Ever since the first episode of Succession, when it was briefly mentioned that Waystar Royco CEO Logan Roy was born in Dundee, I have been obsessively waiting for the day that HBO’s farcical tale of the 1% heads to Scotland. And in this week’s episode, “Dundee,” it finally happened: the most ambitious cross-over in television history. As a Scot, it is my patriotic duty to be extremely annoying about any on-screen depiction of my beloved country, and the sight of that familiar parade of black cars driving over the Tay River was like the floodgates opening for me to be as obnoxious as humanly possible.
Every Scottish person was born with the ability to complain to excess, so while I was beaming with pride watching this episode, I couldn’t fully enjoy it because I was nitpicking every frame to find some semblance of a mistake. Gladly, there weren’t any to be found! But, then again, it’s not that Scottish. I wasn’t expecting Roman to buy a deep fried Mars Bar from the chippy, but it would’ve been fun, don’t you think?
Logan wasn’t originally supposed to be from Scotland. Written as Canadian, his birthplace was eventually changed to Dundee in one fateful ADR session, and Logan was henceforth christened as a Scot. Funnily enough, it’s the same birthplace as Brian Cox, who portrays Logan, and the episode is littered with subtle nods to the actor’s home turf. In the words of Kendall Roy post-rap, Dundee in the motherfucking house.
A short tour of Dundee (and Gleneagles)
Logan clearly holds next to zero warm feelings for his hometown, but for one tender minute, he looks fondly at a bandstand—the Magdalen Green Bandstand to be precise. It’s perhaps my favorite moment in the episode, because we’ve rarely seen Logan lower his guard as far as this, finding himself at a loss for words in expressing his many conflicting feelings over his childhood. The bandstand is also just really lovely. No wonder Logan likes it so much.
Next, they head to a grand, lavish hotel—the Gleneagles Hotel—which offers its own logistical challenges. The Gleneagles Hotel a 45-minute drive away from Dundee which seems like more effort than it’s worth, but it’s fitting for their standards. I wouldn’t know because I’ve never stayed there, obviously.
While making the publicity rounds, Logan opens an entire journalism school that he couldn’t care less about. “A whole school for how to intern at a clickbait aggregator,” as Rhea put it, filling me with existential, career-oriented dread. The school is part of Dundee University, at which Cox was the school’s Rector for six years, and he was apparently really popular with the film students because he would sometimes turn up for lectures.
The stunning building that will be haunted in 100 years by the sound of Kendall’s rap is the V&A Museum. I’ve never been, but I’ve heard it’s lovely, and there’s going to be an exhibit on robots soon, so count me excited. It opened just a year ago on the city’s waterfront next to the ship, the RRS Discovery, which you can also spot as Tom and Shiv strut into the V&A looking like the hottest power-couple that would (and could) steal all my money.
“Roy C—t”
Logan, always extremely bad at fulfilling publicity ops, takes one look at his childhood home and hightails it out of there. Connor believes he was raised in an open sewer and raised by rats, but as it turns out, he lived in a perfectly normal house that could go for $5 mil easy if they were in Brooklyn.
There are two people I heavily identify with in this scene: our dear Gregory, who I’m ready to make an honorary Scot for complaining about midges (which, bless him, he pronounces incorrectly); and the single protester holding a sign that succinctly gets straight to the point: “ROY CUNT.” It’s a wonderful, subtle nod to the absolute legend Janey Godley, who protested Donald Trump’s Scotland visit with her “Trump is a cunt” sign. “Apparently, it’s less offensive over here,” Greg says, and while that’s true, I would not use it to call people buddy like he suggests.
Scottish kicky-ball
Because Roman can never do anything right, he attempts to surprise his father by buying a football team. Roman knows nothing about Scottish football except that it looks like “two eunuchs trying to fuck a letterbox,” and that his father supports Hearts. When he gifts his dad his favorite team, he learns of his fatal error: Logan is a Hibs supporter. I was confused about why he doesn’t go for his local team, so I asked my sister, whose boyfriend recently corrupted her into liking football, to which she texted: “dundee aren’t in the scottish premiership. that makes sense why he would support hibs.” She also explained that Hearts and Hibs are both Edinburgh teams, but in the days of sectarianism in football, the former was Protestant and the latter was Catholic, so Roman’s purchase might’ve struck a nerve there.
The tap water: It’s changed!
No line in this episode has haunted me more than Logan’s passing comment about the disappointing water. “The tap water used to taste sensational,” he tells Marcia, dejection clear in his voice. “It’s changed.” This raises the question: why would he drink the tap water? He can obviously afford fancy bottled water, which probably means he holds some nostalgia for Dundee’s tap water. I can’t attest to the quality of the city’s water but Scottish tap water is the best. Period. This one line honestly feels like a personal attack because I complain about tap water so much. Growing up in the North, I had tap water privilege, and like most privileges, you’re not aware of it until you open yourself up to other experiences and learn that tap water everywhere else is awful. But Logan moved away from Dundee as a child, most definitely before 1969 when the Backwater Reservoir opened and became the primary water source for Dundee and the surrounding area. I couldn’t figure out where Dundee’s water came from before 1969, but Logan probably preferred that water. This is investigative journalism.
Filming in Scotland is very in right now. Captain America reappeared bearded at Edinburgh Waverley station in Avengers: Infinity War, and Fast and Furious 9 just wrapped filming in the capital too. (The thought of driving fast in Edinburgh is an enigma to me, but that’s for another time.) More and more productions have come to the country just to use the streets and scenery as an attractive backdrop for action—so it’s refreshing to see Succession depict Dundee with subtle, but visible reverence.
But how Scottish is the Scottish episode of Succession? As Scottish as a multi-billionaire businessman who hasn’t lived there since he was a child, which is to say, very, if you dig deep enough.
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