Decoding the Succession Theme Song Frame by Frame —
Succession’s opening sequence by Nicholas Britell tells the story of the Roy Family in it’s most unadulterated form.
The Succession Theme song is unskippable once you’re hooked to the show. In fact, at one point, it was the theme song that compensated for some of the weaker plot lines and snoozy deliveries. It wheedled me into subscribing to the aesthetic consistency of the show — yes, the music plays a huge role in asethic building because it plays itself in my mind twenty-four seven laying its character eggs in my head like a brain-worm.
The show’s musical signature is its mix of “dark, courtly classical sound” with “oversize hip-hop beats and 808s,” with the latter reflecting the taste of both protagonist Kendall and real-life hip-hop enthusiast Britell. You can read more about the composition, the variations and creativity behind the music, it’s worth it.
But, it’s not just the music that is seductive, it’s also the scintillating montage of old money, rejection and negligence, and depravity that is bare naked in this sequence — not buried under blankets of cover-up jokes and scarves of uneasy sexual tension. It’s quite transparent. It’s a blend of Logan’s character excavation and an answer, in fact, as to why the Roy children are what they are! So I’m going to explore (semantically) what this montage means and how and why it adds so much flavor and fervor to the show
This is the clip I’ll be decoding (for there are different opening sequences ig? But this is the one I’ve seen growing up as a Royco stan)
Shot 1
We see the Roy kids lined up in front of a mansion wearing opulent old-school attire. There’s younger versions of Kendal, Roman, Shiv and Connor, (in that very order). Connor, who is to the very right end, in the very next moment, in the same shot, for a snap-second, is suddenly standing in the far right away from the rest of the kids after a distortion line cuts across the frame. This denotes two things — the kids are rich but enslaved in some way because of the way they are standing encumbered, and one child is alienated from the rest — so he is, in some way, not really ‘family’. The next moment in the same shot is where a younger Shiv is left all alone as she raises her hand helplessly — a severe connotation for longing love, guidance and attention which Shiv is hungry for throughout her adult years on screen. This immediately establishes the patriarchal ambience of the show, and also hints at Shiv’s crippledom at business due to her gender.
Shot 2 and 3
The next two are just locale establishing shots of the Roy mansion — an outdoor scene with bushes of red and yellow and the indoor scenes with a chandelier, lamp, portrait ; signifying the ampleness of Logan’s business.
Shot 4 and 5
Shot 4 is a zapping scene of a printing press but we don’t really see any letters/headlines as such on the papers for not even a second. The papers jut flood rapidly onto each other. I like how this shot is different from shots of ‘printing news’ in other films and Tv-shows. Usually the focus us always on the letters or the content, but here the shot dashes across the screen so fast and so blurred that we get the idea that the ‘news’ is rubbish, blurry, deceptive and the speed, of course, is the capitalistic race-mentality that the show satirizes.
The very next shot is presumably of a younger Logan in his prime. We only see a man in a suit in the same mansion (the stairs establish the consistence and aesthetic of the mansion) — and he is on a higher ground, leaving into a chamber inside, signifying Logan’s superior, distanced and selfish character pedestal. He appears to read this ‘news paper’, which of course is produced by his very own Waystar Royco, but he seems disappointed; as he is throughout the show, thus highlighting the truth about Logan; all his success, fame and grandiloquence never made him content, he was always vitriolic. The shot even zooms in on Logan as he disappears inside the room; establishing the cinematographic choices of Succession — as if the Roys are always under surveillance — but of course in a funny way.
Shot 6, 7 ,8 and 9
The screen zooms onto two young faceless boys, who I presume are Kendal (taller one on the left) and Roman. Kendal’s wearing an ochre suit and Roman a white one — perhaps a reference to the time when Kendal was already corrupted but Roman, as he claims several times in the show, was innocent as a child and was bullied into becoming what he is. So the white is perhaps a symbol of his initial innocence. Child Kendal even seems to mimic Logan in some way, doing a ‘gonna look at my watch’ sort of an action (disoriented and cut through in a second of course, perhaps foreshadowing the skippy drug effect that Kendal’s character is victim to?), followed by a fold of the hands.
The next scene is again, I am assuming of Kendal, as an adolescent, leaving for somewhere important I suppose. He’s wearing shades, as is the boy in the next shot, who appears to be Connor from his underconfident expressions and a rather oblique nose.
In the eight shot, we have a younger Shiv, a great casting I must say. The younger Shiv looks disappointed and mentally strained as she looks up from the ground into the shot. This reminds me of the time when Logan gaslights Shiv into clicking that family picture in season 2. We see Logan’s faceless body standing behind Shiv, keeping his hands on her shoulder. This foreshadows Logan’s constant power over Shiv and Shiv’s inability to free herself of of Logan’s Machiavellianistic grip.
