Succession has ended
May. 30th, 2023 12:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizbeeI'm a sucker for wanky prestige television, but I only started watching Succession because I was going to be on a plane for 14 hours and it looked like something I could fall asleep to. I queued it up, starting at episode 5 because the plane's media interface confused me, and was enthralled. Followed ep 5 with ep 2. Well, I thought it was a bit avant garde in its structure, but it was amazing. I was hooked. I watched five episodes before I fell asleep.
When we got home, we sat down to watch the rest of the season, and I quickly figured out that (a) I had started in the wrong place; (b) it is INTENSELY linear in its structure; (c) it's roughly on par with Chernobyl as one of the greatest TV series ever made. (RIP the Prestige TV Era. Now that it seems to be coming to an end, perhaps I should finally watch The Sopranos.)
But I'm not here to talk about why Succession is great, or why I'll miss it, or why I thought the ending was perfect. I'm here because PEOPLE ARE BEING WRONG ON THE INTERNET and Twitter doesn't have spoiler tags.
I keep seeing claims that Shiv has "lost everything" and is going to have to "be a housewife" as "punishment" for betraying Kendall.
And I'm sorry, but in case you haven't noticed, it is 2023. Shiv is now independently wealthy and is the only one of the kids to have a career separate from the family business. No, Connor's political career doesn't count. She's morally bankrupt and completely lacking in self-awareness. A housewife? Nah, she's gonna make big donations to female Democrats and fund woman-led start-ups until her reputation is sufficiently laundered that she can launch herself into the neoliberal girlboss grifter circuit.
It's not the best possible ending for her -- that would be the same ending Roman gets, free of family and in a position to start over (cushioned by a sweet, sweet mountain of cash) -- but it's far better than Kendall, who is definitely going to relapse, and will either OD or, more likely, go to rehab, get clean, marry a girl twenty years his junior who can't stand up to him, and start over with replacement kids.
(But his older kids might be the ones to break the cycle of abuse -- they have what none of Kendall's generation got: a mother who loves them and who can protect them.)
I cannot stop thinking about the fact that Kendall turned out nothing more than a hollow copy of his father, right down to the physical abuse. And every woman in his life (Rava, Jess, Shiv, even Naomi Pierce) saw through him eventually. Except his mother, who never bothered to look.
But Shiv is not becoming her mother. There are seeds there, of course, but the thing about Caroline is that has always been dependent on Logan. She sold out her kids for money. Shiv doesn't need to do that; she can fuck up her kids in brand new ways.
So good for her, probably.
When we got home, we sat down to watch the rest of the season, and I quickly figured out that (a) I had started in the wrong place; (b) it is INTENSELY linear in its structure; (c) it's roughly on par with Chernobyl as one of the greatest TV series ever made. (RIP the Prestige TV Era. Now that it seems to be coming to an end, perhaps I should finally watch The Sopranos.)
But I'm not here to talk about why Succession is great, or why I'll miss it, or why I thought the ending was perfect. I'm here because PEOPLE ARE BEING WRONG ON THE INTERNET and Twitter doesn't have spoiler tags.
I keep seeing claims that Shiv has "lost everything" and is going to have to "be a housewife" as "punishment" for betraying Kendall.
And I'm sorry, but in case you haven't noticed, it is 2023. Shiv is now independently wealthy and is the only one of the kids to have a career separate from the family business. No, Connor's political career doesn't count. She's morally bankrupt and completely lacking in self-awareness. A housewife? Nah, she's gonna make big donations to female Democrats and fund woman-led start-ups until her reputation is sufficiently laundered that she can launch herself into the neoliberal girlboss grifter circuit.
It's not the best possible ending for her -- that would be the same ending Roman gets, free of family and in a position to start over (cushioned by a sweet, sweet mountain of cash) -- but it's far better than Kendall, who is definitely going to relapse, and will either OD or, more likely, go to rehab, get clean, marry a girl twenty years his junior who can't stand up to him, and start over with replacement kids.
(But his older kids might be the ones to break the cycle of abuse -- they have what none of Kendall's generation got: a mother who loves them and who can protect them.)
I cannot stop thinking about the fact that Kendall turned out nothing more than a hollow copy of his father, right down to the physical abuse. And every woman in his life (Rava, Jess, Shiv, even Naomi Pierce) saw through him eventually. Except his mother, who never bothered to look.
But Shiv is not becoming her mother. There are seeds there, of course, but the thing about Caroline is that has always been dependent on Logan. She sold out her kids for money. Shiv doesn't need to do that; she can fuck up her kids in brand new ways.
So good for her, probably.
