Logan Roy (Brian Cox) is one of the nation’s premier media tycoons, the owner of Waystar Royco’s vast media empire, which owns newspapers and magazines, TV channels, cruises and theme parks.
Logan is in his seventies, has had a stroke, and appears to be going into dementia. Shareholders want Logan to name his successor, and he’s trying to figure out which of his four children can carry the burden.
The eldest son from his first marriage, Connor (Alan Ruck), does not shine with intelligence and business acumen, and is generally obsessed with ecology, lives in a remote estate (it’s called an “eco-farm”), where he fights global warming and cockroaches in his head.
The youngest son Roman (Kieran Culkin) is an infantile and strange guy of thirty-five years old, who at his age has retained the behavior of an absurd and mean-spirited child who loves to annoy everyone. He is definitely not suitable for the post of head of the company, and even a regular department cannot be trusted with him so that he doesn’t screw everything up there.
Father’s favorite, the only daughter of Siobhan, nicknamed “Shiv” (Sarah Snook), is very smart and businesslike, but Logan, who has put together his empire with very harsh methods, does not understand at all how a woman can lead this corporation, because in his business, like himself repeatedly says wins the one who has balls of steel and who has a longer dick. Shiv understands this well herself, so she tries to make a career working for famous politicians, and even accepts an offer to go to work for Gil Eavis (Erik Boghosyan), her father’s worst enemy.
And only Logan’s middle son Kendall (Jeremy Strong) is somehow suitable for the role of the manager of Waystar Royco, and it is he who now steers the company while Logan is recovering from a stroke. However, not everything is all right with Kendall either: he sat heavily on cocaine, although he seems to have jumped off and does not use it, he is divorced from his wife, he does not have Logan’s real firmness, and he sees the future of the company not at all like his father.
Kendall is sure that Logan will announce it as his successor, and everything is going to this, but Logan is not the kind of person who can let everything take its course.
***
Great series, watched both seasons literally in one breath. And here is a rather rare case when the second season is even better than the first, although the first is very good.
The original title of the series is Succession, and it translates to “succession” or “inheritance,” so the title “Heirs” is quite appropriate.
It is possible that Logan’s distant prototype was media mogul Rupert Murdoch, the former owner of the 21st Century Fox empire, who has eight children, but it is clear that he is a very arbitrary prototype.
Logan on the show is not a spherical media mogul in a television entertainment vacuum. The series does not go into too much detail, but quite clearly tells about his attitude towards business as such and the media business in particular, about how he firmly believes that the old familiar media will continue to be super-influential, and how he does not trust the new modern formats. , which, as Kendall well understands, will destroy the old media empire.
However, Logan – he still did not find himself in the trash, he created this huge empire with his own hands, and he understands that Kendall, who grew up in wealth, is subject to various weaknesses, will not pull such a burden: he will simply be “devoured” and Waystar Royco will be dragged away pieces. And Logan, while he is alive and capable, does not intend to allow this.
The whole Roy family is very colorful, and there each character is interesting in its own way.
Old Man Logan – of course, on the one hand, the person is very unpleasant. But, on the other hand, show me a man with a lot of money who continues to be actively involved in business and at the same time remains a pleasant person. Logan is like a rhinoceros. His control strategy is to destroy everything that can be destroyed and capture everything that can be captured and absorbed. He does not believe in all this “new ethics” and “new morality”, he is a man of the old formation, and he, of course, is doomed – he will simply be demolished by new trends, and for all the ugliness of Logan’s views as such, it is not yet a fact that new trends will be much better.
Brian Cox (he’s really Scottish, like his character) is great as Logan. The brightest character with a huge, albeit negative charisma. Here, of course, there are certain parallels with King Lear from Shakespeare’s play (King Lear also decided which of the three daughters he would leave the kingdom to), and, interestingly, Brian Cox himself played Shakespearean characters in the theater for many years: primarily Titus Andronicus from ” The saddest Roman tragedy of Titus Andronicus” and King Lear in “King Lear”.
Logan tyrannizes children and his closest assistants, he is completely sure that everything and everyone in this life can be bought for money, people are garbage for him. At the same time, he loves his children in his own way and is sad that none of them can replace him as head of Waystar Royco.
Watching Logan act, how he tries to maintain control of the company, and how he counters attacks on himself and the company is interesting and exciting. Brian Cox did a great job playing Logan, it’s an outstanding performance.
