Kendall Roy goes in to battle against his father in the first episode of Succession's third season. Photo / David M. Russell / HBO
Kendall Roy goes in to battle against his father in the first episode of Succession's third season. Photo / David M. Russell / HBO
SPOILERS AHEAD: If you haven't watched the first episode of Succession's third season, now is the time to do just that.
I can't tell you why I've been desperately craving to spend more time with the world's most awful family. We're in the middle of a pandemic and my first thought is "What would Shiv Roy do at this moment?". Make it make sense, brain.
I have been obsessing and craving a big bowl of Roy family drama soup. And this week, we finally got another big serving of the world's most dramatic one-percenters.
There is one moment in the first episode of season two that reached through my laptop screen and had me screaming: SEE! THE ROY FAMILY IS ACTUALLY RELATABLE!
It was when Kendall Roy was lying motionless in the bathtub contemplating his problems and doing absolutely nothing about them. Granted, his are how he's meant to handle taking down his father's multimedia conglomerate, but at that moment I felt a spiritual connection to the rap god of the Roys.
It's Shiv Roy's world, and we're just living in it. Photo / HBO
The family is divided: Kendall teams up with Cousin Greg and a bunch of women, and the saving grace of this show Roman is still locked in a subtle brawl with Shiv for the top job. Her spineless husband Tom is somehow still around, and I'm no marriage expert but if I were Shiv I would have kicked him out of the private jet a long time ago. I like to think of him as the designer handbag still in your wardrobe because it was a fun purchase at the time, but it clashes with all of your outfits and is best served sitting in a dust bag for the rest of your life.
Tom manages to screw up his one and only job: Be a spy for his WIFE during his private jet meetings with Logan. He can't even get that right. All I'm saying is Shiv - you can do better. With literally anyone else on the planet. I heard Elon Musk is single now, maybe give him a bell? Now that would be a power couple.
Back to Shiv - she's still playing the under promise and overdeliver card. When asked to hire a top female lawyer to give the anti-Kendall brigade the edge, she coyly answers and I assumed she would simply nail it. That was not so, as we discovered later. Kendall worked smarter and faster and nabbed her even despite his bath tab meltdown.
Of course the real point of this show - the key is in the title in case you missed it, is who will be the one to take on the role of CEO when Logan kicks the bucket. Because of what happened last season, his hand is forced to make a swift change for PR purposes.
Naturally, the siblings are determined to get a swipe in and get the job themselves or die trying. This to me is one of the most unrelatable parts of the Roy siblings: I simply would be content with my millions and a nice house in the South of France and never working again. Nevertheless, it makes for entertaining watching to see these entitled adults fighting over what would absolutely be a terrible job.
Somehow Tom is more infuriating than last season. Photo / HBO
Basically, Connor is the only Roy sibling with any semblance of a brain cell left. The rest are brainwashed with whatever fragrance rich people spritz on themselves every morning.
Logan predictably side-steps any of his offspring for an interim CEO while the cruise ship crisis is dealt with, leaving the surely underpaid Gerry with the top job to the dismay of Shiv and Roman.
As much as we as viewers love laughing at these ridiculous people, there are stark reminders in the first taste of season three of just how terrible they are. The moment that had me screaming at my laptop was when Cousin Greg flippantly compared a casual car ride through Manhattan to being OJ Simpson racing down a California highway evading police.
The family is divided, but it's clear Logan is still the tyrant here. Photo / HBO
Lest we forget Kendall accidentally killed someone, he promptly reminded us: "Who says I never killed anyone?" He responds to Greg's quip about OJ, a morbid flashback to events from seasons' past.
As much as I admire Cousin Greg, he is proving to be just as disillusioned and incompetent as the rest of the family, but to a far more obvious degree. The quote of the episode in my opinion came from his attempts at acting as Kendall's makeshift head of communications: "The internet is big and I couldn't read it all," he offers as an excuse when he fails to gauge public opinion on Kendall's battle with his dad.
I'm banking that excuse for future use, along with the new phrase he coined, "good memeage". To be honest, it was marginally better than Kendall's idea for "cool tweets" later in the episode.
Logan declares he's going "full f***ing beast mode," from now on - and it's clear the show has switched the lever to match this mood. Fans of the show will be more than satisfied with the first episode, and it seems like there is plenty more drama to come.
• Succession S3 airs on SoHo from Monday 18 October, 9.30pm and from 7pm on Sky Go and Neon.
