Throughout ‘Succession,’ a faint orchestral melody kept humming. It was on the brink of fading away, but it never really did. It still went on, even as the screen blackened out in Season 1. That swan song still continues, two years later. The crumbling pieces of a fallen man lie beneath the surface, with the orchestra continuing into ‘Succession’ Season 2 Episode 1. Kendall’s dying pride was a heavy cost for his position at Waystar Royco, but it feels even more shattering against the image he couldn’t hold in front of his father, Logan Roy.
The family of the bloodthirsty corporate world just opened their den to us, where scandals sealed under monetary documents light the stage for ‘Succession’ Season 2. Many stakes opened up in the second season, either in the form of a stinking open wound, or a flicker of hope and prosperity. However, such a world reeks of a monetary scent, as prosperity in terms of familial relations is a desert of quicksand. Before we sink into the quicksand, there is still much to ponder about the newfound relationships forming, amid Logan’s pitiful battle against public outrage as his grip on his actual baby, Waystar Royco, slips. Let’s start at the very beginning, the swan song, and the tragic hero himself.
The Opening
The irony immediately hits when one recalls the way ‘Succession’ Season 2 began, knowing very well how it ends. An interview with an exclusive prime journalist demeaned Kendall’s image as the father’s loyal dog. Meanwhile, the elder son, Connor, goes on to butcher his father’s peace with a bizarre declaration of his presidency.
Shiv’s Newfound Hunger
Adversity doesn’t stand for long when the heart secretly wants what it wants. Shiv’s denial of participating in the Waystar Roy-Conundrum just bloomed into a newfound hunger for the golden throne that her brother was already waiting in line for. Initially, she appeared to be Roy’s favorite, as Logan himself explicitly agreed that she was a good fit for the chair. However, it is this incessant change in mind that brings Shiv down to a different failure. She does not just mindlessly chase the position but tries evaluating the trappings of her father’s mind. Shiv proves herself worthy by shutting off a victim’s mouth on a cruise ship. That worth is, of course, hinges upon how low one can stoop to hold up the company’s shining face.
New Characters
The chase is fervently interrupted by a new CEO in Roy’s town. Rhea Jerrell wreaks havoc in the acquisition of PGM, a mirror image company of Waystae Royco. Of course, mirror images reflect personalities too, and Rhea’s constant grind with the Roys on selling her company is how she keeps herself relevant this season. Her skeptic facade and clandestine affair with Logan don’t last long.
The secondary characters carve a new niche for themselves as Frank Vermin, a once-forgotten advisor to Logan, who heads the PGM deal this time. Gerri comes out as the perfectly functional robot lawyer, walking around on eggshells that make up Logan’s fickle mind. However, the ‘Succession’ season 2 dives more into her plotting with the youngest sibling, Roman. Their relationship develops in whispers, illicit encounters with a sexual angry-mentor dynamic that no one foresaw.
Roman As A New Character
Indeed, the unapologetically cocksure cynic carries his quirks over to the second season of ‘Succession,’ but with a new, more efficient side. He enters the big league of making deals and being a diplomat. He turns his cynicism into a ruthless deal-breaker, stalwart-ing Waystar Royco’s position as a powerful media company rather than a poorly-reputed, old-fashioned news outlet. His image flickers, a kind of flicker the audience had never seen before.
Stranger Relations Surface
While Gerri and Roman steer the ship for the show’s strangest bonds, many more affinities emerge between dynamics. The one relationship that stands out can be tritely summed up in a quote: “You can’t make a Tomlette without breaking some Greg’s.” While we’re disappointed it didn’t come from Tom’s own voice, declaring it as an email amidst a courtroom hearing is quite satisfying indeed. The cruise ship fiasco has blown the company out of the water (no pun intended). With that on his head, Tom’s heartbreaks line up with an aimless position under ATN and an indifferent marriage. However, he sticks with his immediate disciple, Cousin Greg, another accomplice entangled in the scandal with the law proceedings.
On the other hand, Greg turns a new leaf as he cuts out a path for himself from a lost field of bullies. Saving the cruise ship documents that Tom repeatedly told him to destroy, he elegantly lands a leveraged deal, joining hands with Kendall to take the king down. On the newly resurrected Kendall Roy, Greg stands as a pillar of support, leaving the Wambswagon side.
The Yacht Vacation
The show’s three dominant locations are a tense courtroom, a multi-faced dinner party, and an even more tense vacation on a yacht after a failed PNG acquisition. Whether it’s an irony or metaphor that a yacht trip is chosen as a vacation when the very scandal hovers over a cruise ship is unclear. However, it is the grand room of fate, deciding both the CEO chair and the electric chair, taking the hit for the scandal. Fingers are pointed at one another on the breakfast table. At the same time, confessions brew about Tom’s unhappiness with Shiv’s unfaithfulness, Greg and Roman’s newfound dominance, and, of course, the grand Kendall resurrection.
The Irony of Succession Season 2 Finale
From rapping his heart out to his heart finding new love in the Dundies episode, Kendall’s monochrome colors undulate in different shades as the season proceeds. Although he has Greg’s quick thinking to thank for it, Kendall finally climbs to the helm all by himself. With the arrow his father hit on his chest, he strides to a press conference back in New York to confess as the primary convict behind the scandal. While masterfully recalling the first episode, the season finale takes a 180 on Kendall’s voice, as he reveals Logan’s involvement in suspicious deals and hiding evidence through victim suppression.
Kendall brandishes the document as his weapon of choice for the coup. His father, miles away on the yacht, with his two kids fretting over what just happened, invokes a smirk that viewers to this day cannot decipher.
What ‘Succession’ Season 3 Is Set To Offer
The end of a reign.. or is it? Succession depicted its fair share of struggles to track down the perpetrators of a successful ambush. For the first time now, with a real knife finally struck by Kendall, the third season of ‘Succession’ must present how long the knife stays. The overuse of the knife stabbing metaphor only symbolizes Succession’s main intent on the act of betrayal and personal gain.
Rising From The Crevices: The two seasons invariably show the resurrection of an injured man only through Kendall, as his siblings still try to pick him apart. Now we’ll see the resurrection of a man, placed against a son as his arch-nemesis and a severely damaged company. Even with these liabilities, Logan’s stone-cold stature hints at his faster recovery from the battered ground of lawsuits and hostility. His ruthlessness is why the audience ponders over a television show where a mere transition from a CEO position is depicted as an epic fight for the crown. The king plays his own children like pawns, who have their next step dwindling in season 3, choosing their fate between a brother and a father.
The Dominance of Secondary Characters: Meanwhile, the other pawns, in the form of family advisors Gerri and Frank, seem to be the only ones holding the grounds of a shaky Waystar Royco. Their presence amidst this media and family ruckus proves a little more hope for the company’s recovery. This season served as the climax of a prolonged battle, where the prophecies of the audience turned on the characters professing their true colors. Monologs were delivered, and tables were turned within the family. ‘Succession’ Season 3 only awaits what each Roy really makes of the spilled milk.
‘Succession’ Season 2 is streaming on HBO Max.