Kendall, played by Jeremy Strong, I didn’t like at first. It was evident that Kendall, although he was making a big boss out of himself, he did not pull this role at all: he was too soft-bodied and reflective. This is not a rhinoceros, sweeping away everything in its path, like Logan, this is a bunny who was put to confront the wolves. Well, the fact that he allows himself to wipe his feet, as in the episode with an attempt to buy Waystar Royco startup Lawrence (Rob Young), once again said that Kendall is no replacement for Logan.
However, it must be said that over time, Strong’s character became more and more interesting. Because at least he was fluttering a little. And Kendall became really interesting at the moment when he “jumped off” and started using again. That’s what Kendall lacked – methamphetamine in the blood and cocaine in the nostrils! It was then that this bunny came to life, which is interesting.
Siobhan – played by Australian actress Sarah Snook – very good! Charming, self-confident, not sagging under Logan and building her own career, and if she seems to have a promising job for her father’s enemy, then why not? But, however, several events show that Siobhan is not as smart as she thinks she is, and this only added certain colors to her character.
Kieran Culkin’s novel is simply a masterpiece! At first, he seems the most unpleasant of all – a kind of spoiled child in the body of an adult man – but gradually we find out that his behavior is such a defensive reaction of a person who received serious psychological trauma in childhood. Yes, Roman is completely incapable of running a company, he, in fact, cannot be trusted to run a shop by the road, but he is smart, cunning and, oddly enough, knows how to establish contacts with people. And Logan gradually begins to trust Roman and uses his abilities in his affairs.
Well, among the closest relatives of the Roy family there are two more characters: Siobhan’s husband Tom and Logan’s nephew Greg Hirsch. Tom was put in charge of the cruise department: he is very insecure, he quickly finds out what the hell was going on in the cruise department and there are several “bombs” that could go off at any moment, he does not like Siobhan’s idea of \u200b\u200bthe so-called “open marriage” “, in which both the wife and the husband can meet with other partners, and Tom is well aware that it is he in this family who will be merged at any moment, because it is he who is a bargaining chip. Only Siobhan can protect him, but Tom is not at all sure that she will do it at some point.
Tom was played by the famous British actor Matthew McFadyen, and the role also turned out to be absolutely wonderful: how Tom behaves with Shiv and Logan, how he pushes his subordinates around, how he desperately wallows in this family compote, trying to swim out – well, just shine! Moreover, Macfadyen can easily play a tough and strong-willed boss (he played one in the wonderful British film “Everything is Possible, Baby”), but here the character is just completely different.
Well, there is still Greg’s nephew – he was played by Nicholas Brown. Greg is a slug and a nonentity, he couldn’t even handle the job of an animator at an amusement park. Logan puts Greg to help Tom, who openly pushes them around, but pretty soon it turns out that Greg is not such a fool and that for all the insignificance of his person, he can influence a lot there. I know that the ridiculous nephew pretty much annoyed a certain part of the audience of the series, but I was interested in him from the very beginning, and pretty soon I was convinced that it was absolutely not in vain.
The Descendants has two seasons. A third season has been announced, but nothing is known about it yet. The first season ends with a kind of catharsis in Kendall’s life and provides some groundwork for the second season, which, and this is a rather rare case, is even more striking than the first. It also ends with a great one – film critics have some buzzword… Cliff Richard, or what? But even if the third season is never filmed, the first two seasons really need to be watched: in my opinion, this is one of the brightest and most exciting series in the last few years, I just could not tear myself away from it.
Although, it would seem, well, some kind of “el scandal” in a not very noble family. But here is an excellent dramaturgy, an outstanding play by almost all the actors and a powerful production. And I set a musical intro from the series by composer Nicholas Brittel as a ringtone on my phone a long time ago: I’m sure that many viewers of this series did it.
Well, I will mention the awards. In 2020, this series received four Emmy awards (and six more nominations), and for some reason Jeremy Strong was given the award for best actor, although Brian Cox and Kieran Culkin were also nominated. However, in the same year, the series received two Golden Globes, and this time Brian Cox was awarded Best Actor.
Heirs / Succession Season 2 movie review
Director: Jesse Armstrong Cast: Brian Cox, Kieran Culkin, Peter Friedman, Matthew Macfadyen, Alan Ruck, Sarah Snook, Hiam Abbass, Nicholas Brown, Jeremy Strong, Rob Young, Eric Bogosian
Series, USA, 2018, 60 min. 2 seasons, 10 episodes per season