How I Could Love Succession and Ted Lasso and Still Hate the F Word
It's all in the writing. The writers made me do it.
Two series streamed through several seasons, both to much acclaim, both winning awards, and both as different as night and day. One was about humanity while the other was about inhumanity, a revelation I only came to after a couple of aborted tries. I quit both of them after only a couple of episodes.
I tried again with each of them, mainly because the hype was so stong I couldn’t ignore it. I hung in there and ended up loving them both. Maybe not equally—I’ll give Ted Lasso the edge—yet I’m still astonished that they’ve made such an impression. I dug into each one as if I lived there and whatever happened was happening too close to home.
Neither of those stories came even close to being about where or how I live. I couldn’t in a million years relate to either of them. Ted Lasso’s theme is on football/soccer, a game I have absolutely no interest in. ‘Succession’ follows a family so rich and awful they’re likened to Fox News’s detestable Murdoch family. And you must know by now how I feel about them.
I actually felt guilty and embarrassed in those early days whenever I tried to explain why they were so damned GOOD. I never did explain it well. I can’t do it here, either. All I can say is, the stories are captivating and addicting, and if there’s anyone to blame it’s the writers.
‘Ted Lasso’s’ writing team includes Jason Sudeikis, the show’s inventor, co-producer, and star, along with Brendan Hunt (Coach Beard), Brett Goldstein (Roy Kent), and maybe a dozen others, including several women. Their flashes of brilliance, more prominent than their misses, made that show a number one streaming hit.
‘Succession’ was the brainchild of one man—Jesse Armstrong—and, while he did write the highest number of stories in the series, there were other brilliant writers who contributed to its success. Their combined talents produced a show that shouldn’t have but did keep those of us who loved it enthralled. Never a dull moment, never an obvious turn. The acting was superb, right down to the lowliest bit player. It was, in my mind, perfection.
I should have hated it. I didn’t. I should have been bored with ‘Ted Lasso’. I wasn’t. And I should have shunned both of them, simply for the ridiculous overuse of the ‘F’ word.
In my realm the ‘F’ word was such a no-no, many decades ago I overheard my then-teenage daughter warning her friends not to ever, ever use that word around me. Years later, my adult grandson—her son—would apologize for letting it slip.
I’ve even written about how much I’ve hated that word. So it makes no sense that my two favorite series apparently couldn’t have survived without that word. But get this:
I’m okay with it.
I still can’t say that word and I probably never will, but it’s such a thing now it’s deliberately and delightfully written into even the best of scripts. I give up. I give in.
Would Roy Kent have been as endearing without that word? I’m just going to say it: probably not.
Could ‘Succession’ have had such an impact if the word had been banned from the set, for even the lowliest character? I think so. The ubiquitous overuse added nothing and, in my mind, took away from the dialogue. If it had shown up about 80% less, it might have had more of an impact.
But again, I let it slide. I got used to it. My head didn’t threaten to explode every time I heard it—though I did hear it. Every single time.
Now it appears, after all these years, I’ve come out of the darkness and into the light. I’ve accepted the overuse of a single word, hated, not because it’s grammatically incorrect—my usual quibble—but because it’s such a painfully banal, overused, cliched word.
I’ve learned to live with it, all thanks to two amazing and unforgettable series I should never have liked, should never have watched—but, thanks to those wonderful potty-mouthed writers, I did.
So bring it on. I know you’re dying to. 😉 But let's also talk about that writing!
I can't begin to tell you why I stuck with it. The main characters threatened to make me physically sick at first--especially Roman. All I can come up with is the writing. It became too compelling to leave behind.
In the Navy, the use of “f*ck” was ubiquitous. To the point that it was used about as often as “y’know”... and had about the same emotional content.
Herman Wouk addressed this in his book “The Caine Mutiny.” Something along the lines of, “People have told me that sailors in my book don’t talk like real sailors. Thanks, I served for years on destroyers, I know. But if I wrote like they talked, the average reader would be shocked and lose track of what was going on — so I toned it down.” At one point there’s a passage something like, “The chief let out a string of profanity so sharp and vulgar that it could peel the paint off a bulkhead, the sum total of which conveyed: my, this is highly unusual!” Yup!
Roy would have been considered soft spoken in the Navy. 😁