‘Succession’ Review: Episode 7 Fireworks Turn a ‘Tailgate Party’ Into Scorched EarthĪllowing the real world to seep in doesn’t mean reveling in the fear and panic associated with these now-familiar scenes. There is simply an acknowledgment that a loss has happened. But there are no slow-motion shots of doctors and nurses holding back bereft mourners. Being kept from relatives during their final moments is a memory no one wants to relive, nor should they. Even the series’ respectful distance from death may be too evocative for some viewers. There are shots of overrun hospitals, grocery store shopping sprees, airports filled with stranded passengers, and people in masks. The modern parallels are unavoidable, and Somerville, along with pilot director and executive producer Hiro Murai, doesn’t duck them.
Its present day looks like ours, then flashes forward (and back again) to tell an eerie, intimate tale.
“Station Eleven” begins as a flu-like virus spreads across the globe, killing 99 percent of the people it infects. They learn of their family’s fate via a stranger’s text. They hear their partner’s last words over a voicemail. By physical distance or time itself, they’re removed from their loved ones’ sudden departure. But in Patrick Somerville’s apocalyptic HBO Max limited series, characters rarely get that close. Dystopian disaster stories tend to go one step further, honing in on gruesome fatalities or honoring last breaths from the battlefield, exhaled in the arms of their best friends.
Death is depicted differently in “ Station Eleven.” TV typically relishes its bedside goodbyes, milking those lingering close-ups of the sick or dying for every last tear.
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