As an academic that specializes in American television and as a living person with relatively alright taste, I love HBO’s very specific genre shows. I love their hyper-violent period dramas, I love their over-sexed fantasy series, and I especially love their dysfunctional family genre, specifically the subgenre of “Family of Broken Human Beings Held Together by a Business”. The two best (and arguably only) entries in this esteemed category are Six Feet Under (2001-2005) and Succession (2018-present). Having binge watched both series over the pandemic and having spent way too much time thinking of anything besides my dissertation, I realized these shows have a very oddly specific formula. Not only that, but despite being so weirdly similar, they manage to explore very distinct and different ideas about money, family, and loyalty. Intrigued by how these two shows, made 20 years apart by different people and set on opposite sides of the country and business-owning classes, could be so similar and effective, I broke down each weirdly specific element they share and compared how they function within the narratives. Below, I present my findings/fruit of my procrastination:
First: Everyone Is a Morally Grey Character Real Enough to Both Hate and Empathize With
Nothing is more boring or alienating in a story than a character who lacks flaws, and luckily neither Six Feet Under or Succession have any players that even come close to having their lives together. Everyone on screen is such a well-crafted mix of deep imperfections and a near total lack of self awareness that their mistakes are both frustrating and somewhat heartbreaking, and their growth (when it finally occurs) actually means something. Even by Six Feet Under’s end, the Fishers were still a largely dysfunctional group of people, but the ending felt satisfying because it was preceded by five seasons of uncomfortable situations, selfish decisions, and multiple instances of corpse abuse that molded them into better, yet still imperfect, humans.
Use Daddy Issues as a Base
Freud was, in a roundabout way, right — we love some daddy issues. Whether he’s a sociopathic billionaire playing you and your siblings against each other for his own amusement and ego, or a distant, mysterious working man who just tried his best, at the end of the day we all just want papa’s approval. It only goes to figure you’d want double that approval when daddy is also your boss, and especially when his passing potentially leaves you in control of his life’s work and legacy. This is the main tension of Succession, as in the Roy family business and love are interchangeable and the ultimate show of dad’s love and approval comes from him trusting you enough to be the chief executive. In Six Feet Under, Nate, David, and Claire’s grief emphasizes the tragedy of never being able to truly know your parents as people and how much you really lose, and what you realize about yourself, only after they’re gone. In Succession, the drama comes from watching how desperate the Roy children are for their father’s approval, to the point where they don’t realize — or care — when he manipulates them like chess pieces. Their maturity is stunted by the love they never received, and maybe you’d even feel bad for them if their chief defense mechanism wasn’t being such an asshole.
Mommy Dearest
Moreso in Six Feet Under but a present enough entity in Succession, we have the lesser-explored but equally compelling mommy issues. Ruth Fisher (Frances Conroy) is one of the show’s more interesting characters, having been forced into marriage and motherhood by an unexpected pregnancy at 19. Despite her age she is strangely innocent and childlike, meek to the point of being annoying until she is pushed to her limit. Her relationship with her children is strained, as they swing back and forth between seeing her as an eccentric yet boring oddity to put up with and a strong woman trapped by her own demons and past mistakes. Her arc throughout the show follows her struggle to move on from her role as a caregiver, reclaim her life for herself, and not dedicate it to the men and children in her life. In almost an exact inverse, the two mother characters in Succession, Lady Caroline Collingwood (Harriet Walter) and Marcia Roy (Hiam Abbass), are both somewhat cold and calculated in their approach to mothering. Caroline frequently plays with her children’s emotions for her own entertainment, playing the caring mother when it suits (such as when Logan offers to reconsider the divorce settlement) and running away when it does not (like when Kendall wanted to tell her about his car accident). Marcia is seen to be much more nurturing with her biological son, but her relationship to her step-children is incredibly strained to the point of exchanging veiled (and sometimes explicit!) insults at pretty much every opportunity. Still, their distaste for each other is always coated with the veneer of upper-class social graces that keeps anyone from ever really saying what they mean and sticking by it.
Fuck-Up Elder, Idiot Son Trying His Best (and Constantly Failing)
We love a sad boy with misplaced confidence who tries his best but can never succeed, and Nate Fisher (Peter Krause) and Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) are perhaps two of the most effective characters within this trope. Both are trapped by their own idealism and egos, so focused on themselves that they rarely take the time to contemplate the damage that has been done to them or the harm they do to others until it’s too late. They are both loving yet awkward in their roles as fathers and partners, both have drug problems, and both often pin happiness on constantly changing targets — whether that be a job, a woman, or an ideology. In his defense, Nate is much quicker to accept his faults and attempt to do the right thing, even if those aspirations are themselves too lofty and tend to blow up in his face, whereas Kendall evades ultimate responsibility for his actions while still lingering in their depressive after effects. Their sense of personal responsibility to their family and desire for approval often clashes with their ever-changing goals, making them both frustrating and endearing, like a puppy that pees on the kitchen tile because they haven’t learned their lesson, only not to do it in the center of the carpet.
