Shiv’s Eulogy In Succession Has Brought Its Most Powerful Theme Full Circle

The opening of “Succession” has always launched with an air of alienation. Throughout the last three seasons, the openings have displayed the four Roy children poised for a photo. You can make out Shiv, the sullen girl in the cream-white frock, an image of conforming femininity, sticking out like an ornament among her uniformly suited brothers. Within a blink of a cut, we see young Shiv all alone, glancing around as if wondering where the boys went. She’s left behind and directionless, underlining her indecisiveness in her adulthood, marriage, career choices, and (ultimately compromised, then buried) progressive principles. 

The opening has evolved from season 1, which began with a young Kendall (Jeremy Strong) standing alongside his stern father as the latter’s heir apparent, then ending with Kendall observing his father walk off camera before a brief flash of all four children with the frame not including their heads (as if denying them any identity). The latest openers choose to emphasize the isolated Shiv at the beginning and then conclude on all four kids (this time with their heads not cut off). Since season 2, the opening has closed with the image of the four Roy children glancing curiously off-camera as if glimpsing a ghost as their father vanishes in a blink.

It’s an iconic opening for a host of reasons, especially owing a debt to composer Nicholas Britell’s soundscape. A classical-contemporary cocktail of the frosty detuned piano and hip-hop beats, the music does its duty to amplify the wealthy grandeur of the Roy family and the scope of their media influence symbolized by enthralling shots of skyscrapers and helicopters. It also conveys a passionless and unfeeling ambiance, thus underscoring that forlorn old-timey snippet of a young Shiv staring at her blurry father from the distance. An older Shiv will especially reflect on the inaccessible patriarch behind a closed door.