not here, i don't think

on succession & dying over the phone

“‘Connor’s Wedding’?!… they didn’t even try to get clever with it.” these are real words i said before we pressed “play” on last night’s Succession, because i am the stupidest, naivest person in the whole entire world.

i didn’t plan on writing anything about Connor’s Wedding (congrats buddy!!!) because i figured sharper and more insightful writers would undoubtedly do it better. but then my roommate generously pointed out i have (unintentionally) carved out a sort of niche writing about “tv and death” and i thought, yeah actually, those are like my top two favorite things to talk about. and this isn’t even my real job or anything so if i do a bad job it literally doesn’t even matter at all! thank u roomie!

last night’s episode tackled one of the most traumatic, sanity-rending things that can ever happen to a human being: getting bad news over the phone. unlike the death of a parent, there is no limit to how many times this specific chaos can strike in a lifetime. if you’ve ever had the displeasure, you’re all too familiar with last night’s excruciating accuracy that unfolded in real time — an off-the-cuff greeting that turns out to be wildly inappropriate; the fumbling transitions in and out of speakerphone; logorrhea that jerks between desperation and unintentional cruelty; continuing to talk after you don’t realize you’ve hung up; the stomach-drop panic of “did i say i loved them?”; the sickening stone that sets in when you realize the uncertainty will haunt you forever.

i have, thankfully, yet to lose a parent. and mine aren’t even abusive rightwing media moguls. i love them a lot, so when that day comes it’s going to be horrible and i do not like to think about it. but it’s impossible not to. i have long been fixated on this far-off, unimaginable future horror — whether it’s some side effect of former only child syndrome, stubbornly undiagnosed depression/anxiety, or, as a wise man once said:

quick 9/11 detour (my third favorite thing to talk about): my dad works in midtown, so wouldn’t have been in real physical danger anyway, but was thankfully off that day. he spent the morning in our yard, bringing out water and chatting with the guy fixing our septic. a third guy drove down the hill, stopped, rolled down his window — it’s a small town, but not “strangers stop to yell the news at you” small — and said, “did you guys hear what happened in the city?!”

my dad said “no.” the septic guy said “yeah.”

they had been talking for HOURS. while LITERAL 9/11 HAPPENED ~30 MILES AWAY. AND THIS GUY DIDN’T BRING IT UP ONCE.

that’s the level of chill i aspire to have about the inevitability of death. what’s his secret?!?!! also, how did he even know?! not a lot of people had cell phones yet!! my working theory is he was a time traveler that has relived that day thousands of times and honestly can’t be bothered to react anymore. although if that’s true he’s a pretty shitty time traveler since it keeps happening.

anyway. losing a parent is horrible, especially if you love and like them, but even if it’s only the first one, or even if it’s neither. the Roy children (at least the eldest two </3) instinctively say that they love their father, that he was a good father, that everything’s okay. i think they do love their father, but in the way that one is supposed to, and nothing more. their other passions for him — their rabid craving for his respect, their oedipal desire to become him — are something else entirely.

it was incredible to watch an entire cast so expertly walk the tightrope between what you Want To Do (cry, scream, demand to speak with “The Best Airplane Medical Expert In The World”) and the desperate performance of what you’re Supposed To Do (draft a statement, continue chest compressions on someone who’s definitely dead, tell a horrible parent you love them even if they can’t hear it and you don’t mean it). for people who have spent their entire lives peacocking about how ready they are to replace their father, it’s amazing how quickly the remaining Roys devolve into children: particularly Roman, who surfs four of the five stages of grief with actual jaw-dropping talent. the moment staying with me the most: his physical recoiling from the reality of his goodbye, handing the phone to his big brother, begging him to say “it’s okay,” ostensibly to soothe their Schrodinger’s dad because Roman can’t ask for comfort himself. Kendall delivers, and easily navigates the crisis best of the three, which does nothing but make me fear for his life. (all i have to say about Shiv’s “daddy” can be summarized thusly.)

another thing the show nailed about phone delivery of disaster: the necessary preamble to the big reveal. when my grandfather took the fall that began the long process of his death, my mother called me at work. i don’t think i answered the first time. whenever we finally connected, she tried to detail what had happened — a tricky thing to do while processing her own father’s mortality; the temporality of her recap skittering around the thing she couldn’t bring herself to say.