Middle Son With a Complicated Relationship to His Sexuality Who Is Eager to Prove His Worth
Ah, the middle child. Not the heir, not the baby, but just there, quietly desperate for some attention. Both David (Michael C. Hall) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) are characterized by what they believe to be their cool indifference to their parents’ affection (it is neither cool nor indifferent) and a desire to prove themselves beyond their role as the spare. David is particularly haunted by his father’s opinion, as he dies before David can come out as a gay man and prove himself as a competent business and family man. He distances himself emotionally, but this aloofness shields his deeply sensitive nature. Similarly, Roman hides behind a cruel sense of humor and false persona to hide his own insecurities. At work, he tries to make deals on his own, yet consistently fails to gain his father’s approval. He maintains relationships with women, but is rarely interested in sex. Instead, he is more comfortable with intimate yet somewhat sexless relationships (until he gets into whatever the hell he’s doing now). Both men strive for more responsibility, more recognition, but are, deep down, loyal to their siblings — especially their older brothers.
Selfish Youngest Daughter With Liberal Tendencies and Questionable Taste in Men Caught Between Family Duty and Independence
The bratty little sister, most beloved of family drama tropes. There’s something so grating yet endearing about their self-centeredness and sense of victimhood. In a family-centered drama, these characters are worth their weight in contradictory gold — they’re fiercely independent while still relying on their family’s support, rejecting involvement in the business in favor of other career pursuits (Claire as an art student, Shiv as a political consultant) until it serves them (Claire’s photography, Logan offering Shiv the CEO position). Their personal lives are an absolute mess. They are, at multiple points in the series, the most sensible members of their families and the most frustratingly selfish. However, Claire (Lauren Ambrose) at least has the excuse of being 17 when the show begins, and by the time the show ends she’s matured into a much more empathetic and open person. Shiv (Sarah Snook) is pushing mid-30s and still acts like a smug teenager around her family, like the cousin at Christmas who thinks they’re smarter than everyone else there because they listen to niche bad music and briefly scanned Ayn Rand’s Wikipedia page.
Employee Who Is Overly Involved in Boss’s Family’s Life
Capitalism truly is a disease. There is no reason these two employees need to be this involved in their boss’s personal lives, but bills aren’t going to pay themselves. To be fair though, if your whole livelihood was in the hands of a bunch of clowns, you too may get overly involved in their masturbation habits so long as it keeps the tiny car with all your money in it from crashing and burning. In your prestige television family business drama, the relationship between the family and their employees is necessary for the analysis of power dynamics that make these shows so fascinating. Are you loyal to your boss out of love or money? Both? Can you ever be true friends with the person who controls your income? How do class and wealth factor into concepts of loyalty, and who are you more loyal to — the people or the business? Is Gerri (J. Smith-Cameron) just using Roman, or is she really into this mommy kink thing?
Business Troubles
What’s the point of even giving the family a business to run if you’re not going to use it to heighten the drama? It’s pretty rich for metaphor, too, as the issues with the business often reflect larger problems within the family. In Six Feet Under, the conflict between the Fishers’ small, traditional funeral business and the much larger corporate Kroehner underscores the Fishers’ lingering loyalty to their father’s memory and the pressure to move on. In Succession, the second episode reveal that Kendall just inherited Waystar’s secret debt — debt
accrued in secret by his father — foreshadows the extent of influence Logan has over his children: he both is the source of their wins and the cause of their losses, peaking and crashing like a Wall-Street stock.
Heart?
I watched all of Six Feet Under during the first few lockdowns in the United Kingdom. Seems weird that a show that begins almost every episode with someone’s death could provide comfort during a global, deadly pandemic, but stranger things have happened. I credit all the ways Six Feet Under portrays death — as something serious, something silly, as something that is expected or surprising or beautiful or ugly or a strange mix of all six. Grief is complex, hardly linear, and makes ordinary people do strange things to cope. I think my favorite part of the show, though, is how it embraces its sentimentality and goofy tone, embracing a style that drives home how life is chaotic, emotional, and messy, and then you die.
Succession is less whimsical than Six Feet Under, and a person’s empathy can only extend so far for a family of snobbish, entitled billionaires. Yet, there are moments where their masks drop and you see just how much a life of emotional neglect, unchecked greed, and class-enforced elitism has deeply damaged these people’s ability to be happy or connect with another person. They’re so depraved yet so debilitatingly sad and desperate that your disgust morphs with pity in such an effective way that you catch yourself feeling bad for these monsters, because they’re actually just broken losers. Season two had me feeling bad for Tom (Matthew Macfayden) for fuck’s sake.
In Conclusion
Look, if a formula works, it works. At the end of its five season run, Six Feet Under had won nine Primetime Emmys and its last episode is often cited as one of the best seriesfinales of all time. Succession, despite only being two seasons into its run, has also won nine Emmys and BAFTA for Best International Series. While I’ve spent this article playfully mocking their strange synchronicities, I can’t argue with success or with quality. Both Succession and Six Feet Under (well, at least the first few seasons) are prime examples of the creativity, depth, and artistry of television’s Platinum Age. These programmes’ terrifying ability to capture the subtle complexities of familial relationships while simultaneously plunging you directly back into your own flavour of childhood trauma is both beautifully and frighteningly effective. Like any dysfunctional upbringing, both the Fishers and the Roys linger in your mind, encouraging you to examine your own ideas regarding the definition, the expectations, and the limitations of family.
