Marcia Is Succession’s Best Villain, Not Logan (And Why The Roy Brothers Should Have Followed Her Example)

Marcia (Hiam Abbass) is a recurring character in Succession and while she’s not always present, she’s just as effective a villain as Logan when she does appear. Márcia appears in the pilot of Succession and, like many things in the premiere of what would become one of my favorite shows, it didn’t make perfect sense to me. I understood that she was Logan’s (Brian Cox) wife, and it was clear that she wasn’t the mother of Roy’s three (sorry, four) children, but it wasn’t clear what role she was supposed to play other than being mean to the team. .

This quickly became obvious as the first season progressed and even in later seasons where her character moved away from the series, Márcia’s presence could always be felt. It’s hard to say who the “villain” is in Succession. Every character has evil, opportunistic, or aggressively dumb undertones, and I absolutely love them all for that. Logan, of course, is the “big bad,” but when it comes to icy evil, Marcia can have him beaten up, and Abbass is a joy to watch every time she’s on screen, spitting venom with her French accent.

Marcia is Logan Roy’s third and final wife

Logan cheats on Marcia in season two

Márcia is Logan’s third wife. It is not known how they met, but it appears that they have been together for a long time. She seems to know all the staff at her New York home and She and Logan seem to have an easy way of communicating that requires few words and is generally respectful on both sides.. After Logan’s stroke, Márcia takes control of the situation with some powerful, confident lines that prove she was in charge the whole time.

When Shiv (Sarah Snook) does some research on Marcia, she discovers that Marcia has hidden her story very well, an ominous sign for the kids who are worried that her son from a previous marriage, Amir (Darius Homayoun), is looking for for a chance to run the company. As the seasons pass and Logan has an affair with Rhea Jarrell (Holly Hunter), Marcia leaves the show. She appears a few times in season 3; and in season 4, he returns for Logan’s funeral, to say one last farewell to a man who changed his life for better or worse.

Logan meets his match in Marcia multiple ways in a row

Marcia can stand up to Logan like no one else can

Marcia is no pushover when it comes to dealing with Logan, and she is without a doubt one of the most terrifying characters in Succession thanks to his sharp tongue and total fearlessness in the face of a man who makes everyone around him tremble. I love the scene of Marcia sitting at Logan’s birthday party in Season 2 Episode 8, “Dundee,” when she turns to the old man and says one of the most cutting lines in Succession“I’m bored. You are boring me.”

It’s soul-crushing, and the look on Logan’s face might be the only time in the series I’ve seen anything close to regret. Marcia can cut even Logan down to size, and although she eventually has to admit that he embarrassed her, she only has to do so after he begs her to come back to him. She holds a lot of power in the relationship, and surprisingly, Logan seems to accept this in a much more human way than anyone else.

With almost everyone in his life, except perhaps his brother, Logan treats relationships like a business transaction. With Marcia, There’s definitely something more realistic about the way they deal with each other. Logan is thrilled, but Márcia is not. She has ice in her veins while Logan has fire, maybe that’s why they work together. That’s a better love story than Dany and John Snow, at least. It’s not TV, it’s HBO.

If the government-thwarting, union-busting, and perhaps child-poisoning Logan is treating someone as an equal, you can bet they could be a pretty bad villain if they wanted to.

His moments of humanity make Márcia’s cruelty even worse

Marcia has a particularly strange relationship with Kerry

The most villainous thing about Márcia is that she seems to have genuine moments of kindness, which makes her moments of cruelty all the more shocking. In a way, Márcia is a very moral character in Successionand she seems to genuinely want to help Logan. In other ways, she seems like the cruelest person in the world. When she grabs Shiv on the stairs during her wedding and tells her to do something that rhymes with “cluck” and “doff”? There.

During the funeral scene, Marcia gently grabs the hand of a sobbing Kerry (Zoe Winters). But just a few episodes earlier, Marcia watched coldly as Kerry struggled to pick up her personal items from the floor during the wake and essentially kicked her out of the room in a humiliating manner, sending her back to her.small apartment“. It’s these moments of casual cruelty that make Marcia seem so villainous, even in comparison to someone like Logan.

Márcia earns more than any other character

At the end of the show, Márcia has everything she wants and closure

Then, of course, there’s the fact that Marcia basically wins Successionnot that there is anyone who is actually a winner, but what’s the point of the internet if we can’t gamify everything into a bunch of statistics? She has a good claim to win. In season 3, she and her lawyers go to meet Logan with guns drawn. I think I heard one of your lawyers mention that the new terms of your prenup may seem absurd at first glance, but compared to your IPO, they are quite reasonable. Take that bag, Marcia.

Then there’s the remarkable achievement that she actually seems to actually make peace with an enemyKerry, something that never happens on the show. Her handshake could be seen as a power play, but I see it as her saying, “good game, now it’s over, we can relax.” Oh, and she also gets the New York apartment, and immediately sells it to Connor (Alan Ruck) for a pretty penny and seals the deal with a handshake and spit.

Neither of the Roy brothers would be caught spitting in their hands because of a backdoor deal. This is not how “bizniz” is done in their limited worldviews. Well, for Marcia, Logan, and other people who truly understand the dirty world they live in, there’s nothing wrong with spitting into the palm of your hand. Márcia could be the biggest villain in Successionbut in this series, sometimes you need to be a villain to deal with an ogre like Logan Roy.