Bloody HELL!

Succession is actually a farce, not a drama-and just one example of how the British comedy invasion is being televised

- Piya Sinha-Roy

LIFE IS COMEDY for the rich and tragedy for the poor, according to the old adage. But some storytellers would rather not choose between the two. See, for instance, everyone’s favorite (or favourite, if you will) HBO hit, Succession. Though the show’s a two-time winner of the outstanding-drama-series Emmy, it isn’t just about backstabbing and maneuvering. The show’s focus on the inanity of billionaire life is what makes it tick—and makes clear that at its heart, Succession is really more of a farce.

Need proof? Season four of Succession kicked off with a premiere that was more joke-filled than a Saturday Night Live sketch. While the Roy kids engaged once again in a witty tête- à-tête as they orchestrated yet another coup against their father, who really should have disowned them far earlier, Tom Wambsgans loosed a takedown of Greg’s date that would have made even Joan Rivers clutch her pearls and left us reveling in his savagery.

If Succession were truly an American drama—the sort of post-Sopranos show we used to call “prestige TV”—its writers may have felt obliged to craft a plotline involving Greg’s date using her “ludicrously capacious” bag to smuggle confidential Waystar Royco information and jeopardize the PGM deal. Instead, creator Jesse Armstrong (a Brit) and his cadre of British and American writers allowed her and her accessory to exist purely as vehicles for jokes—an enormous faux pas that Tom eviscerates with a flourish. Burberry totes may never recover.