The successor is over, that sounds like an oxymoron. The fourth season just premiered on HBO Max. The Jesse Armstrong series is cloaked in exorbitant luxuries — those yachts, those mansions, those sweaters… — and yet it could have been shot on a set like Dogville’s, where there were just a few smudges on the floor and a handful of elements to differentiate the spaces and it would work the same way. It would be the same because its essence is not in the money it displays but in the power it generates. Two or three rooms would be enough for people to enter to conspire and out of which would come people to be betrayed. The important thing about discipleship is not in the deed, not in the packaging, but in the word.
Two moments from the first chapter of this new batch contribute to this idea. In the first, Logan Roy explains his world view: “What are people? They are economic entities. I am a giant, the others are dwarves. But together they form a market. what is a human It has values and goals, but it operates within markets. The marriage market, the job market, the money market, the ideas market…”. In the second, he himself asks his acolytes to insult him in a subtle way, to make him some kind of roast. But no one dares or knows how to do it. Only his children have this gift, who have learned from the best.
It continues to be honor to see the atrocities being said and the ease with which those lewd script lines are thrown. The power of the word is a consolation for those of us who aren’t rich: it can cost dearly, but it’s free to use. I change them for the Corleones from the Maruja Torres phrase, the more people I meet the more I like the Roys.
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