This year’s Emmy nominations are out, and to nobody’s surprise, Succession is sweeping nearly every acting category. It’s nominated for Outstanding Drama Series, and under that Drama Series umbrella has been nominated for Outstanding Writing, Outstanding Directing, half of the nominations in Outstanding Actor, one in Outstanding Actress, four in Outstanding Supporting Actor, one in Outstanding Supporting Actress. Most other nominations are for The White Lotus and The Last of Us, both shows I enjoyed a lot. Succession has 27 nominations, and The Last of Us has 24. However, I don’t think The Last of Us will be able to beat Succession in most, if any of these categories.
Don’t get me wrong, I really liked The Last of Us. I’ve written extensively about my love for both the game and the show, and especially how the show has done great work expanding on the game’s story in a meaningful way. It had some extraordinary performances that brought me to tears, and I loved that it was distinctly and unashamedly more political than the game it was based on. I watched it weekly as soon as each episode was released, and would wait eagerly for the next. But this show has simply not had the same cultural impact as Succession, and I can’t imagine any of those performances being able to overcome the strength of that show’s acting.
Not all of Succession’s nominations are warranted. Brian Cox, though he’s a legend, was barely in the last season. Nicholas Braun, as well, didn’t give a performance comparable to his co-stars in the same category. But the nominations that are deserved are extraordinarily strong contenders. Matthew Macfadyen gave the acting performance of his life, swapping between hilarious quips to dead seriousness at the drop of a hat. Sarah Snook’s heartbreaking micro-expressions have become iconic. Jeremy Strong gave the turn of his career as the saddest rich boy alive, and Kieran Culkin’s portrayal of a deeply flawed, definitely evil, and extremely traumatised man is one for the books.
This is probably a good time to admit that I’m Succession-pilled. I binged the entire show in three weeks so that I could watch the finale on the day it was released. I was on holiday in Taiwan when it came out, so I downloaded it onto my phone in the hotel so that I could watch it once we’d summited the mountain we were hiking. While everybody else ate, I was standing in a corner staring at my phone screen and yelping. I try to convince everybody I meet to watch Succession. It’s not that I have an unhealthy, parasocial relationship with any of those people – it’s just that I think Succession is one of the most singular television shows that HBO has ever produced.
It confronts the evil, selfishness, and greed of the rich, all the while humanising them to a degree that almost made me feel sorry for them. It’s an astonishing work in that it manages to hold two true things at the same time: these characters are terrible, awful people, but you can still recognise their pain and what’s made them the way they are.
The Last of Us is great, but it’s no Succession. It’s a video game adaptation that worked well enough to create an excellent show, but it’s nowhere near as complex as its competition nor has it had the kind of cultural impact, while shows in their final season tend to pick up more votes too. I think its second season has a real shot at sweeping the Emmys, especially as the plot of the second is so much more compelling and complex than the first, but this year won’t be this year. It’s Succession’s year, and I am perfectly fine with that.