Succession: Feel Sorry for the Rich

**no spoilers** After the ending of HBO’s Succession, I wanted to find out how each episode made me care about its unlikeable characters.
(all of the background music in this video came from Track Club)


Host and Creator - Simon Cade


#videoessay #succession

0:00 how should I feel about these characters?
0:40 emotional intimacy
2:22 contextual intimacy
3:55 how succession stands out

[he.smile_]

Can’t make a Tomelette without breaking some Greggs

[honeybadgermk]

I appreciate how the show *begins* in the center of these cycles that each character is eternally stuck in. Very rewarding on rewatches.

[jippalippa]

It's the same with the Sopranos (a great series).
You know Anthony Soprano is a bad guy, but you can't help but rooting for him, somehow.
It's the trademark of greatly written shows.

[widowswail]

HBO always takes a very humanistic approach to all their shows and Succession didn’t fall short in that regard. Thank you for a quick but complete essay.

[SemiZeroGravity]

I havent been seeing your videos alot recently but whe i do It brings me back to when i was younger and thinking about making flims as a living. I remember working hard to buy a Nikon D5300, I paid 300 dollars for it which in hindsight was a massive deal.

While i didnt end up doing it started a long journey to loving films and taking pictures. every now and then I will take my DSLR on a walk and snap a few photos. I am deeply thankful for your guides and advice and so many other youtubers. Photography was a place where I could escape, I could be a person without having to think of who I was.

Again thank you so much for everything, you really pushed me to go to a better place.

[HeroesFanProductions]

Beautiful analysis Simon. This will go down as one of the greatest produced shows of all time for me.
The series finale was a brilliant, tragic, shakespearean end to all these characters that made perfect sense, and I can’t wait to rewatch it through it a second time.

[eliasgaltok]

THANK YOU for the effort you put behind making the sponsor of a video so seamless. In a time where ads often break de rhythm of a video, I really appreciate details like this and the thought behind it. Congrats, Simon! Great analysis of such a great show.

[Emy-fvny]

They are humans and I felt bad for them, but in the end they are horrible ppl.
No wonder the world is so broken, if the ppl who run it are so damage themselves.

[Boblw]

I think the closest analog to the Roy’s are the Targaryens from HOD. Damaged at birth by their legacy, they’re all stuck in an eternal cycle of rivalry, neediness, shifting family dynamics and victims of their own entitlement. Take out the dragons ( and incest) and they’re the Roy’s.

[aromaticsnail]

nah...they ARE monsters and not fictional...this type of characters are all around us

[matadormartin]

Nice one Simon and an interesting take. For ages now I've been fascinated by the apparent mistake of thinking that people at the top don't have problems. In many ways their problems are amplified and rivalries felt all the more cutting. It might be fun to be Kendal Roy for a day and hop on the back of a fancy motorbike in a repulsive padded suit jacket, but I sure as shit would hate to live that life. It is a massive shame that wealth is so hoarded and mismanaged to an epic scale.

[ScottJeschke]

great essay. so concise, but thoughtful. well done!

[bernardsantos]

Damn, I wanted more of that narration. Lol. That ending made me feel the same way as I did from last night's episode. Satisfied, but wanting more. Cheers.

[MAFion]

Makes me think of Jerry Springer, whose show covered the poor and the wretched. Some people cheer, others cringe, but the idea was that there are universal truths in all of us. We want the same things - love, respect, and success -no matter our status.

[vedadalsette]

I watched the series differently. With each episode, I was deciding who I hated most. I felt no empathy for any of them. All they wanted was power. They're all so lame. Not a creative bone in all their bodies combined.

[gimmegimmechicken]

Yeah, one of the main takeaways is that they want you to humanize rich people. Many people in the present operate under a mindset that rich people are somehow super smart or better than other people, which is just very obviously not true lol. Shining a spotlight on the disgusting underbelly of our world that some people fantasize about is productive enough, let alone the near perfect writing and acting

[wjsiwun]

Kendall is probably is not alive after the end of the show. Even in the podcast Jeremy Strong says he thinks that was it for him. And they were going to make it more clear but decided to leave it for interpretation. But it's hinted all throughout the last season that it's either CEO or RIP for him, everyone ignores this but it honestly makes it truly tragic

[alatielinara]

Care is easy. What shows good writing to me is how frustrating some characters are.

[jamesmccarthy]

I know being raised by narcissistic parents that the children who take on the narcissistic traits survive better, & the the ones who don't become mentally ill &/or dysfunctional. My sister who was rhe most successful career-wise is the most psychopathic, my sister who was the nice one developed schizoprenia. Being too nice seen as weakness & punished harshly. I relate to the Roy children a lot, when you're raised under duress your personality becomes about survival or you fall apart. Being raised by narcissists is like what's supposed to be your family home being under enemy occupation.

[rpolhxf]

Do you draw? Or are you only a film maker? I saw drawing in your motivation video about artists.

By the way, where can I watch your films? Just curious.