“Succession”: Nothing says I’m a billionaire like refusing to buy fresh pizza

We just passed an election, which means some people you know, especially journalists, were working overtime, staying up into the early hours to wait for and report results from the polls. People working late, working long past dinner, working away from their homes and families, need to eat. What’s the best way to feed hungry journalists? Pizza.

ATN knows. The fictional broadcast news network, spearheaded by Logan Roy (Brian Cox) of “Succession,” opened its break room to viewers this season, in the episode titled “Rehearsal.” Queasy-lit by fluorescent overhead lights, the cramped little office kitchen contains sad muffins, stale breakfast bars and bruised apples. And multiple stacks of pizza boxes, their cooling, congealing slices triggering Logan into one of the mini-tirades his character is famous for. 

From the beginning of the HBO show, he’s been rolling in funds like a media Scrooge McDuck. We don’t see exactly how he made his billions. But one way he’s keeping them? He’s cheap, just like a billionaire. He’s also, despite his company, not a huge fan of working writers.  

Logan has gone to the office and is sulking around, standing over employees’ shoulders as they sweat at their cubicles. They’re not writing their emails fast enough for him. His criticism continues into the ATN kitchen where he interrupts Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) and Greg (Nicholas Braun) in one of their frantic huddles. Logan’s default state is annoyed. And the first thing that falls upon his affronted glance is pizza. Too much pizza.

“It’s killing me,” Logan says about viewing so much of it. Really, it looks like maybe six boxes, tops. Logan says the pizza-purchasing is “out of control,” that the older pizzas “are perfectly good. All you have to do is put them in the f**king microwave.” Logan! Not even an oven? How will the crust stay crispy? (This will be important later.)

Brian Cox in “Succession” (Photograph by Macall B. Polay/HBO)Billionaires are famously cheap, part of their eccentricities and the lore of how they made their money (the reality is, most billionaire money is made through investments). J. Paul Getty refused to pay the ransom when his son was kidnapped (eventually, the billionaire paid out $2.2 million; it was tax deductible). Mark Zuckerberg often drives a Honda Fit. Warren Buffet eats at McDonald’s every morning. 

Just this week, a photo of Bill Gates (worth over 110 billion) went viral on Twitter, both for his position contentedly waiting in line in the parking lot at Seattle’s Dick Burgers, as well as for his casual outfit. “The goal is to be rich, not to look rich,” one Twitter user wrote.

So, Logan didn’t get to be a billionaire buying new pizza when yesterday’s pie is right there. Greg, ever the anxious over-explainer, tries to point out “the sog factor” of old pizza (which doesn’t appear to have been refrigerated, so maybe there’s a food safety factor too). But there’s also a kindness factor. It’s thoughtful to buy your employees fresh hot dinner when they’re working late for you. It’s more humane than expecting them to make do with old, cold soggy stuff. But Logan also didn’t get to be a billionaire by being kind, even or maybe especially to journalists. 

Kieran Culkin, Alan Ruck, Sarah Snook and Jeremy Strong in “Succession” (Macall B. Polay/HBO)The sins of the father will be (re)visited upon the children. The Roy kids? They don’t share their patriarch’s stinginess. Roman (Kieran Culkin) especially is weirdly kind-hearted, always thinking and worrying about other people’s feelings. He would spring for more pizza. Connor (Alan Ruck) would spend everything he had on Justine Lupe’s Willa (granted, it’s his dad’s money, not his).

But a large chunk of “Rehearsal” shows the adult kids turning up their noses at an ordinary bar and grill, a place morose Connor wants to go to, which probably would serve pizza along with the advertised wings, which cause Roman to ponder, “I wonder from which particular creature they snip these wings.”   

They act like they need inoculations to enter an innocuous dive bar. The kids are food snobs. Logan, for all his many, many problems, may not be. But he’s also not generous.

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Like much of “Succession,” the thing we’re talking about isn’t actually what we’re talking about. It’s deeper and darker. “It’s not the pizza,” Logan admits to Tom, bringing up that he’s really worried about girlfriend/assistant Kerry and her rocky broadcast news anchor audition, which reflects poorly upon him. Sometimes a pizza is not simply a reflection of your values, but a symbol for deeper woes, a conduit, a greasy gateway. 

Later on in the episode, Logan tries to actually talk about feelings with his children, even apologizing. Sort of. Is the pizza the first sign of self-knowledge? Like soy cheese, Logan may just be faking it.