'Succession' offers grim peak at what regret looks/feels like
The Roy siblings each presented what it would feel like to have to say goodbye before they get the chance to make amends.
SPOILER WARNING: The following piece includes spoilers from Sunday’s episode of Succession. Do not read further if you haven’t seen it yet. Stop right here. Like, right now.
For most of my life, I’ve had a complicated relationship with my dad. He’s a great person, a huge success, a supportive father when he wants to be, an amazing grandfather, a great (albeit frustrating) husband, and did I mention he was hugely successful?
Here’s where it gets tricky.
When I was a kid, I was a pretty good athlete. I was good at basically any sport I tried. Not great, mind you. Just good. Thoroughly good. Emphatically, even. It should have been enough, but it wasn’t, not for my dad. He expected athletic perfection from a kid who would eventually enter high school at 5’0”, 100.
You can imagine how that turned out.
I played four years of thoroughly forgettable high school basketball despite spending endless hours in the gym. Countless car rides felt like interrogation sessions on why I didn’t make a certain pass, why I wasn’t getting the minutes he expected. For years, I harbored real resentment towards the man who weaponized my first real passion.1
I’m not writing this to judge him as a father. I’m really not. He prioritized the wrong things. He and I have spoken about it. We really are on great terms now, having come to grips with how shitty it was at times to be his oldest son.
Watching the third episode of Succession on Sunday brought to the forefront some very real emotions because I was watching a bunch of kids who never got to reach the point I’m at with my dad.
First, Roman Roy forgets to say he loves his dad as he lay there dying in his private jet.
Then, Kendall puts as much behind him as he could to say he loves Logan only to immediately dive into trying to save the man who drove him to some of his absolute worst moments.
Kendall brings in Shiv to talk to what’s left of her dad, but it was too late. She spends as much of what’s left of her time with her father yelling at people to try to figure out what the fuck just happened as she does trying to summarize her feelings toward her dad, to her dad.
And hell, poor Connor, whose yacht-style wedding was sunk by the events, hardly gets to say anything at all — as per usual.
Literal seconds before I turned on HBOMax to watch this episode, I had Logan Roy’s death spoiled. Just like Roman, though, I didn’t believe it. No way. They can’t kill this guy. In his world, evil is everlasting, and someone so evil, so contemptuous, is supposed to outlive everyone.
“You’re a monster,” Roman says. He then spends the rest of the episode yelling at anyone who dares say what is objectively true, that Logan Roy’s nonexistent heart finally gave out.
The point of all this is to show how devastating familial trauma can be when its central characters don’t get to make amends. Each Roy sibling battles with what they could even start with when their father is on the other end of the line, at the end of the line.
Do they apologize? If so, for what? Do they demand an apology? How? He can’t speak.
Most painfully, even if they had found the words to finally connect with their father as he left them, it would have been in vain. Making amends requires participation from both sides and Logan wanted nothing to do with anything that didn’t further what he saw as his actual legacy, his company.
In each case, they look to each other for answers, but are only met with a reflection of horror and internal strife painted a different color.
I mentioned my own dad above because, despite our many, many differences and the years it’s taken to come to realize he meant well in pushing me as hard as he did, I eventually found it in myself to forgive him. Doing so has unlocked a side of him I never thought I’d see.
My dad is an incredible grandpa (Peepaw, as Avery calls him). He’s loving. He’s affectionate. He’s patient. He’s everything I ever wanted. On one hand, I’d be lying if I said there haven’t been moments where I say “where was this with me?” But I quickly move on because all that matters is the fulfillment I see in him from his grandchildren. There is no space for jealousy when my heart is so full watching that connection.
I am the father I am (Jen says I’m good at this and I’m not about to try to convince her otherwise) because I wanted to show a dad can be those things before he becomes a grandad. I don’t ever want them to have to make amends with me as I have with my dad.
Maybe I could have done so without coming to an understanding with my dad. Maybe after so many years wishing for more love, I would instinctually offer it up with my kids. But why put that to chance? And more importantly, this life does eventually come to an end. He or I will die someday and had we not hashed things out, one of us would be left with the pain we saw from Logan’s kids Sunday night.
That pain will define them moving forward. Connor, Kendall, Shiv and Roman now have to find peace on their own without Logan there to play his role in that process, and many children of emotional trauma never do. The focus of the show will be whoever “wins” control of the company, but each kid’s actions will be directly impacted by their ability to come to terms with the loss they felt in that moment and the hole Logan left behind.
Love you, dad.
What’s funny is I continued to love the sport despite him being so overbearing and my experiences with some, uh, interesting coaching in high school. I got to college and was able to play in a gym devoid of those presences and (not exactly shockingly), fell in even deeper love with the game. I probably never start writing about basketball without that experience. So y’all have Cal State Fullerton to blame for that.