'Succession' appreciation: Brilliant acting, glorious writing, flawless characters

"Succession" must end Sunday because what else is left to say that's already been said so hilariously, so brutally, these past four seasons? Few — in fact, make that no TV series has so thoroughly disemboweled 21st century media empires and the transactional TV news networks that feed them. To say anything more would be redundant, or overkill. 

And so this great series with the seditious heart and anarchic soul must come to an end. On one obvious level, "Succession" has been a dark, dystopic bird's- eye view of our present, divided moment, just like so many other celebrated dystopic TV series of recent years. In "Succession"-world, Waystar Royco has created a moral vacuum in America so profound that the forces of disruption (or of demagogues) have no choice but to rush in. That's what has made this series so thrilling, alarming, and (yes) prophetic too at times.

But what's made it so watchable is something else altogether.

 Back in 2018, a talented English TV writer named Jesse Armstrong got together with the boldface names behind Funny or Die's TV production arm, Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, to create a series about Fox News. The idea was to base this on a fictional family that would vaguely mirror the real life Murdochs who run 21st Century Fox, while avoiding the pitfalls have typically scuttled satires about the media (too insidery, too obtuse). Armstrong accomplished that with a plausible storyline and real world vibe which had a beginning, middle and (this Sunday) end.

He then assembled an extended cast, magnificent for the most part, that defied viewers not to watch. 

In patriarch Logan Roy, Brian Cox created someone so indelible, with a center of gravity so powerful, that when he died abruptly just four episodes in this last season, it was as if "Succession" had collapsed in upon itself. 

Where would "Succession' go from there? Where it had always gone, of course: Back to the family, and family dynamics, and to those four tormented siblings whose lives and identities had been so utterly pretzel-twisted by Logan. In those family interactions, in their bitterness, plotting, backstabbing and filial love that the four leads poured so completely into their characters, "Succession" magically morphed into that "something else." 

No longer "dystopic," "Succession" was suddenly familiar and intimate because "Succession" was suddenly us. Those were our insecurities, our petty jealousies and deeply buried resentments. As a viewer, one could always feel superior to Kendall or Roman — the distinct schadenfreude pleasure of "Succession" — until reminded that one wasn't all that different from them after all. 

When Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook), and poor, utterly destroyed Roman (Kieran Culkin) ascended to the lectern at Logan's funeral in last Sunday's "Church and State," they were no longer mere characters in a TV show but real people stripped down to their bare essentials. We recognized them, better still knew them. They were human beings, and now, on the eve of their final scene this Sunday, they were also — we can all grudgingly admit — even lovable.

HBO didn't offer the finale for review, but it seems safe to assume someone will "succeed," and safer to assume the "succession" of the title will hint at a more expansive, or ominous meaning. This hilarious postmodern satire really did have a serious message that it desperately wanted to convey: Our institutions have failed us, and Big Money has corrupted them. The revolutionary in "Succession" wants us to believe, as Sam Cooke once did, that a change is gonna come, or has to come. The center no longer holds. The beast has been set loose and it's not slouching, but sprinting. 

That's the bleak, dystopic "Succession." But the one we've come to cherish these past four seasons is that other more relatable show — the one with the peerless craftsmanship, brilliant acting, glorious writing and flawless characters. The secret to "Succession" success is really, after all, quite simple. It's about the love.