“oh god, mom, what are you telling me?” i finally interrupted, vaguely registering that my voice sounded insane. “is he dead?”

he wasn’t yet, but “is he dead” is not something you typically overhear during a standard conversation. my officemate abruptly ended what was probably an important phone call of their own. i said something along the lines of “it’s my grandpa. it’s fine, he’s old. it’s not fine, i don’t know why i said that. he fell. i think i have to go.” 

my grandfather and i were not even particularly close. i loved and respected him, but this was not the quasi-parental death it is for a lot of people. (i shocked myself by breaking down doing a reading at his funeral — mostly because i was hungover. afterwards, his friend hugged me and told me “i knew you had a little italian in you.” she meant it very kindly and it remains the single meanest thing anyone has ever said to me.) still, to watch your parents lose theirs creates a very specific type of impostor syndrome. i found out he was gone before my mother did (via TEXT, no less), which has never sat right with me. even in normal, non-billionaire families, there’s a sort of hierarchy to grief. information becomes a very specific kind of currency. it’s devastating to watch Connor Roy reach the pinnacle of his fate as a human afterthought. (i can’t decide which is more tragic, his complete eschewal from the phone call or Shiv’s “are you just being nice to me?”) it was an unpleasant reminder of the unintentional usurping i’d committed that day, by finding out first. 

but that’s what a death in the family does: it turns everything on its head; it throws you all into a bizarre little play where you switch parts and nobody knows their lines. i think a lot of us don’t realize our parents are somebody’s children until we watch them become orphans. right after my first grandfather died, my dad found an old photo of his father kissing his mother on the cheek. i’ll never forget the physical crumbling, the “oh, Dad” that broke from his throat, the bewildering three-kids-in-a-trenchcoat sensation of attempting to give comfort you cannot possibly provide. you are a child, they want a parent, they don’t have one anymore, and one day this will happen to you. it’s a rehearsal for something you never want to be cast in. you’re the understudy for both the grieving and the deceased. (can i make a fourth theatre-related metaphor? i get why everyone processes death through fucked up little plays.)

most people will never give or receive terrible news via frantic phone call from a private jet (i didn’t even know you could get cell service on those). but almost everyone will eventually find themselves on one end of that call. equally as compelling as the kids’ reactions are the people trying to hold it together on the plane. for one thing, it’s incredibly funny to watch a group of people physically incapable of delivering bad news try to convey the worst possible information. (it does feel like karmic justice for making Greg crush Kerry’s dreams.) they manage to combine cartoonish evasiveness with surprisingly moving empathy, from Tom’s heartbreaking little shoulder-droop when Roman says the lack of breath or a heartbeat “doesn’t mean he’s dead, medically speaking” to Frank’s “he’s flying the plane, son.”

frank was the emotional pilot on that plane. he’s the only one keeping his shit together without going full sociopath (no shade to Karolina — “I’m being respectful” — complete inhumanity is obviously a job requirement here). it’s Frank who ensures the kids get to speak to Logan, and Frank who indulges Kerry’s manic-catatonic offer to help while ensuring she stays out of the way (Zoe Winters finally getting to show off how funny she is; you absolutely love to see it!). he’s almost certainly going to get absolutely destroyed in the coming weeks, but for now: thnks fr th mmrs, Frank!!!!

a few weeks back, Logan confided in Colin (most important upcoming board vote: HIS SEVERANCE PACKAGE!!!) that he’s not sure what happens when we die, but he has his “fucking suspicions.” i’m not remotely certain enough to call what i think “suspicions,” but then again, i have way fewer reasons to feel guilty than that guy. and i’m catholish!

when the actual Rupert Murdoch dies, i will not mourn him. the world will be materially better without him. i’m glad he called off his engagement, not because i don’t support that girlboss robbing him blind, but because i don’t think he deserves even a morsel more of happiness. don’t know anything about his stupid kids and i won’t learn. and YET!!!!! i wept watching this happen to their fictional equivalents. it made me feel like i was rediscovering the concept of fiction for the first time. i think i understand how my parents must have felt watching the Sopranos finale live — i didn’t even know you could DO stuff like that!!! the world might be much better without people like this, but television would be worse!!

i love how death is an endless creative well. it is so genius that this show managed to make the demise of an ancient, ailing man who regularly does long-haul international travel so shocking. it nails how funny and fascinating it is that the one tragedy guaranteed to happen to everyone is the same one nobody’s figured out how to handle. death today is exactly as emotionally catastrophic as it was for the first human to gain consciousness. nobody knows what happens when we die and i hope we never learn. if you ask me where we all go when it’s done, the only thing i can do with any certainty is echo Tom the first time his voice breaks: not here, i don’t think.