There are shows I have to watch for my job that make me want to open my brain with a nail bar.
It’s pretty rare, fortunately, because a) I’d start to look like Frankenstein’s monster after so many years of poorly healed lobotomies and b) the networks produce a lot less damn bad, pass-on stuff The perfect moments or Hôtel for masterpieces.
There are also great shows that make me want to seize the day and let life take its course. This is the case of Successionwhose fourth season kicks off Sunday at 9 p.m. on Crave and Super Ecran, in French and English.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY ASSOCIATED PRESS
Brian Cox, execrable father of Succession
It’s probably the most brilliant, cynical, funniest and cringest thing on American television right now. I adore this wealthy dysfunctional family who are tearing each other apart for control of a media empire by throwing billions on the table as if they were vulgar pennies. You want 8 billion for your business? I give you 10, here!
This fourth season of Succession will be the last (it’s terrible, I know) and we feel the empire of the titan Logan Roy on the verge of collapse, after years of spectacular betrayals and vicious dirty tricks.
The first episode, very well put together, picks up a few months after the finale of the third chapter, where the three youngest children of Logan Roy, namely Shiv, Roman and Kendall, suffered one more humiliation, courtesy of their tyrannical father.
The character of the patriarch Logan Roy, a sort of Rupert Murdoch who uses the word “fuck” in all imaginable variations, is extraordinary. He treats his children like rats, he betrays his allies more often than Coco Belliveau at Big Brother Celebrities, he negotiates with a chainsaw, but still hopes that his offspring will call him for his birthday. Hello paradoxes.
PHOTO CHARLES SYKES, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sarah Snook, Alan Ruck, Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong and Kieran Culkin are the main actors of Succession.
For their part, Connor, Kendall, Shiv and Roman heartily hate their influential dad, who has despised them since birth, but desperately seeks his approval and respect, which they will never get.
It’s twisted the same and that’s the genius of Succession. Fried people, not super competent and in emotional deficiency who insult each other, use each other and ridicule each other.
It’s both very nono, thanks in particular to the two simpletons Tom and cousin Greg, who now call themselves the “disgusting brothers”, and very cerebral, especially for the entire “business” aspect of the series.
The characters of Succession speak (abundantly) of acquisitions of media conglomerates or investment companies and it is not so much the technical details that interest us, but the ratoureur way in which the transactions take place behind the scenes.
In Succession 4Shiv, Roman and Kendall are working hand in hand to launch The Hundred, a new medium that Kendall describes as an amalgamation of Substack, the magazine The New Yorker et The Economist.
This digital project does not excite them so much and when an opportunity for revenge presents itself to them, they bare their fangs and aim for their father’s jugular.
In the opposite camp, old Logan Roy is finalizing the sale of his Waystar empire to billionaire Lukas Matsson, founder of the GoJo platform. There are 48 hours left before the signing of the contracts. The fans of Succession – we are numerous ! – know that this crucial period is always full of last-minute changes and chaotic “hands-free” calls. And that doesn’t change, much to our sadistic delight.
The fourth chapter of Succession It also brings the Pierce family back to the fore, who were nearly swallowed up by Waystar in the second season. Remember. The very conservative Roys spent the weekend with the more liberal Pierces, in an unequaled festival of unease. It was tasty.
Two years later, the matriarch Nan Pierce, still supported by her cousin Naomi (Kendall’s ex-girlfriend), would she be ready to finally sell her television station and her newspapers to her sworn enemy?
You probably suspect that the couple of Tom and Shiv is in a bad way. It was Tom who put the last knife in Shiv’s back in the gripping third season finale.
PHOTO CHARLES SYKES, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sarah Snook and Matthew Macfadyen portray Shiv and Tom.
Around the grumpy Logan, we find the usual Gerri, Karl and Frank, but especially Kerry, the assistant to do everything who takes the stripe and importance in the story. She is surprising.
Successionit’s Shakespeare in the 1% of the 1%.
The dialogues tumble at breakneck speed, the insults pile up, Connor is pitiful in his eternal race for the American presidency and Kendall pours out a flood of complicated words that he does not master.
There is always a character who wears a plain cap and a dark sweater with a zipper.
That’s all, Succession. And it’s fucking good, or @#%$ good for readers allergic to swearing.