Spoilers for the show, obviously.
HBO’s “Succession” walloped me this week.
If you watch the show, you know it’s consistently great. If you tuned in on Sunday, you caught one of its all-time best lines.1
But if you saw “Connor’s Wedding” — and please rectify that if you haven’t — you know that the episode turns on Logan’s abrupt death.
Even a few days later, I feel haunted by it.
The Roy family might as well be aliens in human suits. They are cruel, broken people; they do reprehensible things; they enjoy lifestyles we can’t fathom.
But as Kendall, Shiv and Roman reacted to their father’s death, they experienced something that cuts across class and country — the kind of loss that no amount of money is ever going to prevent. And the show did the best job I’ve ever seen on TV at making those moments real.
The shock that staggers you. The out-of-body experience of watching everyone else move forward, even as your world has stopped. The regrets about what was not said — or worse, what was.
If you’ve also lived those moments — if you know that surreal, sudden pain — I’m sorry.
Judging by how this episode landed, how my own friends and family were raving or weeping, there are too many people who saw glimpses of their own lives on screen.
One more thought. There is no deathbed speech promised to any of us. The show got that right, too.
If you follow this Substack, you know my wife and I are reveling in a new life that brightens our family’s days. If you read my work at The Washington Post, you know that I’m still covering the deaths linked to covid, even as they’re often shrugged off as part of our new normal.2
It’s hard not to be thinking about the mysteries of the human condition these days, and how fragile everything really is.
“Succession” is just a TV show. The Roys aren’t real. But for an hour on Sunday, and like all great art, the people behind the canvas tapped into something very tender and painfully true. I’m grateful that they brought us along.
Who said it? Who else but Kendall. It was all in the timing and delivery.
“More than 1.1 million Americans have died of covid-19 since the pandemic began, including more than 250,000 in 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While the number of serious cases and deaths have receded, at least 35,000 Americans have died this year, and some projections suggest that the coronavirus could surge again this fall and winter.” From Monday’s story.