter whom the media thinks Logan bullied to death but whom Kendall actually drove into a lake at Shiv’s wedding.The third strike to Kendall’s psyche — the finisher — comes when he has dinner with Logan. Kendall has given this meeting a lot of thought. He consulted with Logan’s doctor to make sure the menu fit with his dad’s restricted diet. (“Afraid I’m going to Jim Jones you with an olive?” Kendall jokes.) And he prepared a reasonable proposal. He will cash out of Waystar for two billion dollars while keeping one of the company’s media assets for himself. He also promises to stay out of Logan’s life forever. “I won’t even speak at your memorial,” he says.But Logan won’t play along. He calls in Kendall’s autistic son, Iverson, to taste his food, to make sure it isn’t poisoned. This is icy not only because it demonstrates a lack of trust but also because Logan seems blithely willing to sacrifice his grandson. (In a further dig, he then asks Kendall of Iverson, “Is he getting better?”) And although he seemed willing to buy his son out before, he hesitates now that he has a counteroffer in hand.This whole scene — intense and emotional — neatly encapsulates the whole Logan Roy mentality. He wants his family and his employees at his beck-and-call, but he doesn’t want to grant them any real boon. Whenever someone he is negotiating with seems satisfied, Logan gets restless.Like nearly every other one of his corrosive personality traits, this combination of greed, envy and paranoia has been passed on to his children — and to Shiv, in particular. While Logan is having a miserable dinner with Kendall, Shiv is stuck at a “girls night” with Caroline and some of her future in-laws. The conversation she has with her mother is just as revealing about “the Curse of the Roys.”Shiv has long kept Caroline on the list of childhood disappointments she had to overcome. But Caroline won’t let her get away with this revisionist history. In Shiv’s memory, her mother took a payout from Logan and then pushed her and her brothers to go live with their dad when she was 10 years old, all because Caroline didn’t want to play mommy any more. The real story? Shiv was 13; and she made an active decision to move in with Logan. (“I’ll have the carbonara and daddy,” is how her mother describes her daughter’s casual cruelty.)This revelation fires up Shiv, who heads back to her room and tells Tom that she is ready to fight for the top Waystar job — and to have a baby with him. But their night of passion goes poorly, as she slips into a curious bit of dominatrix-style role play, which sees her seducing Tom while purring, “You’re not good enough for me,” and, “I don’t love you.”The next day he wants to discuss this, wondering, “Should I maybe listen to things you say directly in my face when we’re at our most intimate?” But Shiv insists none of it should be taken seriously. (“What happens in Sex Vegas …?,” she offers weakly.) She also modifies their pregnancy plan, offering to freeze their embryos instead, and then wraps up the conversation with, “I may not love you, but I do love you.” Such is the way a Roy expresses affection.This deep fickleness is evident also in the way Logan handles the continuing negotiations with Lukas Mattson and GoJo. At the start of this episode Logan brings Stewy and Sandi into the office to inform them about the acquisition, pretending it’s a courtesy but really wanting to rub it in their faces a little. But he also insists that he will kill the deal if they don’t like it; and truth be told, he is a little nervous about the way Mattson seems to be driving up his share price with reckless, emoji-filled tweets. (“I’m not used to negotiating via eggplant,” Logan sighs.)So Roman is dispatched to the Mattson compound to find out whether the GoJo boss is mentally unstable or just making “a move.” The two men have an unsettling discussion about the thrill of failure; and Roman may have come away from this meeting with the impression that Mattson is a flake. But he hedges his bets with Logan regardless, telling his dad that their potential business partner really wants “a merger of equals” — something he figures will torpedo the deal.Instead, surprisingly, Logan is open to the idea of letting GoJo be the acquirer while Waystar runs the business — so long as he knows that Mattson is “a serious person” and not “a Twitter panty flasher.” (“I can win any bout with a boxer,” Logan says. “But I don’t know how to knock out a clown.”)What does give the old man pause, though, is that while Roman is celebrating what he thinks is another big win for himself, he accidentally texts a picture of his penis to his father, thinking that he is harassing Gerri. Now Logan has reason to question Roman, Gerri … really his whole command structure.Amusingly, when Roman tries to explain the whole concept of sending photographs of genitalia, Logan reassures him that he is aware of this phenomenon, saying, “We do publish a number of popular newspapers.” This echoes something he says to Kendall as they wrap up their bitter meal together with nothing settled. Kendall tries to deliver a closing statement on his time at Waystar, telling his dad, “You won because you’re corrupt and so is the world,” and, “You’ve turned black bile into silver dollars.” Logan smirks and says, “Just noticed, did you?”Logan counters Kendall’s self-righteousness first by standing up for his revolutionary vision for the news: “A bit of spice, a bit of fun, a bit of truth.” Then he stabs his son through the heart, referencing the dead waiter again by asking, “How long was that kid alive before he started sucking water?”And so, as day follows night, Kendall ends up sucking water himself, mired in self-loathing in a Tuscan paradise. Dead or not, at this moment, he certainly isn’t alive.Due DiligenceGreg’s budding romance with Comfry seems to be stalling as he watches her getting constantly distracted by “phone stuff.” He says to Tom and Shiv, “I do wonder, is there depth there?” Following their suggestion, he decides to use his time with Comfry as a “date ladder” to something better and flirting with an honest-to-goodness European countess who is also the online brand ambassador for a fermented yogurt drink. But he gets flustered while talking to her, and the best he can think to say is that her beverage of choice is “a gut-cleansing treat.”Everyone is very worried about the true intentions of Caroline’s beau, Peter — even the bride-to-be herself, who admits, “He is awful, I can obviously see that.” (Roman, pretending to be indignant: “That’s my stepfather you’re talking about.”)In the past, through Kendall’s many coups and calamities, Roman and Shiv have maintained a special bond, connected by their shared relief that they are not their brother. That rapport now seems to be in jeopardy, thanks to Roman’s open glee at Shiv’s exile from the inner circle. He tries this week to win her back by recruiting her to help him take down Peter, but instead she asks — sincerely and bitterly — what is wrong with Roman. He mutters: “We’re working on it. An ongoing process.”Leave it to Connor to ignore one of the cardinal rules of social etiquette as he drops to a knee in front of Willa: Never propose at a wedding. More