Nothing is as funny or as painful as the truth.
One overarching theme of Succession is the characters’ inability to speak openly about their feelings and true intentions. Every line of dialogue is couched in layers of irony, half truths, and outright lies. This aspect of the show is detailed thoroughly in Nerdwriter’s fantastic video essay “Succession: Say What You Mean.”
So in the premiere of the show’s final season, titled “The Munsters,” it’s striking that a simple stating of the facts is the most cutting line of dialogue in the episode. The moment comes on the night of Logan Roy’s birthday, as the media magnate and family patriarch finds his estranged children have placed a competing bid on the purchase of a rival news outlet Logan has long looked to devour. As Logan and his lackeys hunker down for negotiations and tensions run high, he voices an odd request: He asks if anyone has any jokes.
Of course, it’s an inopportune time to start ribbing the boss on the cusp of losing a multi-billion dollar deal. And Logan knows that. He wants to watch those around him squirm under his thumb. So he doubles down.
“Roast me. Give me a drubbing,” Logan says. His underlings balk at the opportunity to insult the man in charge. So Logan turns it over to Cousin Greg, who cranes his tall figure in the corner after having been outed for an awkward sexual dalliance with his plus one for the evening.
“You’re mean. You’re a mean old man,” Greg blurts out. “You’re a mean old bastard. Uh, and you scare the life out of folks. That’s your thing. You’re scaring me right now, and that’s why I don’t even know how, what to do.”
Everyone in the room bristles at Greg’s frankness, despite its lack of bite. Even as part of the extended family, anyone speaking this way to Logan is simply not done. Logan snaps back at Greg with a reference to the recent sexual fumbling that he was tricked into exposing.
“Come on, roast me!” Logan barks back at Greg. Then comes the line of the night.
“Where are your kids? Where’s all your kids, Uncle Logan?”
The previous season ended as Logan cut his three children (not counting the first pancake that is Connor) out of the family business and its pending sale. But in doing so, he also cut them out of his life. Logan spent his birthday at an unwelcome celebration full of people with painted-on smiles asking to himself why everyone was so happy. He’s created an empire full of falseness and stooges who will do anything to appease him lest they be wished into the cornfield.
At the same time, the people he could quite possibly love, the ones who challenge him in the only ways he can somewhat respect, have been pushed away. And now they’re the ones fucking up his deal.
And like all great comedians, Greg just says the truth to Logan’s face. Yes, he gets verbally kicked in the gut for it. But out of everyone in the room, it was lowly Cousin Greg who came away with the biggest punchline.
