An Analysis of Succession's Season 2 Finale, "This is Not for Tears"

I wrote this essay for my English Composition class. Please note that I had to make this essay fit an assignment prompt, which has affected both the word count and formatting.

TEXT + PURPOSE – Succession season two’s final episode, “This is Not for Tears”, documents the fallout of the Senate hearings for Waystar executives. The company is in hot water, and Logan Roy, the CEO and patriarch, is looking for someone to blame. The Roy family and other Waystar employees are gathered on a yacht throughout the episode. Logan eventually comes to choose Kendall as his scapegoat, and Kendall seems ready to comply until he is in front of the cameras at the press conference and announces not his own guilt, but his father’s. This is where the episode ends. In between these major plot events, there are less noticeable details that impact the episode’s meaning. While it’s easy to watch these details happen and not think anything of them, they are all intentionally placed within the episode to emphasize one thing: distance. Willa throws an iPad off the boat with no thought, while in real life the average American would have to save up for such a luxury. We see Tom, another character who was raised outside of wealth, becoming invisible in shots with his wife and her siblings because of the distance between his identity and theirs. We watch Logan arrive to the sea from the sky after his inferiors have boarded the ship and waited for him. These details were meticulously placed to emphasize to viewers that there is immense distance between these characters. The most glaring of all would be the shots that pan from the nameless members of the boat’s crew to the wealthy characters we have come to know. The authors of this episode are trying to communicate to us how much immense wealth has affected these characters, their relationships with each other, and their relationships (or lack thereof) with the working class. As well as small moments that establish distance, we have words spoken and actions taken by the characters that serve to generate compassion for them. We watch throughout the episode as Logan Roy manipulates his children (specifically Kendall) into doing his bidding and following his every whim. We see how Logan uses Kendall’s haunting past to push him into submission. At its core, Succession is about people who have everything they could ever want, and still find themselves miserable and wanting more because of their twisted relationships with one another. The authors use interactions, especially between Kendall and Logan, to push this narrative to the audience. Another channel that they use to push the tragic nature of their relationship is heavy religious imagery and parallels. We see Kendall floating in a pool with his arms out to the side like the crucifix. When Logan is explaining his choice to sacrifice Kendall, he quotes his wife’s comment on religious sacrifices, “What could you possibly kill that you love so much it would make the sun rise again?”. This is to push to the audience the idea of Kendall as a martyr. He is being sacrificed by his father to take on the sins of his peers. We finally see Kendall kiss his father before betraying him, again to communicate to the audience the Biblical elements of their tragic relationship.

AUTHOR – The author in this case is made up of a plethora of people. Because Succession is an incredibly popular show produced by HBO, there are many people to accredit the choices made. This episode was written by Jesse Armstrong and directed by Mark Mylod. Jesse Armstrong once worked as a political consultant for a production company; this suggests he has some level of familiarity with the environments his show takes place in. There are also entire crews responsible for costuming, camerawork, editing, scriptwriting, and many other factors. It’s important to note that the actors and actresses are also some of the “authors” in this episode, as the way they choose to portray these characters has a great effect on the text and its purpose. This is especially true considering the fact that the actors in Succession are often encouraged and even trained to improvise. One thing Jeremy Strong, the actor who plays Kendall Roy, is known for is his dedication to his craft and his deep appreciation for theatre. There’s no doubt his commitment to his role has emphasized the impact of his performance on the story and its message.

SETTING + AUDIENCE – The audience contains a variety of people. While the show initially may have been intended for people who take interest in corporate dramas, it found itself becoming incredibly popular among all sorts of people. Because this episode was the finale of the second season, you can reasonably assume the audience was majorly Succession fans. The people tuning into this episode are likely invested in the story already and have at least some emotional involvement with the characters and the world they inhabit. The setting in which this text took place is a unique one. The episode aired late in October 2019. However, many people may have tuned in potentially weeks or months later. Just by looking at the Google Trends for Succession, we can see it became increasingly popular throughout 2020, and its popularity surged in late 2021. This leads one to believe that many watched Succession during the COVID-19 pandemic. The setting of a show that is heavily based around relationships between characters must be considered in a different context when we realize that many of the people viewing it were likely starved of human interaction themselves. The episode also aired at a time in which people were becoming increasingly critical of large corporations and news/media companies.

“This is Not for Tears”, and Succession as a whole, is a tale of manipulation, moral bankruptcy amidst obscene wealth, and twisted relationships that lead to devastating betrayals. The authors (comprised of writers/directors, actors, and crew members) use religious parallels and other consistent details to communicate the aforementioned themes to an audience of people who were isolated in the midst of a pandemic, and who were becoming increasingly critical of the massively wealthy.

Works Cite

d

Degrushe, Allison. ”The Brilliance of 'Succession' Improvisation Is All Thanks to EP Adam McKay.” Distractify, Oct. 2021, www.distractify.com/p/is-succession-improvised.

Google Trends. "Succession." Accessed October 19, 2023, trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=succession&hl=en.

“This is Not for Tears.” Succession, created by Jesse Armstrong, season 2, episode 10, HBO, 2019.