Mountains of Doom and Eternal Blessings

I’m struggling to articulate the links running between Succession and the Patriarchal Narratives. They’re there. Yes, they’re there. Yet, in enumerating them, I bobble between overarching yet surface-level similarities like they’re both about succession and specific similarities that are incidental. An example of the latter is Esau’s tantrum over Jacob’s stealing of Isaac’s blessing being eerily similar to Kendall’s meltdown in one of Succession’s final scenes; Kendall realizes his sister Siobhan is planning to steal his patrilineal birthright cast the deciding vote against him taking over their family’s media empire. You almost hear Esau whining—with hopeless hope— “Do you have but one blessing, my father? Bless me, too, Father.” (Genesis 27:38) when Kendall pleads with Waystar Royco’s Board to deny the finality of the vote against him. And yet, Kendall’s pleading with the Board was improvised.

Perhaps Judah and Tom Wambsgans are bedfellows. They both have complicated relationships with father-like figures whose approval giveth and taketh away from their self-worth. Judah feels the dejection of his father’s partiality toward his half-brother Joseph; one of the first verses of Joseph’s story (which encapsulates Judah’s story) says of Joseph’s brothers, “And his brothers saw it was he their father loved more than all his brothers, and they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him” (Genesis 37:4). Logan Roy—founder of Waystar Royco and patriarch—says to Siobhan (Tom’s then-fiancée) that Tom is “fathoms beneath” her…with Tom standing right there. Moreover, in Succession’s first episode, Tom gifts Logan a Patek Phillipe and jokes that it’s accurate because whenever Logan looks at it, he’ll know exactly how rich he is. Logan asks Tom whether he rehearsed that pithy quip. Tom eventually admits in the affirmative.

Both Judah and Tom partake in horrendous actions—Judah selling Joseph into slavery, Tom proving an incompetent and abusive manager by faltering in Congressional hearings and using a human as a footstool—yet redeem themselves. There’s one way in which their lows are similar, and one in which they diverge tellingly. Perhaps Judah’s rock bottom (other than the whole forsaking his brother thing) is the act of sexual degradation of impregnating his former daughter-in-law Tamar, who (in fairness to Judah) had hidden her identity and pretended to be a prostitute. Before the impregnation, Tamar was married to two of Judah’s sons, one of which God killed because he was “evil in the eyes of the Lord” (Genesis 38:7) and the other of which God killed because he wouldn’t ejaculate into Tamar. A low for Tom Wambsgans is when, at his bachelor party, Siobhan (already secretly unfaithful to Tom) grants Tom a proverbial “hall pass.” Tom receives fellatio and swallows…well…the result of such an act. Sexual ineptitude underscores Judah and Tom’s fecklessness, and Tom and Judah’s son’s onanism (by the way, Judah’s son’s name is Onan, which is where that word originates) is poignant; as they waste their reproductive capacity, perhaps they are a waste of reproductive capacity.

But then Succession doesn’t seem so much like Genesis 2.0. Judah’s other signature low—selling Joseph into slavery and tricking Jacob into thinking Joseph had died—provides the basis for his redemption arc. Joseph rises from slave to Egyptian viceroy. Not too shabby. And Judah along with his brothers venture twice from Canaan to Egypt because Egypt (due to Joseph’s leadership) is the only place to get some grub. Joseph manufactures a chain of events resulting in him (with his identity as-yet-unrevealed to his brothers) threatening to take Benjamin—Jacob’s new favorite and the only son of Rachel other than Joseph—as a slave. Judah heroically offers himself instead of Benjamin. At this point, Joseph “could no longer hold himself in check” (Genesis 45:1) and reveals himself to his brothers. Later on, Judah receives a favorable deathbed blessing from Jacob paralleled only by Joseph’s blessing. Tom’s redemption unfolds differently. Instead of betrayal being the low from which he redeems himself, it’s the redemption itself. Sparing details, Logan is about to screw over his children; Siobhan, Kendall, and Roman have a defensive strategy; Siobhan informs Tom, her husband, of this strategy; and Tom, Siobhan’s husband, tells Logan, allowing Logan to outmaneuver Siobhan (Tom’s wife), Kendall, and Roman. This scene reveals Tom as savvy, albeit still money and status chasing. It’s the same ilk of betrayal in pursuit of twisted ambition that lands Tom as CEO in Succession’s final episode. He undercuts Siobhan, who was also vying for CEO, yet he also undercuts himself by giving Waystar Royco’s new owner permission to sexually pursue Siobhan.

The difference between Judah’s rise to being blessed and Tom’s ascension to corporate stardom speaks to the difference between what’s good in Genesis and what’s good in Succession. Yet Genesis is a legend, and Succession is a tragedy. Tom’s ascension is his descension, the pinnacle of his career, the peak of his hurt. And I wonder, am I—are we—living in a legend or tragedy? Are our pinnacles mountains of doom or eternal blessings?