The 50 best TV shows of 2019: No 1 – Succession
In its second run, Jesse Armstrong’s masterful tale of a media tycoon’s squabbling brood beat all comers with its wit, twists and utter sadism. Anyone for a game of Boar on the Floor?
Spare a thought for HBO: 2019 was the year it threw millions upon millions of dollars at the final season of Game of Thrones, only to have another of its shows – with a fraction of the budget – blow Jon Snow and co out of the water entirely. That show was the dizzyingly seductive Succession, which became a runaway hit with its second series. A veritable powerhouse, Succession contained all the things that had once drawn us to Westeros: power, wealth, loyalty and sheer nastiness. However – and this is crucial – it was also shot through with such a clear sense of purpose that you could never imagine it going off the rails. The funny moments were far too hysterical. The dramatic moments were weightier than they had any right to be. Game of Thrones spent an entire episode letting a dragon destroy a city. Meanwhile, Succession gave us a single scene of an old man shouting at a car, and it was infinitely more devastating.
The first season – which focused on a powerful media tycoon’s health wobble, and his squabbling brood vying for the chance to take over his empire – marked Jesse Armstrong’s series out as a solid, impressive programme. But with its second run, it became something much bigger, a breathtakingly sleek meditation on cruelty, corruption and how not to dispose of your super-duper top-secret business documents. The characters boasted new depth, from the increased sadism of Brian Cox’s Logan (see the Boar on the Floor game he invents to humiliate his family) to Kendall’s never-ending reserves of cringe (as evidenced by the the berserk rap he writes for his father – sample line, “Yo, bitches be catty, but the king’s my daddy”).