This Week on “Succession” and “Perry Mason”: March 26-27

Logan Misses the Kids and Shiv & Tom Quit Each Other (Maybe), while over in “Perry Mason,” Perry Remains an Adorable Hot Mess, Della Continues to Enchant, and poor people actually exist.

This week’s “Perry Mason” rolls its ending credits over an image that at first seems obscure, then shows itself in close-up to be a $100 dollar bill. It’s a reference to something that happens at the end of the episode but it’s also a brilliant reveal of a truth implicit in both this show and in “Succession”: Money is scary. (Watch the credits and see if it doesn’t give you a chill.) It’s scary when you have so little of it that you’ll commit murder to get any. And it’s even scarier when you have so much of it that half a billion is “nickel and dime.”

The contrast between the two shows couldn’t be greater than this week, as the Roy “kids” engage in a bidding war that may as well be a monopoly game, the actual “numbers” mean so little to Shiv and Kendall (Roman, who has surprisingly become the most mature sibling, is appalled but goes along) while over in the world where “depression” doesn’t just refer to a person’s mood Perry’s poor, Latino clients have apparently been hired to kill a man in order to feed their families. America, right?

Although I’ve been a fan, I’m finding “Succession” irritating this season. It’s not the money thing, it’s the constant coded banter. During the first half-hour of Sunday’s season premiere, I felt like a too-serious nerd trying to catch up with the witticisms of much cooler kids. I know the oblique, competitive conversations (basically, who can come up with the cleverest way of saying “fuck you” to something or someone) is part of the point when it comes to the Roys: this dysfunctional and abusive family doesn’t know how to talk like normal people. (Gotta watch out, if you speak too directly you may actually say what you feel! And that could be dangerous.) This season, even hapless Greg has started to talk the talk. Only bored and furious Logan and boring Connor talk in ordinary English sentences, even if Logan’s are mostly versions of “fuck” and Connor’s are ludicrous proposals for a PR-enhanced wedding at the Statue of Liberty. Were all the Roys always so relentlessly indirect, quick on the uptake, and full of allusions I don’t get? Maybe I need to go back to the earlier seasons and check it out.

Here’s where we left the family at the end of last season: Logan Roy, having had his kids twisting in the wind for 3 seasons, has shafted them all by arranging to sell Waystar Royco to tech giant Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgard, whom you may best remember as the abusive husband of Nicole Kidman in “Big Little Lies.”) The kids (Shiv, Roman, and Kendall) had thought they could stop the sale by invoking a clause in Roy and Harriet’s (their mom) divorce settlement which would have given them final say in the decision to sell or not. But Logan is able to maneuver around this because Tom Wamsganns (Shiv Roy’s now-estranged husband) has alerted him about it in time so that Logan is able to call Harriet, who is distracted by the fact that she has just remarried, and is happy to redo the divorce agreement. (I’ll talk about why Tom would do that in a bit…) So when Shiv, Roman and Kendall go to confront Logan they find he’s outfoxed them, yet again. Kendall is furious. Roman is wounded, having truly believed despite his seeming cynicism that his father was his buddy. And Shiv, having seen a tell-tale hand-on-the-shoulder from Logan to Tom, realizes her lapdog has betrayed her. She plays it cool though—for now.

The most interesting scene in that final episode—which I enjoyed very much—was Kendall’s emotional melt-down on the steps of an Italian villa, with his brother and sister present. Kendall either did or did not try to kill himself in the previous episode (I vote no; I think he fell asleep on the inflatable) but either way, he’s a wreck, and mortally wounded by how viciously his father has shut him out. He just can’t take it any more and starts to behave like a normal person who accidentally caused the death of someone and fouled up every attempt to be his “own man” with a father who makes that impossible. He cries real tears and speaks in ordinary English sentences as he confesses to his siblings about the waiter’s drowning and his own despair.

