Emmy Episodes: Succession

It’s always my policy to watch every Emmy-nominated episode each year, which leads me to sample a handful of shows that I don’t tune in to on a regular basis. For the fourth year in a row, I’m making a special effort to spotlight each of those installments to offer my perspective on shows that I don’t review each week.

Succession: Season 1, Episode 9 “Pre-Nuptial” (B)

The run-up to this wedding is getting truly intriguing and captivating in the fifth of this show’s six submitted installments for Best Drama Series. It’s astonishing just how little respect anyone is paying to the fact that this is Shiv’s wedding and should be all about her. Gil was furious at her for her father’s last-minute decision to come to the wedding, and he just wanted her to get dirt on Logan from Tom, which hardly felt appropriate as they were spending precious time together just before committing to each other for the rest of their lives. The maturity and name-calling demonstrated by both Gil and Logan was absurd, and it’s good to know that everyone on this show – regardless of their affiliations – is just as eager to get down in the mud and fight dirty when an opportunity presents itself. Kendall was far too chatty regarding his secret news, and asking Frank questions was a bad idea even if he thinks he didn’t say anything bad. Tom meeting Nate while Shiv met Tabitha was humorous and worrisome at the same time, and I was so excited to recognize Tabitha as the always excellent Caitlin Fitzgerald from “Masters of Sex” and “Rectify.” Roman asked her to marry him in an extremely unenthusiastic and unromantic way, but he sees it much more as a business arrangement while she too appreciates it as that, something that she doesn’t really want because it doesn’t offer her all that much freedom. Logan’s ex-wife can go toe-to-toe with the Roys, asking everyone at the wedding how long they give it, but the more surprising sinister snark in this hour came from an unexpected source: Marcia, who is so fiercely loyal to her husband that she didn’t hesitate to call her stepdaughter a spoiled slut.