9. L to the OG (Acoustic)(Kendall’s Version)
Succ Hive, penultimately, rise.
Warning: Soylent green is people and here be spoilers.
I had assumed that each speech presented on this week’s Succession, “Church and State,” would be a bombast of adoration that through each actor’s choices would reveal a hollow core. Realizations of the sad little life he truly led: struck grandchildren, failed marriages, bounties of unused PTO posthumously paid out into a bank account, estates with fairytale nicknames and gold watches and NASDAQ monarchies to bequeath but so little joy. Realizations that they stride with pride, with purpose, down the same iron cobblestone path. That they do not lead good and peaceful lives. That Logan Roy is the reason they do not. His approval was at the end of that path - neverending, rough and jagged, improperly laid - and now that path only leads to his cross-draped casket, eventually their own, and…nothing. These three children (not Connor, who has rightly emerged with someone who doesn’t laugh at him, who computes all of him with an accountant’s eye and takes his hand anyway) have nothing. And are nothing. They are redheaded and impish and Billy Joel tribute act exercises in futility. I expected them to realize this, and to make the choice at that pulpit to steel themselves behind a solipsistic and grotesque masque of Logan Roy through abyssal rage and little-kid abandonment in the singular way each of these broken children could, or to break. Break down, yes, but break away. Break free of this fruitless fealty to a bad man, an unknowable man, a poor man in his values, in his healing, in his love.
My speech would have been the following, obviously:
I expected platitudes and aphorisms and bears, oh my. A tawdry political appeal from Connor1. A tawdrier political appeal from Roman. I did not suspect the direct, not referred, pain dovetailed to each eulogy, and how the Roys watched each other eulogize Logan. Admittances of violence, of unease, of myopia, of relief. Of trauma.
Roman the Showman’s devastating plea to “get him out,” a moment that like watching a mother and father cradle their newborn feels too intimate to continue observing, is worth singling out as a moment of frightening verisimilitude. Roman, who tugs at his father’s pant leg with impatience and inattention and sits in shapes that spell out the letters V-Y-V-A-N-S-E and who savors a new, inventive cocktail of curse words and suffixes like Cunegonde2 might the Hope diamond, often conjures the image of a child. Veruca Salt, Roger Klotz3, Angelica Pickles. But in this moment, we see who was once a child, now stretched by pain and long years into the shape but in so many ways not the soul of a man. It hurts.
And not solely trauma inside the Roy scions, but inside Logan.
Ewan’s speech was far and away my favorite (
described him ”[storming] the stage like Lil Mama” in this week’s Succession Power Ranking and reader, I howled). Let’s start with this man strolling in like Joe “Return of the Mack” Biden4. Let’s start with this man strolling in like this is a second date at the 92nd Street Y with the nice widow who lives in the penthouse upstairs and not his brother’s unexpected funeral. Behold the Glen check blazer:
Jury’s out on whether Ewan is the type to carry a small lint roller tucked in his birdwatching bag, or there’s dandruff all up in those shoulder pads, but either way: this is a man who does not wear brown shoes with a black suit, this is a man who reclines upon the loving palm of God.
The kids are concerned that Ewan might whip out his little thesaurus (the one with the gilded pages, this being a formal occasion and all) and read that dead man in the center of the room boots the house down mama yes gawd5. While he does read that dead man in the center of the room boots the house down mama yes gawd6, (and it is all worth hearing - “darkened the skies a little” - he is the Lisa Lampanelli of this roast7) Shiv, Roman, and Kendall are most worth watching. Their faces of devotion at discovering a morsel of their lion’s lore, a new moon of Jupiter, are staggering, beatific, and devastating: they will most likely never understand that these traumas were not worth collecting to be “great,” and they should not be the family heirlooms.
Connor, as I interpret it, knew all or most of this: the U-boat, the scars, Rose. He is the oldest child. It is his way. He is the one who asks. He is the one who eavesdrops and climbs out of bed late at night to look at the dusty family photo albums. He is the one with the premium Ancestry.com account. It is the way of the oldest child of a stoic father. (And white dudes, whose favorite collective hobby is reading about Europe.)
Ewan’s bombast bequeaths, instead of reveals within, destitution: an absence of understanding of the man they reviled and revered. Add this tendriled, rooted questions to the row of incisors across the gaping maw of the Roy grief: who did we love, did we love him at all, did he love us, did he know what love was, which 2010’s Stereogum Festival headliner did Kerry’s brother play bass in and what is his phone number, who knew him best, and how is it fair that the answer might be Frank or Karl, how death could come for even Logan Roy, how it, how he, is done. Simply done.
My general loosemarble thoughts:
How is this the second time I have had to talk about Jason Sudeikis laying under that damn Volvo in this newsletter, when I only have nine posts out?
I could write an entire 1800-word piece about Jess Succession quitting her job as Kendall’s EA and his reaction, but Kendall asking why she put what was to be a resignation 1x1 on his calendar and asking her to “bump” it for something he sees as more important is the most triggered I have ever been by this show, as an EA myself.
It’s me, hi, I’m the Taylor, it’s me.
This one was called a deep cut so here’s the context.
You honestly can’t tell me Jeremy didn’t improvise that entire speech because it made sense dramaturgically:
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
I would die for this man, and am *Silky Nutmeg Ganache voice* ready to do so!
I could also write an essay about this statement, this war cry, this rebuke, this quiet roar of dignity from Caroline Collingwood, and Sally Anne being Brian Cox’s real wife Nicole Ansari-Cox, and Marcia grabbing Kerry’s hand, but that would remind me that I should be working on my novel. Oops.
Before I go, a reminder that I did commission a karaoke version of “L to the OG” and performed it at my birthday last year. Here it is below, along with me rapping it *from memory.*
Love you bitches,
TG
and yes, I am starting a Snyder Cut-esque campaign for HBO to release even an audio version of Connor’s eulogy #ReleaseTheConnorEdit
You can see me in the front row, three seats in, directly to the right of my TINY, TINY Grandma Tootie. Singing “Glitter and Be Gay” is my good friend and voice teacher Chelsea Friedlander.
He’s six-foot-seven and made sure these fascists and fascistas felt every word spilled onto their Lilliputian laps. Tall people, for once, on the right side of history.
Because Logan is roasting in Hell! :)
A to the M-E-N 🫡