Shot 10 and 11
Now, I’m not sure what mansion this exactly is that they establish in these two shots and in a shot ahead as well, but this is not the childhood house in which the Roy kids grew up; the house that we were introduced to in the second and third shots. Perhaps this is the house which Logan purchased after the children left the nest and he married Marcia? Surprisingly, never in the show has there been a long shot of the house in which Logan lives, like we absolutely do not know how the Roy House looks from the outside.
Shot 12 , 13, 14, and 15
Shot 12 jumps into the current timeline with metropolitan New York in the Frame, sinking with the rising notes of the violin (Ok, I’m not sure what instrument it is, a cello and a double bass if I’m not mistaken— but basically now a collective and deeper chorus of tunes — signifying that now we have entered the world in which the Roy’s live — the public sphere, out of their intra-personal lives) The corporate media scene of New York is established in shot 13 printing press shot. Shot 14, 15 and 16 are again skyscraper captures, hinting at the reach of Waystar Royco’s cut-throat capitalistic decadence.
Shot 16
Now this shot comes when at the descent of the collective chorus music, as if an interval, after which we resume to look at the Roy family up-close in flashbacks again. So it makes sense that this shot is a bridge shot between the modern New York and the childhood days of the Roy kids; but this shot speaks a lot about how Logan is always lost in the past — mesmerized by the glory of his prime era, though it never says it out loud. That vintage-y shot of old New York is perhaps the time and age when Logan established the company and that was the ideal fatherhood role that Logan proudly and carefully played.
Shot 17
This shot takes us back to the old days — we see Shiv as a child playing with a horse/pony. This is interesting because it is a marvelously contradictory shot. On one hand it can be construed as Shiv’s masculine side showing up, considering horses being a symbol of patriarchy; so Shiv petting a horse is not only showing her wealth off (because rich people and horse-riding, you know) — but also hinting that she was always ambitious and wanted to be the ‘man’ like we see in the later years. But on the other hand, young Shiv seems to genuinely care about this horse, considering the low, poignant music and her youthful innocence and the white dress. Shiv keeps reminding us that it was her mother and Logan who f*cked her up — that’s true, so perhaps this is the real Shiv — kind, sensitive and motherly and then what she becomes is her nurture. So what is Shioban’s true nature and real nurture? Perhaps we’ll never know.
Shot 18
This shot is Logan (most probably) stepping out of the pool, water dripping down his pants. Weirdly that’s a very Kendal aesthetic — the time when Kendal almost drowns? For me this shot is just talking about the weight, the pressure and the viscosity that the business exerts on ‘THE’ CEO — ie Logan and Kendal, how it corrupts the person in the chair — and it’s taxing.
Shot 19
Again a shot of the new house that has a swan in the outer lake — or is it a fake plastic swan? I can’t tell. But the swan is surely a deceitful pawn, a faux memento of the ‘peace-loving’ Roy family — how very Logan. And also the way the camera zooms out slowly, unsteadily, it’s as if someone’s spying on them — like there is constant media presence around the house.
Shot 20
After a camera swoosh of blurriness — this shot establishes young Shiv in a plain white dress with a white ribbon in her hair, staring at Logan and most likely Caroline, at a distance. ‘At a distance’ , distance being contextually and metaphysically paramount — I hope the point is clear.
Shot 21 and 22
ATN news — so this is probably a shot that builds the timeline. The next shot we see that the kids are young adults and perhaps at the same time ATN news is on the top, up and running on the big screens in New York City — just like the Roy kids, activated and adult-ed to begin taking the ropes in their hands. So basically the Roy kids and Logan’s golden child Waystar Royco are more or less of the same age, blossoming around the same time.
Shot 23
Logan walking away. Hands behind his back, pensive. A very powerful shot. I love it. Logan Walking Away. Logan wanting solitude, Logan not being communicative, being distant, Logan being an unavailable father, at least to the kids, not to Waystar Royco of course. Logan’s back, sliding farther from us, tells us so much about him than dialogues and narratives. Remember that one scene in Season 2 (or 3) when Logan just walks into the woods, all alone in the evening, at peace? This scene shows how spectacularly self-absorbed Logan Roy is.
Shot 24 and 25
Again, locale shots of New York City and the new mansion. The New York City View from the Waystar Castle has gained poetic recognition in aesthetic culture and pop culture, especially Kendal and Shiv’s reflection shots captured in moments of agony, whilst on the precipice of change.
Shot 26
This is probably Kendal again, same child actor, though the shot seems very ‘Romy’ to me. That shot again flashes the opulence in which the Roy kids were pampered and raised, a private court and tennis luxury. This reminds of the scene in the first episode where Roman bullies a child into running a homerun for a million dollars. Montages like shot 26 are just a deeper dive into the disrespectful and unbothered psyche of the Roy kids, their whole mentality-shaping is exposed.
