Tried binging Succession after watching Breaking Bad and it felt like a different planet

I finally caved and watched Breaking Bad last month, 5 seasons in 2 weeks. Then I jumped into Succession thinking it would be similar drama. Man, the pacing is so different, Succession feels like 90% talking and 10% action compared to Breaking Bad's constant tension. Has anyone else had that shock switching from a faster show to a slower one?

3 comments

3 Comments

fionafoster1mo ago

God yeah that's like going from a sprint to a leisurely stroll where everyone's wearing $5000 shoes and fighting about a board seat. Succession is basically a show about people having very expensive conversations in rooms that are too well lit, and I kept waiting for something to explode like a meth lab. It took me a solid three episodes to realize the drama was supposed to be in the insults and not the plot twists. You have to retrain your brain, your mileage may vary but I'd say treat it like a soap opera for rich people and it works better.

colethomas1mo ago

Started watching Succession right after The Wire and had the same problem. What got me through was treating each episode like a stage play instead of a TV show. I started paying attention to who was saying what to who and why, not what was going to blow up next. Once I locked into the power moves in the conversations, like Logan giving Roman that fake compliment about the baseball team before crushing him, it clicked. The tension was there the whole time, just buried under the expensive suits and bad family dynamics. Breaking Bad shows you the explosion, Succession shows you the bomb being built.

robinp891mo ago

I gotta push back a little here, @fionafoster and @colethomas. The soap opera comparison always rubs me wrong because Succession has way more going on than just rich people being mean to each other. The show is actually really funny if you pay attention to it that way, like the whole thing is a dark comedy about how these people talk in circles and never say what they mean. I never had to retrain my brain because I came at it from a place of just laughing at how pathetic they all are, not waiting for big moments. The bomb being built analogy is good but I think the bomb is just how hollow everything is, and the show is fine with that never fully exploding.