HBO’s “Succession” Season 3 Recap
During the pandemic, one of the shows I started watching was “Succession” a hit series on HBO. The series revolves around the Roy family. Logan Roy is the aging patriarch of the Roy family and presides over a media empire, Waystar/Royco. Logan teases the idea that he is retiring and sets his adult children against each other in a toxic competition to take over his business. Logan Roy is a malignant narcissist and derives pleasure from controlling his kids and unpredictably wielding his power to keep everyone around him on eggshells.
His adult children, raised in immense wealth and privilege by a controlling and narcissistic father, and a remote and cold mother are, predictably, deeply damaged and emotionally crippled adults with a strong sense of entitlement and selfishness.
The character that interested me most is Shiv, the only Roy daughter. In season one, it seemed as if Shiv was the only child of Logan Roy who was strong enough to pull herself out of Logan Roy’s orbit. At the end of season one, Shiv was working for a Bernie Sanders-type senator as a political consultant (Logan Roy’s media empire is a thinly disguised right-wing Fox News) Shiv was getting married in England, and Logan Roy, at odds with Shiv and was not going to attend her wedding. Shiv was pretty much okay with that. Logan, however, was bristling with anger at not being center stage at Shiv’s wedding, and realized that she was further out of his controlling grip. At the last minute, and to make a dramatic entrance, Logan Roy flies to England to be at the wedding. Despite his contempt for his children, Logan needs them to need him. It clearly rankled him that Shiv was able to stand on her own. After her marriage to Tom (who works at Waystar/Royco) Shiv gets pulled into her father’s business and the manipulative power games in season two.
Now, in season three, Shiv is completely dominated by her father, who successfully manipulates her in to a dependence and then, when confident of his control, humiliates her. Shiv, in turn, continues to humiliate her husband Tom. In the wedding episode from season one, Shiv’s mother, Caroline, says on meeting Tom, “Well, he is very plausible.” I believe Shiv found Tom “plausible” in that he had a good career at her father’s company, he was handsome and in Shiv’s mind, someone she can easily control. Their marriage seemed to consist of Tom’s puppy like devotion to a dismissive Shiv. As Shiv descends deeper into the complex manipulation and machinations of maintaining control of the company, she becomes more cruelly dismissive of Tom, who is willing to go to prison to loyally serve the company.
In an unusual show of solidarity, all of the Roy kids band together in the final episode of the season to wrest control of the company from their father who is planning to potentially sell the company. As they arrive to confront their father, it is clear that he knows their plan. When they confront him, he challenges them to earn their own “piles” (piles of money) which just was so striking to me, because Logan would never allow his children to develop their own identities and careers without being under his control and merely being chess pieces for him to move around the board. Once again, Logan has the power. As he leaves the room, Tom comes into view as he receives an appreciative pat on the shoulder from Logan. Shiv looks completely drained of life. She has miscalculated, badly. She expected blind loyalty from Tom and for Tom to accept her treatment of him as she has watched everyone accept the treatment they received from her father.
I’m interested to see what happens to Shiv in the next season, after being double-crossed by her husband and humiliated by her father, will she buckle under it or will she strike out on her own?
