Although the characters and events in Succession are fictional, it doesn’t take too much searching to find the real-life figures that inspired the show.
The Murdoch family, led by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, with its vast media empire, massive wealth, and complicated succession politics, is one of the clear frontrunners — and after watching Succession Season 4, episode 2, the line between fiction and reality gets even blurrier, particularly in one moment.
What happens in Succession Season 4, episode 2?
The moment in question comes when Logan Roy (Brian Cox) returns to the ATN broadcast studio, pacing the floor (or as Greg calls it, “terrifyingly moseying”) in sunglasses before he finally climbs on top of a temporary platform made from blocks of photocopier paper in order to address his staff.
Logan gives a bloodthirsty speech that channels a bygone era, firing up the studio floor with talk of cutting the throats of the opposition and how he wants to build something “faster, lighter, meaner, wilder” from the ATN floor.
What was the inspiration for the scene?
You don’t have to look too far to find the scene’s direct inspiration, which happened in 2007 after Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. purchased the The Wall Street Journal‘s parent company, Dow Jones, in a $5 billion deal.
Murdoch himself travelled to the WSJ‘s Manhattan newsroom on the afternoon of Dec. 13, as the deal was being finalised, where he — you guessed it — made a speech to the staff while standing on a platform made from photocopier paper.
Speaking on HBO’s official Succession podcast, writer/executive producer Lucy Prebble told host Kara Swisher how the scene came together.
“It is an old-school approach, which is something that we thought Logan had a lot of as a character,” Prebble says in the clip (jump to 8:20). “We talked a lot about Robert Maxwell, the way that he would speak to his staff and have these moments. There was actually a moment when Murdoch himself did stand on some toner paper and give a kind of famous speech.”
“It was The Wall Street Journal. It wasn’t that good, I was there,” jumps in Swisher. “I kept thinking, ‘He’s short. Oh, look how short he is.'”
“We used to talk in the writers’ room, every season, about possibly have an episode called ‘Logan goes Back to the Floor’, because we were struck by how these figures, Maxwell and Murdoch particularly, have these relationships with their newsrooms, in Murdoch’s case where he wants to call up, he wants to talk about the headlines, where he wants to really, really specifically get into it,” Prebble explains.
“We were so interested in Logan having this moment when he was about to sell, where he was returning to that state. Because it would be a complicated thing for a man like that to sell his business, and that maybe what he felt he wanted to do was suddenly reinvigorate himself towards where he started.”
Succession Season 4 is streaming now on HBO Max, with new episodes airing weekly on Sundays at 9 p.m.