Shot 27
Another fundamental shot that narrates the story of the Roy Family. What about the mother? The patriarch is surely a monster but usually there is the beauty to balance out the beast — well, we both know that neither Caroline nor Marcia were innocent. This is probably a younger Caroline or maybe Connor’s mother, who is, as you would suspect, a disappointed wife — basking in luxury while her husband walks away from her; again — thus the divorces. Now weather Logan has become bitter because women only married him for his money or if he was always bitter and women left him because of his horrible nature (option 2 is more likely) will be a mystery. But this one shot zooms in on the marital life of Logan Roy, so subtle, yet speaks volumes.
Shot 28
Again a little dubious as to what this really is. Maybe these are metallic puzzle-like structures signifying the esoteric character building, the metallic, materialistic, un-artistic lives of the characters? Or maybe it’s hinting at the ‘trap’. Everyone on Succession is trapped in the race, they are stuck on this wheel like a caged guinea pig — unable to free themselves of the burdens that the business, ‘big dick competition’, and the corruption lays on them. Only Roman in the end is free of all of it — only he escapes the cage. This a symbolism for that maybe?
Shot 29
This is the first shot where we see another face (well on Tv technically) that is not a Roy character. Again our timeline has jumped into modern day age with an ATN news anchor mutedly narrating news. Funny, the news reads, “Gender fluid Illegals may be entering the country twice” . This is no doubt a very sexist, queerphobic news to broadcast. Throughout Succession, we observe the Roys, especially Logan and Roman, trying very hard to keep themselves as non-racist, non-queerphobic and misogynistic as possible, but failing miserably. Deep down they are cold-hearted bigots with a white-man supremacy complex — and for once, their true colors are put up on screen by ATN.
Shot 30
In the next shot, there is smoke that clouds the screen and thus the tower ranging behind, most likely Waystar Royco office. The smoke means a lot to me. There’s fire — obviously the corruption and savagery that the Roys have perpetuated and then comes the smoke, the consequences of their terrible, terrible lifestyle choices, ultimately smothering and throttling them; the sins of the father (and their own sins in fact) — the symbolic end to the spark that once started the fire.
Shot 31
Logan simply doing the ‘No deal’, ‘Kill em!’ action with his hands. This is perhaps semantically the most brilliant shot. We never see Logan’s head when he cuts this ‘deal’. The meaning and feel is clear — Logan’s not human, he’s a faceless ghost, a machine deprived of all human sensibilities. With the gold ring, the amber coloring and the champagne glasses — Logan seems like the ultimate patriarch/media mogul. Interestingly the slow music also ends here, as if obeying Logan’s command to blow the deal up and it heads back on track with the original melody coming in.
Shot 32
This shot sinks with the music fabulously. The kids are riding an elephant; another semiotic relic of wealth and might — but the motion of the elephant’s ups and downs collides and merges with the strings of the piano, aligning the visuals with the audio for a final theme crescendo.
Shot 33 and 34
Filler shots of the mis-en-scene, a final contrast between the far elite spectrum in which the Royco empire thrives mercilessly against the smoky- lower middle class streets of new York — the ultimate symbol of the gap between the rich and the poor.
Shot 35 and 36
My favourite shot — the shot that induces horripilation; the grand culmination of Logan Roy’s Tv show “Succession”. We see a younger Logan sitting at the head of the table, his back facing us — but that’s a trick. It gives the illusion that we ‘are’ Logan, or at least a part of us always wants to be. We see the show through Logan’s perspective and the story was, is and always will be, Logan’s. It’s Logan that has built the empire and he probably must be wondering, ‘what the hell are these losers even talking about?’ Or maybe something deep, bitter and cruel.
But the shot that follows, which isn’t added in this version, is of an older Logan, bald and grey hair with a saline, sitting at the table again, lost in his own thoughts as the others chitter-chatter, probably thinking where life has gotten him — there we feel the pity. Succession is a lot about pity, and I think the old Logan shot establishes the ‘pity’ of his character, oh how he has won and miserably lost at the game of life.
The Final Shot
Logan walks away, leaving his kids alone. As if he was only there with them to click a photo for the press and left as soon as the paparazzi took off. The children are left alone, the camera showing us their socks and shoes; signifying the cage of discipline, tyranny and desolation that they are succumbing to. We only see the Roy kid’s shoes and socks, their monotonous feet covered in polished footwear — but what of their faces? Their identities? Their emotions? It simply doesn’t matter. They’re all alone, broken, intoxicated and bleeding — begging for a band aid of paternal love, that the patriarch cannot — no I’m sorry — will not offer.