For a while the others, surprised and unnerved by actual feelings being expressed, are taken aback and don’t know what to do. Shiv is still preoccupied with wheeling and dealing, and Roman tries to talk Kendall out of his guilt. They are clearly not used to this kind of thing. But gradually, both physically and emotionally, Shiv and Roman start to pay attention—really pay attention—and also begin to attend to their crashing brother: Shiv rubs his vulnerably shaven head, Roman’s hands squeeze his shoulders. Roman, putting his great wit to good use, gets him to laugh (and we get a glimpse of the empathy and humanity that’s been brewing in his character—penis selfies aren’t the whole story about him.) We get a moment when everyone remembers that they are siblings who possibly even love each other. (What a thought!) It rings true. They grew up together with an abusive father and a deeply depressed mother and must have provided some comfort for each other, even if only as litter-mates huddling in fear and trembling together.

This season finds them huddling together in more of their usual style, as they brainstorm potential business ventures of their own. There’s all the clever talk that’s beginning to tire me. But there’s also a moment that recalls the one I’ve just described, as Shiv returns to the room from a phone call with Tom that’s clearly upset her, and both brothers immediately—no bantering, no hesitation—halt their business dealings to tend to their sister. I love these interruptions when insights into the Roy’s relationships bump the details of their scheming off the page. Not that I didn’t enjoy the bidding war over the Pierce empire that occupies most of the second half of the episode. That kind of thing on this show, which has lured us time and time again into the ring with the family, is almost as impossible to not enjoy as the flying sequences in “Top Gun: Maverick” or waiting for the killer inside the house to spring (if you’re a fan of horror.) But like waiting for the killer, it’s a kind of debased enjoyment. Which is ok in a tv series, but not enough if it’s all we get.

Which isn’t yet the case with “Succession.” The best part for me was when Shiv comes back to the apartment to “pick up some clothes” and she and Tom dance around the question of whether they are going to call it quits. They’ve been “experimenting” (as Tom describes it to Logan) with a separation in which they agreed it’s ok to see other people. But Shiv doesn’t like not being the electric center of Tom’s world, and she’s also just announced to Nan Pierce (whose pretend squeamishness about money is a brilliant stroke of writing) that there will be no conflict of interest if they buy her empire, as she going to divorce Tom. She possibly feels committed to that, whatever her feelings for Tom are. As for Tom, he certainly had his reasons for betraying Shiv last season. He’s ambitious, of course (no distinctive characteristic; they are all unscrupulously ambitious, with the possible exception of Roman) but I’m sure there was also plenty of simmering resentment of Shiv’s ball-busting emotional control over him, which was illustrated in especially sadistic fashion in last year’s finale, as she tells him she doesn’t love him as part of dominatrix sex play. Even as it’s happening, the viewer gets the queasy feeling that this isn’t just foreplay, and the next morning, Tom isn’t feeling so great. He unnerved—as he has frequently been by Shiv’s behavior with him—and begging for reassurance, which of course she doesn’t give. (She looks particularly arrogantly voluptuous in that episode in a skin-tight dress that highlights her butt and tummy. A demon-goddess. I’ve since learned that she was pregnant, but rather than hide it, the show uses it to advantage.)

But. Even though he’s endured years of abuse from Shiv, when he says the prospect of divorce “makes him sad” it’s believable. As with all couples who’ve been together for a while, there are shared memories, unspoken bonds, and implicit “deals” (“I’ll let you be a bitch to me because I know you need to do that to someone in this family”, “I may not be passionately in love with you, but you make me feel safe and that’s worth more than I can say”, “I see a vulnerability no one else does, and that makes me special”) that haunt the thought of actually “splitting.” Shiv herself can’t manage anything as direct as “I feel sad”—and to be honest, I’m not sure she does “feel” sad. Her emotions are a mystery even to herself (or maybe especially to herself.) The girl had an emotionally abusive father, let’s never forget. No amount of successful scheming or clever talk can heal that. Her detachment is a defensive tactic she’s undoubtedly cultivated from childhood. And whether or not she “feels” it, she’s sad. Perhaps the saddest in the whole family. And Sarah Snook shows it to us so well, simply through her facial expressions, which can’t hide what her cool wit tries to conceal.

