Connor Roy is the real heart of the succession

key to Succession He’s been staring you in the face for four seasons and has been played as comic relief. He’s the neglected son of Connor Roy, flawlessly played by Alan Ruck.

Connor is often ignored by the rest of the family. His father and half-siblings seem to view him as an irrevocable idiot. But the main theme of Succession It manifests itself in his character: he is the eldest son, and he has nothing to do with it. He even has to remind his half-siblings about it he – Not Kendall – He is the eldest son in the Season 3 finale.

spoilers for Succession Season 4 below

However, Connor is not in the running to replace his father, Logan Roy. It is not charged with anything important. His mother was shipped off to the “Funny Farm” and Logan remarried. In the first season, when the siblings gather at the boathouse before Shiv’s wedding, he is not invited. In the last episode – his wedding – his father skips the ceremony, only to die on a plane. His half-brothers don’t think to persuade him to say goodbye to his father until, presumably, after Logan’s death.

They don’t think about it at all for 15 minutes. at his wedding.

“Man,” Connor says. “He never loved me.”

When Connor gets the news, Ruck’s portrayal is heartbreaking. He’s in the middle of melting down about his wedding cake because it’s made of the same type of sponge cake he ate for a week after his mother was institutionalized. In Season 1’s “Sad Sack Wasp Trap”, Connor panics that Butters was in the wrong during the Roy Endowment Creative New York charity gala. The call to Connor’s micromanagement of an event suggests something about his past, something terrible. He learned this management style from someone, and it wasn’t Logan.

See also  Darlene Love's shows sell out after Mariah Carey calls the Queen of Christmas

When Schiff and Kendall make Connor forget about the cake for a few minutes, Schiff says, “They think he’s dead.” And Connor stares straight at her, seemingly unemotional: “Well, right?”

They don’t know, Kendall says, but Logan is undergoing a cardiac arrest. “Man,” Connor says. “He never loved me.”

He then immediately begins calming his distraught younger siblings, swallowing his feelings. “You know what, I’m sorry,” he told Kendall. “He did. He did.”

Of all the kids, Connor seems to be the one who realizes that staying in his father’s orbit is a trap. But Connor is also what the rest of the royal family fears becoming. It’s a warning sign to his younger siblings: if they slip out of Logan’s orbit, they’ll be disengaged and unlovable. After all, if Connor wasn’t set aside, they wouldn’t be vying for Logan’s attention at all.

“The good thing about having a family that doesn’t love you is that you learn to live without them.”

In the first season, Connor’s ranch in New Mexico, Austerlitz, is Preparation for trying family therapy. This attempt is more of a PR stunt than an actual recovery, much to Connor’s disappointment because, unlike his siblings and his father, Do You want a real family. The family business, in which Shiv, Kendall and Roman try to tear each other apart in order to succeed their father, has scarred the relationship beyond repair.

Previous seasons focused on the other siblings. The first season is primarily about Kendall. The second is a chef. The third is Roman. Connor is arguably on his date — and his rehearsal dinner and wedding provide the backdrop for two of the show’s most dramatic episodes to date.

See also  President Volodymyr Zelensky appears at the Grammys

Earlier in the season, Connor’s siblings skipped the rehearsal dinner to plot against their father. They catch bride-to-be Willa running out and make a belated attempt to console Connor by taking him to karaoke. And though Connor, after singing Leonard Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat,” said his superpower doesn’t need love — “the good thing about having a family that doesn’t love you is you learn to live without them” — he also took the young siblings hunting when they didn’t. Logan goes. Maybe Connor is telling himself that he doesn’t need love because he doesn’t think he’ll ever get it.

The sibling-related karaoke moment is certainly overshadowed by Logan’s arrival.

throughout Succession, Ruck’s portrayal of an older outcast was exceptional. Sure, Connor is there mostly for the jokes — his presidential campaign provides most of it — but even through the jokes, Ruck manages to convey pathos. The shift from his heartfelt reaction to Logan’s death to comforting his younger brothers tells you exactly about Connor: more absurd than the other three but also more human. Kinder.

It took a brilliant actor to make it happen. I’d like to see what else Ruck can do.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *