Succession - Show Time with Mitrajit Bhattacharya

American Television’s obsession with the Murdoch family is never ending. Succession, the winner of multiple Emmy Awards for its second season, loosely sketches the characters on the Murdoch family and no one is complaining as the makers manage to deliver an engaging drama series. It’s not just fun and pleasant to watch, it also reflects the huge highs and extreme lows of the American corporate world.

The timing of the show can’t be more correct when corporate greed is at an all-time high, and the enormous wealth gap between the working class and the rich and famous is only increasing, as craftily depicted in Succession. What a joyride it is to watch a bunch of spoiled billionaires heckle and jostle their way up for the big chair! This satire on today’s media moguls piggybacks on some serious drama littered with humour and fine witty lines. It’s unlikely that you will relate to the characters, let alone sympathise with the characters and their struggles. It’s gross to watch the greed but it’s also funny to see how they fall. But I guess you get drawn to it, also, because it is all too far from your own life.

The show focuses on the Roy family, owners and promoters of Waystar Royco, a media conglomerate spanning the news, entertainment and cruise industries. They are like the modern-day czars, except for Logan Roy the emperor (Brian Cox) who is no longer in top form. His mind and body seem to be failing him. It's time for him pass on the baton. Looks simple, but it’s not.

Brian Cox, plays to perfection the prickly, sadistic patriarch of the show. The eldest son Kendell Roy (Jeremy Strong)— a blissfully ignorant dreamer with no ambitions of power beyond soaking up his allowance- is the first-in-line-to-the-throne. The show starts by making you uncomfortable when Kendell is as shown nervous, shaky, and faking his father’s customary killer instinct. None of his siblings are any better in handling the succession trauma. Younger brother Roman (Kieran Culkin) hasn’t worked a day in his life, but cracks cocky dialogues; he has the best lines in the series. Sister Siobhan Roy or Shiv (Sarah Snook) - who has ostensibly given up her shot at the throne in exchange for politics - has a Machiavellian relationship going on with fiancé Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen), where she negotiates his place for him at Waystar, and then makes him pull puppet strings to do her bidding.

There is also the black sheep cousin, trying to edge into the family business. There are many supporting characters-none likeable- but all as convincing as the main cast. These are vicious and vindictive people, and all a part of the bigger power play. Still if you want to have your pick as the most ruthless and vile, it has to be Logan Roy. Brian Cox disappears into the role with gusto, aplomb and panache. As a father and the patriarch, Logan seems to enjoy his favourite sport of pitting his children against each other for a throne he doesn’t want to give up.

It’s not hard to see why Succession has earned so many Emmy nominations for its two seasons. Jeremy Strong won the Emmy for Lead Actor in a Drama Series for his dogged but relatable performance as a beaten man who can’t shake his own ambition.

Watch on Disney Hotstar Premium