It was both gratifying and chilling to see Logan melt down in existential ennui without his kids to spar with. However, I didn’t need to have it made so explicit as having him complain to his hired help that no one was making jokes (i.e. insulting each other) anymore. We got it without a scene like that in which he virtually says “Bring back my kids!! They are the only ones who know how to entertain me!” You can already see how much he misses them, not only from his horrible, mean mood from beginning to end of the episode, but more subtly, as Tom stumbles around, fishing to find out if he will still be in the inner circle if he and Shiv split up.

Tom’s nervousness is painful to watch, and just the sort of obeisance that would make the “old” Logan want to squash him like a bug. But now he needs Tom, and you can see how it takes everything he has to patiently listen to him. His answer—“If we’re good, we’re good”—feeds Tom enough of a crumb (he’ll take it for now; he’s used to that, from his relationship with Shiv) while keeping the back door open for himself. But it’s also clearly a relief for him to close down the conversation—which tires and bores him—and move on to demanding some “grub.”

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“Perry Mason” is so good this week! And once again is breaking the mold. (See last week’s substack):

“Perry Mason”: Breaking the Mold

This week, Perry’s clients Rafael and Mateo Gallardo appear to actually be guilty. Savvy investigator Paul Drake (Chris Chalk) is suspicious of how neatly the boys’ confession fits the DA’s case, and I’m sure it will turn out that they did not initiate the murder Brooks McCutcheon themselves but have been hired (we’ll see by whom; any guesses?) But the fact is that Rafael and Mateo are young men whom we’ve been encouraged to see as innocent and who we sympathize with—and it turns out they’ve killed the man they are accused of killing (and not in self-defense.) That came as a jolt even to this jaded tv viewer, and it immediately tells us (if we hadn’t already noticed) that this show doesn’t deal in “binaries”—that the stock courtroom equations (if the hero is a prosecutor, he’s trying to convict a bad guy; if the hero is a defender, his client is unjustly accused) aren’t going to work with this series.

But this Perry isn’t your usual “hero” (nor is he an anti-hero.) He’s a mass of conflicting impulses. After the boys confess to the shooting, he has a self-indulgent, non-lawyerly fit and tells Della and Paul that he won’t defend them. They rightly tell him everyone deserves a defense and he can’t step off the case, but he behaves like a spoiled child and stomps off, snarling “The hell I can’t. I’m not representing two killers!” It’s a moral luxury he can’t have if he wants Mateo and Rafael to survive at all, and it’s clear that Della and Paul are the grown-ups in the room. But just like a kid whose been in time out for awhile, after Perry has cooled down, he’s back on the case.

I probably should say right now that I have a big sloppy crush on Matthew Rhys. I have since “The Americans.” So I’m going to have a tendency to find his Perry adorable, even when he’s behaving like a jerk. I love his wayward hair and his bad boy ways—stealing into a rich man’s stables for an illicit (and actually very dangerous) ride on a million-dollar racehorse (I know this. as my daughter works with thoroughbreds and rides herself)—and his fumbling efforts to be a father to his son. “He has a son?”my husband asked, rightly surprised; It turns out the ex-wife and son have been living somewhere else and just returned to LA.

He’s a hot mess but I love him

Most of all, I love the fact that Perry has no problem being instructed by the women in his life. In the last episode (again, see my first Perry substack for details) Della chewed him out for not confiding in her and behaving like a true partner. He apparently took it to heart, as in this week’s episode he recognizes—and quickly apologizes—when he’s doing it again, not telling Della that his ex-wife and son have moved back to town. “But that’s the only thing, I swear” he says, like a child whose hand has been caught in the cookie jar. “So you’ve decided telling me things is okay now”? Della replies. Perry: “I’m gonna try.” The guy may stumble, but hey, he’s trying. And apparently learning. He wisely steps back and lets Miss Aimes (Teddy’s teacher, who also teaches riding on the week-end, played by Katherine Waterston) to take over when he ineptly tries to instruct his son how to get a stubborn horse to move. He’s rewarded with a new love interest when she (by then, she’s “Ginny”) later shows up at his apartment with French dip from Coles (and maybe later there will be other French things.) When he opens the door his hair is a mess. Sigh, he’s so adorable (I warned you.)

Perry may be adorable, but besides being the smartest person in every room, Della is absolutely, nakedly breathtaking this week, refreshing herself from the burdens of work at Anita St. Pierre’s (Jen Tullock) week-end retreat in the hills. Who knew that Juliette Rylance had such a gorgeous body underneath the buttoned up clothes she’s worn in both this and in “The Knick” (a series I miss)? (A funny thing about that: I joined a Facebook group this week on “Women We Love on Television and the Movies, Past and Present” and posted a picture of Rylance. Then I noticed that my posting was the only one of a fully clothed woman without impressively visible cleavage. Whoops, maybe not the site I thought it was. Then she shows up naked in this week’s episode. My husband poked me: “See, she belongs on that page after all.”)

You can always tell when a woman has a big hand in the conception and steering of a series. Robert Downey and his wife Susan are co-producers, and I’m betting she had a hand in the shaping of the female characters. Besides Della, there’s Paul’s wife Clara (Diarra Kilpatrick) who has one of the sexiest “Honey, stop working already” moments I’ve seen anywhere, and there’s Hope Davis as rich not-bitch Camilla Nygaard (Hope Davis) who gets Della to open up about her frustration with Perry by speaking the words that cautious Della can’t:

Camilla: It can be difficult to be in the trenches with someone like that.

Della: He's not... His tactics are different than mine. He's more... instinctive.

Camilla: "Instinctive." Well, is that a nice way of saying that he gets to be impulsive and run roughshod while you have to stand by and watch? You're frustrated. It's okay to say it.

Della: It's a difficult case. There's an enormous amount of pressure and...

Camilla: And sometimes, Mason is a pain in the ass.

Della: No, he's... Sometimes he's an ass, yes.

Camilla: There you go. See, look at you. There is power in the truth. Don't forget that.

The speaking-of-truth-out-loud is a welcome release for Della, who is closeting in more ways than just her sexuality. Ambition in a woman, as we keep finding out in our elections, is still something unnerving, if not repellant, to many. And Della is ambitious. And this was the thirties. But Camilla won’t let Della do that number on herself:

Della (somewhat apologetically, explaining why she stays with Perry): He’s my best chance at building a firm, having my name on the door.

Camilla: If that’s what you want, then you shouldn’t waver, ‘cause we do what we have to, to become who we are, yes?

Della: Yes.

If she didn’t have such a distinctive face, a more casual viewer than I might not recognize that Hope Davis is the same actress who played Gina (aka Lady Macbeth) Baxter in “Your Honor.” It’s a little disconcerting, even for me; I keep expecting her to do something villainous. But she never does.

Among the many things I appreciate about the new “Perry Mason” is that the show never lets us forget that poverty (half the characters live in tents in the decrepit, barely-passing-as-housing “Hoovertown”) and racism are hugely animating forces in American life. Defending two Mexicans, Petty gets dubbed as “the Mexi Mouthpiece,” and “Pedro Perry,” and Perry gets into a fight with one of Teddy’s classmate’s fathers who snarls that Perry “treats those Mexican boys better than you treat your own son, Maggot Mason.” Rafael and Mateo, of course, endure much worse than verbal attacks, including potentially fatal pieces of glass in their food in the first prison they get sent to (Perry has them relocated before it can get, inevitably, much worse.) It’s not always with vicious intent but it’s always there: Perry’s ex-investigator Strickland, who’s now working for the prosecution but still a pal, chides him about having “a thing” for the Browns: “You were crouching the Lupe broad this way and that. Now these two. What is it with you?”

Situating the show in the Great Depression may make it more possible to foreground poverty and racism without it seeming forced. But it does resonate beyond that era. And for that reason alone, some people may find this series too grim and “dark” for their taste. It certainly hasn’t acquired the mass fan-base that “Succession” has. (By the way, ever noticed there are no Brown or Black people in that show? A little race/class confusion there?) I love “Perry Mason” though, and I’ll be rooting for the series to survive.

By the way, the inspiration for Perry’s hair and overall style appears to be the show’s producer!