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This article contains spoilers for Episode 6 of the fourth and final season of HBO’s The Heirs, Living+.
This week’s episode of “Succession” features a ridiculously bleak premise that could easily have happened in real life.Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong), in his first major role as head of the family media company Following the death of patriarch and founder Logan Roy (Brian Cox) for a great demo of Waystar Royco’s newest product, Living+.
In keeping with his penchant for swagger and showmanship, Kendall wore bomber jackets on stage, introducing products with hyperbolic theatrics to disguise their dystopian qualities. The Living+ concept is a Waystar-branded nursing home with extensive content from the company’s entertainment division. Kendall also claims that the product could extend the lives of seniors by years or even decades by giving them access to medicines that only the super-rich can afford.
And if that wasn’t uncomfortable enough, he talks to his dead father on stage, using edited and manipulated green-screen footage of Logan recorded before his death. Kendall then tearfully suggested that Living+ would allow him to spend more time with his dad. His creepy emotional appeal worked. The investors present applaud heartily. But one key figure definitely doesn’t like it: Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård), CEO of the tech company that’s buying Waystar, who was terribly frightening in Kendall’s speech. tweeted about the massacre.
when pairing last week’s episodeWith the resulting trio of billionaires — Kendall, his brother Roman (Kieran Culkin) and Mattsen swearing at each other on a Norwegian hilltop — it’s hard not to be drawn to the real-life parallels the show draws on and reflects. grimace. The fictional billionaire in Inheritance grimly reminds us that, in real life, many high-impact decisions—decisions that jeopardize the jobs and livelihoods of countless people and affect what we read, watch, and consume—are Made by rich white people only to make up as they go. They act on impulse, gratify their egos, chase shiny objects and fight other billionaires with little regard for the damage they leave in their wake.
Watching these two episodes while witnessing a wave of mass layoffs is especially heartwarming and disturbing media, technology and entertainment. Company Executive Quotes “Economic headwinds” and lost profits, while continuing to make millions of dollars themselves, essentially holding employees accountable for their own ill-advised business decisions. Rich CEOs are destroying award-winning newsrooms, Also put your eggs in the new AI basket; and put social media platforms into operation, while Their rockets are literally burning.
It must be nice to be able to make such an expensive decision on a whim, like during the “Succession” season 3 finale when Logan explained that he was seeking a deal with Matsson because “I felt it in my bones.” (It’s a tactic his kids try to replicate — with little success, and their power play is often bumbling.) It must be good to go along with “frivolous plans,” as Schiff (Sarah Snook) ) described her brother’s theatrical performance. Or use your company and exorbitant wealth to quarrel with a fellow billionaire, as the Roys are doing with Matteson now.
As it heads into its final episode, “Succession” has already set up a potential conflict course: Kendall and Roman’s reckless attempt to sabotage the deal Logan struck with Matteson. Under the Logan deal, Matsson’s tech company, GoJo, would acquire Waystar Royco, with the exception of the company’s popular right-wing news network, ATN. But Kendall and Roman finally took power after their father’s death, and they craved it.
In last week’s episode’s climactic hilltop scene, Roman impulsively and foolishly admits to Matteson that he and his brother intend to walk away from the deal. Not trying to assuage Roman’s grief, but this acknowledgment is essentially the equivalent of one billionaire getting mad at another billionaire. Roman blames Matsson for being callous in making them trek all the way to GoJo’s company resort in Norway, just days after their father died.
Remarkably, Matsson made the Roys look like decent people by comparison. Watching Roman commit quite a few acts of brutality on the show, calling Matteson an “inhuman fucking dog man,” was ironic, but also strangely satisfying.but also some viewing satisfaction Matteson exposes Royce’s incompetencelike when he compares them to “Scooby-doo” and sarcastically asks if they went to “Hannah-Barbera fucking business school.”
Matsson also dismissed Kendall as a “Vaulter guy,” referring to Kendall’s failed acquisition of digital media startup Vaulter. Early in season 2, Kendall, at Logan’s behest, took down the entire website and fired nearly all of its employees. It’s a scene that always sends shivers down the spines of anyone who’s ever worked in media and experienced round after round of mass layoffs by a gluttonous CEO. Unlike journalists who lost their jobs, there were no consequences for them. They’ll simply move on to the next shiny thing, whether it’s Living+, or a real-life “turn to video” or AI.
Watching “Succession” while seeing the massive inequality and structural shifts in the media, tech, and entertainment industries is a disturbing reminder that much of the world is controlled by wealthy idiots.They act as if they know what the future holds, or they have a great idea for the next “killer app,” or they’re “My lord in the room,” As Kendall said in the Vaulter episode.
But they’re really just bullshit. They got away with it because, as Gerri (J. Smith-Cameron) told Matsson, “Nobody minds weird behavior by geniuses.” Tom (Matthew McFadden) agrees: “Honestly, it might It kind of adds to the mystery.”
Ah, the confidence to have a rich white man at the helm of a major corporation. Reality is what they want it to be, like Kendall dangerously fudged numbers to overestimate Living+.
One of the many themes of “Success” is that the characters never say what they mean, either emotionally or on a business level. Confusion is power. Words mean nothing. As Kendall said in season 1, they’re just “complicated airflows.” Does any of them really know anything? Is it real, or is it a pose?
This nonsense is everywhere. This is at the heart of ATN’s slogan: “We’re here for you.” (Or: “We listen for you.”) It’s Schiff telling her now-estranged husband, Tom, “I may not love you, but I do love you.” ’” Kendall is the king of empty buzzwords, like describing his vision for a new news outlet as a “calorie-dense information pack” (or “information snack?”) and asking cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) “Measuring my culture temperature””
During Sunday night’s episode, Kendall advertised Living+ using jargon such as “comprehensive everyday character IP life enhancement.” Earlier, he read aloud a company document titled “Personalized Longevity Program.” But as he would later say, Living+ was really about “planning to put seniors in the library and immerse them in content while we suck their money dry.” Shiv later described it more bluntly as “grandma prison camp”.
Like Royce, real-life wealthy CEOs use meaningless corporate jargon to confuse their misguided decisions. What exactly does “economic headwind” mean? Or what about the myriad of euphemisms when a company closes or is acquired and employees lose their jobs: “sunset,” “reorganization,” “reorganization,” “merger,” “leaving due to involuntary termination”?
One of the qualities that made “Success” essential viewing throughout its four seasons was its life imitating art imitating life of ouroboros. The show was inspired by and satirized real-life events and people (notably the Murdoch family, but also other media and political dynasties).but it also do not copy them directly.
At the same time, often feel Everything has an “inherited” reference. Last week, when Fox News abruptly fires host Tucker Carlson, Twitter is full of jokes about Logan’s assistant Carrie (Zoë Winters), who disastrously auditioned to be an ATN anchor, and how he should take over.Or that Rupert Murdoch allegedly wanted Carlson gone, a source told Vanity Fair. revenge on his ex-fiancéewhich sounds a lot like an “inheritance” plot.
But sometimes, like these recent episodes, the real-life parallels take on a darker tone. We can laugh at the Royces—until it’s all so close to home, we cringe at the resemblance.
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