This week I'm going to write a lot about the latest episode of SUCCESSION. If you're not caught up and like the show, you should definitely not read this until you do. (In fact you might try implementing a media cone of silence, because yowza.)
So, here we go... Spoilers Ahoy.
SUCCESSION 403 is The One Where Logan Dies. Which is um, definitely unexpected. The episode actually begins with Logan doing normal screwed up Logan stuff—asking Roman to do his dirty work; ditching Connor's wedding. Bad Dad Head Fuckery 101, basically.
And then we get the phone call from Tom on the plane, which leads into this incredible, 28 minute sequence in which first Roman and and Kendall, then Shiv, and finally Connor are all forced to confront the fact that their father is dying...isn't breathing...is dead.
And creator/writer Jesse Armstrong makes this really unexpected choice to not let us see Logan at all for a good portion of the sequence. We hear from Tom, we see stuff going on in the background, others also chime in, but there's no "Cut To: A stewardness doing chest compressions on Logan."
Objectively, that's super strange. That's not how you do these things on TV. A big part of the drama, in fact, is watching someone try to save the person's life. It's the will they make it or won't they.
But here's what that choice does: it puts us in the same situation as the kids—but not just in terms of this moment, but in the broader context of the show. Logan Roy is the monster in the closet that you can never fucking kill. He is the shark that disappears only so that it can show up behind you and rip your fucking throat out. You are never fucking safe with him. A conflict with him is never over.
Given that, of course they don't want to show us him falling ill, or dying, or dead, until the end (and even then they don't show us his face; I wouldn't be surprised if Brian Cox wasn't used at all). It's a way of leaving it open whether this is really happening, whether this isn't some next level mind fuck ruse of the all time mind fuck master.
There are a hundred ways that Jesse Armstrong could have killed Logan Roy. And I think a lot of the press around this version is going to be about how it captures the death of a loved one, especially a parent, in such a real way. But as writers, let's not be fooled by that. SUCCESSION is not an after school series. This isn't a very special episode.
This is a series about three kids (sorry Connor—we'll get to you) who are constantly unsure where they stand with their father and desperate for it not to be like that but also completely incapable of overcoming him or themselves to get to that point. They live with constant instability and uncertainty.
And that's what's drives Armstrong's choice about how to show his death. The bigger concept drives the specific story decision.
It's such a great model for us as writers. Whether we're doing a death, a dinner party, a high school dance, the point is absolutely the same. The concept of the show should inform our thinking to make our choices specific.
To put it in terms of a question: What is the "Our Show" version of a death? A dinner party? A high school dance?
