Discussion about this post

User's avatar
arrow63's avatar

I love the show, and I also loved Downton Abbey, (bear with me). I just wish Julian Fellowes had watched Succession when he was making what turned out to be his god-awful American version of Downton Abbey, Gilded Age. Fellowes has never understood America, and I think it's a remarkably easy country to understand. He just fundamentally doesn't care, which doesn't bode well for an American based TV series. I knew a show called the Gilded Age would be about the clash between old and new money, which is a very old topic but can still be entertaining. But so far there is absolutely no difference between the two castes. The Old Money family sits around saying we're old money and we don't talk to new money, and the new money family sits around saying I'm going to show those old money snobs blah blah. In reality it just wasn't talked about all the time, or ever really. It just was.

The reason I bring this up is Succession does an infinitely better job of exploring the same theme, particularly in Season 2. The old money family, whom I take to be the Boston Bancrofts selling the WSJ to the vulgar Murdochs, don't once say "we don't deal with new money". But they live in a rambling shingle style big house in New England and quote Shakespeare and nurse their pet intellectual interests and charities, while the Murdochs go to coke filled orgies and shout obscenities at each other. It's more subtle but so much more realistic and engaging than the Gilded Age representation of this age old conflict is.

And I realize I've strayed off topic quite a bit, but to bring it back, I guess what I'm saying is that what you're seeing is the conservative vs liberal dynamic I see as more old vs new money. But either way, the new money upstarts are almost always going to be conservatives vs the mellowed out liberal old money (all the big name families with foundations and university buildings named after them).

Expand full comment
5 more comments...

No posts