Do the Roys Love Each Other?
“I just adored every second playing the weird and wonderful human grease stain that is Tom Wambsgans,” said Matthew Macfadyfen as he took the Golden Globe for Male Supporting Actor TV category.
For those who didn’t watch Succession, the joke is a jab at his character and funny because it brilliantly captures the essence of Tom, as well as every other character in the show. It’s not an easy show to watch because it’s about a family who consistently back stabs each other in their efforts to gain power and although the story takes place in the very unrelatable space of the ultra rich, it somehow reaches the depths of many of our souls. Because, as it turns out, we resonate with being weird, wonderful, human, and when we are honest with ourselves, grease stains.
Succession is a terrible show because it is so hard to watch–it doesn’t feel good, you hate every character for the shitty things they do to each other. And it is an incredible show and critically acclaimed and keeps winning awards because it’s such a profound portrayal of our humanity.
Brian Cox, the actor who plays the patriarch of the family, Logan Roy, said in an interview once, that Logan loves his kids. I was halfway through watching the show when I saw that interview and I puffed in disbelief, because Logan is a horrible father who manipulates his kids, and even knowing the back story of his trauma doesn’t absolve him of his parental responsibilities. Hurt people hurt people, but they shouldn’t. After seeing that interview clip, I continued watching the show, paying particular attention to the way Logan treats his children and my opinion continued to stand. There is no way Logan loves his kids, he is too mean, manipulative, and even abusive towards them.
In the interview, Brian Cox had said, “I wouldn’t have agreed to take the role if I hadn’t been 100% convinced that Logan loves his kids.”
Succession is a show about family trauma, and how it gets passed on from one generation to the next. Logan Roy was abused, this was hinted briefly during a scene where his back was full of scars from his uncle’s physical abuse. Even if it doesn’t excuse his behavior, it does explain why he is incapable of loving his children in a healthy manner. From a trauma informed lens, it also explains why the Roy siblings are so terribly broken, why they are constantly and consistently hurting one another.
Tom, that human grease stain, says to Shiv Roy, in that infamous balcony scene, “I think you are incapable of love.”
This actually isn’t a review of Succession, this is still my substack, my review of my own life. The way this show hits is that I have spent much of my life believing that if you love someone, you treat them lovingly, and vice versa. But along with deconstructing my faith, I have also disrupted the binaries that propped up the way I viewed life. That perhaps, things aren’t as simple as we wish they were.
All I know is that everyone in my life has hurt me. Every single person, even and perhaps especially the ones closest to me. I fully take my own responsibility in this, in that I am a highly sensitive person and easily hurt. But that doesn’t make it untrue. If it is true that love never hurts then it must mean that no one in my life loves me, and fortunately, I am not broken enough to believe that.
But if I were to admit that even if you love someone, you can hurt them, it means I might have to forgive those who hurt me because they do, indeed, love me. And it also means, and this is the hardest, that I can hurt the people I love. I hate this. I hate this so much it has made me hold on to fundamentalism, the black and white, the love could never hurt trope.
The Roys are not a role model, not by a long shot. Love should never feel or look like abuse. I don’t want to gaslight anyone who is being abused. But what I am slowly and begrudgingly coming to believe, is that it is possible to love someone and to be a complete asshole to them at the same time. I don’t know how it is possible, but I do know that it is.
And there’s about 1.95 percent of me that thinks maybe the Roys do love each other.
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