Why Descendants is a Great Series
Miscellaneous / / May 28, 2023
At the end of March, the fourth, final season of The Descendants started, and today the last episode was released. Already after the first season, it became clear that this project would become one of the immortal classics of HBO - along with The Sopranos, The Wire and True Detective. If you haven't watched the series yet, you're in luck: there are 39 episodes of true greatness ahead of you.
Live family showdown
"Heirs" tells about a family that cannot divide a transnational corporation. And if at the beginning of the series it seems that the characters think about wealth and power, then by the middle of the season it becomes obvious that they just want to hurt each other. The Roy family are crippled people. childhood trauma and grudges lurking throughout life are exposed when Father Logan is at death's door. Children share his company, not yet knowing that nothing shines for them. When a man comes to his senses, he is ready to take revenge on those who plotted behind his back.
In theory, the plot of the celestials-Swarms can easily be lowered to the ground. The characters could share a two-room apartment in Samara or a night stall with the same frenzy - this is a story of eternal confrontation and unfulfilled ambitions. Each member of the family is so offended by others that they are not ready to give up the conflict. Kendall wants to take over the company not because he needs it, he just wants to prove that he is able to manage the corporation as well as his father. Logan, in turn, is not ready to give life's work children, because he considers them mediocre and spineless.
Years of cynicism, on which the family was literally nurtured, do not allow the heroes to be sincere - and without this they cannot forgive each other. Perhaps a more mundane series would have shown a way out of the situation, but “Heirs” is a great work because they are not looking for simple answers - the conflict itself is interesting.
Endless brilliant conversation
From the very first episode, "Heirs" demonstrate what an old, classic HBO: hand-held shaking camera, incredible costumes and uninterrupted live conversation. The episodes are long conversations, most of which involve many characters. Each is beautiful in itself, so by the fourth season, endless dialogues do not bother.
Perhaps this is due to the fact that all the characters have their own speech - even obscene language, which different characters use, not to mention how they build sentences and wedged into the conversation. Almost every scene involving Logan ends with a Fuck off cry, emphasizing his status and conceit. Of course, accents also play a role: the actors literally learned to speak English that suits their characters. Of course, the most difficult was the Australian Sarah Snook and Briton Matthew McFadyen, who played Shiv and Tom, respectively.
Dialogues turned out to be alive and because of improvisation. She made the conversations more natural, with hesitations, genuine surprise, and strange words.
Complex characters
"Heirs" has a scattering of completely different, but equally interesting characters. There are no positive and negative among them, they are complex, and therefore cause a lot of emotions. The broken but arrogant Kendall, the stupid but tragic Connor, who reached the heights of Greg or Tom, entangled in feelings and desires - each character turned out not only memorable, but also the most important. And secondary characters add emotion and meaning to the story: it's hard to imagine "The Heirs" without Jerry or Stewie, even if they don't appear on the screen so often.
The spirit of the Roy family also plays a huge role. Hopeless cynicism and selfishness spoil every person who enters the inner circle of the main characters.
Reflections on a dying world
Logan Roy is a super-capitalist from the House of Weights and Measures. Someone will admire him as a man who created a gigantic multi-billion dollar business from scratch. corporation and always stuck to his principles. Another will hate him as a greedy exploiter who is able to convert human relations into currency. The type itself is described so vividly that you want to watch it regardless of your attitude towards it.
For four seasons, The Descendants has hinted that the world of old money is ending. Logan Roy serves as a kind of embodiment of this world. At the same time, the approach of the end can take a long time. The series rather demonstrates the hypothetical Logan Roy's fear of not being able to withstand the conditions of modernity, but hints that there will be no changes. What is more important here is not the event, but the neurosis from its expectation. "Heirs" could play along current agenda and tell that the old money bags will be punished, looted and further down the list, but the series says something else: only their kind can destroy them.
Genius soundtrack
In recent years, many series with great soundtrack from Game of Thrones, with the epic music of Ramin Djawadi, to Atlanta, which captures the trendy (at the time of its first season) sound of southern hip-hop. But even against such a background, the soundtrack of "The Heirs" seems to be something unattainable. Composer Nicholas Britell explained that he tried to make the music both majestic and ironic. The case when it is better to hear a melody once than to read about it a hundred times (although it is even better to hear it a hundred times).
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