Love is a many-splendored thing, especially when you’re gawking at it from the outside. In this new column, we’ll be examining the celebrity pairs (real and fictional) that give us hope for our own romantic futures and trying to learn what we can from their well-documented bonds.
Roman and Gerri. Gerri and Roman. What is there to say, really? I’ve written about countless couples I admire, both IRL and onscreen, and I’ve even given (if I may say so) very well-received wedding toasts celebrating real-life loved ones’ happiness; but the bond between these two low-grade Succesion sociopaths still renders me speechless. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
When we first meet this stupendous non-couple, they are not actually sleeping together or involved in any romantic capacity, but the sexual tension between Kieran Culkin as Roman, the youngest in the Roy bunch, and J. Smith-Cameron—general counsel for the Roys’ media conglomerate, Waystar Royco—crackles like a roaring fire in Logan Roy’s capacious den nonetheless.
Maybe a better-adjusted person wouldn’t be so vulnerable to the specific brand of sexually inflected cruelty tossed back and forth between Roman and Gerri, but unfortunately I just want J. Smith-Cameron to call me a “revolting little worm” into perpetuity. The scene in which Roman pathetically and drunkenly hits on Gerri while she patiently buttons his shirt is…simply so hot in a way that I can’t exactly quantify but probably relates at least in part to my documented mommy issues. At one point, there’s a marriage proposal that still haunts my dreams, and when we leave them at the end of season two, they are quite literally sailing away into the sunset. Come season three, the cursed-slash-charmed duo is still going on strong: Gerri is once again spurning Roman’s advances, and the best aspect of the dynamic is that he…well, doesn’t quite seem to care because he knows she’ll be on the other end of his phone once again.
In my ample free time, I’ve given quite a bit of thought to the psychological hold that Gerri and Roman have over me and so many other Succession viewers. Here’s my rudimentary analysis: Roman is, by all accounts, the worst (maybe not of the Roy family, because that’s an unwinnable contest, but I digress). He’s a spoiled, rude little rich boy, even if he was the runt of the litter growing up, and watching him get constantly thwarted and berated by Gerri—who is no angel herself but at least has the good fortune not to be a Roy—is weirdly satisfying to the side of myself that watched spoiled, rude little rich boys rule the roost every day of every year of my high school experience.
Do I actually want the douchebags I went to high school with to be eviscerated by Gerri types, though? No, not at all; I would never wish that honor upon them. What Gerri and Roman have is a bond that’s almost Shakespearean in nature, reminiscent of Beatrice and Benedick’s constant sparring in Much Ado About Nothing (if Beatrice was in the habit of referring to Benedick as a “slime puppy” while he pleasured himself). May it never actually be consummated yet pay twisted and horny dividends for seasons and seasons to come, amen.
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