Succession's Infamous 'Boar On The Floor' Scene Could've Gone Even Further
"Succession" is a series about terrible people who do truly terrible things, but one of the most horrible moments came courtesy of the family patriarch, Logan Roy (Brian Cox). He's a loud, brash, angry man who likes to bludgeon others with his power. After dealing with the personal humiliation of a health scare in season 1, the brutal businessman decided to make a show of his strength by humiliating others during a very fancy dinner. All of the heavy hitters are there, including his sons Kendall (Jeremy Strong) and Roman (Kieran Culkin), his son-in-law Tom (Matthew Macfayden), and executives like Gerri (J. Smith-Cameron) and Frank (Peter Friedman). They're on a hunting trip in Hungary and Logan is trying to figure out who might be operating as a mole, selling their secrets to the competition. Instead of simply talking to them about it, however, he decides to torture them with a little game of "Boar on the Floor."
In an interview with Uproxx, Roy and fellow stars Nicholas Braun and David Rasche, who play Cousin Greg and Karl, along with writer and producer Tony Roche and director Andrij Parekh, discussed the absolute madness behind "Boar on the Floor" and revealed that it could have gone even further. While it's hard to imagine something more extreme and humiliating than three grown men crawling around on the floor, snorting, and trying to shove a sausage into their mouths, apparently the sick minds behind "Succession" had some ideas.
The king of humiliation
In the interview, Cox refers to the scene as the moment where you see Logan's "demon come out," and that's a pretty accurate description. Logan roars and bellows as he commands Tom, Greg, and Karl to go stand by the fireplace and then play his demented game. He demands that the three men fight over two sausages while snorting like pigs, and whoever ends without a sausage will be the mole and suffer the consequences. When Tom points out that it doesn't seem like a very good system, Logan ignores him and has Frank fling a frank in his general direction. Rasche explained the rationale behind the three men squabbling for the sausage:
"When someone says, 'Get on the floor,' you have a choice of either getting on the floor or walking out. That's kind of what you're confronted with. And I guess what went through my mind as my character was, 'This is going to go away.' And you take it one step further and you think, 'Well it can't go any further than this,' and then it does. And I guess the choices are; lose everything or suffer humiliation. And I guess we're all weak enough that our choice was to suffer the humiliation rather than lose everything."
The Roy family loves humiliating people, whether it's Logan's boorish games or Kendall playing Nirvana's "Rape Me" while his sister Shiv (Sarah Snook) gives a delicate speech about sexual assault allegations at her family's company. How long people are willing to play along is up to them, but most seem willing to completely debase themselves for just a tiny bit of Logan's power and money.
An uncomfortable scene to film
When Logan and Frank toss the sausages, the three men playing Boar on the Floor immediately start fighting like animals, with Tom and Karl rolling around and wrestling over one hot dog while Greg grabs the other and starts snarfing. Greg's fear is almost palpable, as if he believes that by gulping down that glizzy, he'll be able to make the whole horror go away. Braun explained:
"I think you try to not make it feel vulnerable. Whenever you are in a humiliating moment in real life, you believe it will end very soon. Or you hope it does. It can't last forever. So I think I just hoped it wasn't as bad as it looks or as soon as I grab a sausage it will be over and Logan will laugh and it'll all just be a big joke."
Unfortunately, Logan takes the whole thing deadly seriously, chastising Tom for being too slow when Karl ends up wrestling away the weenie for himself. Thankfully the only things that get hurt are some egos, but it's still got to be deeply humiliating to fight over a hunk of meat simply because you were told to. Parekh explained that there were ways the scene could have gone even further, but that they worked hand-in-hand with the actors to get a sense of what was reasonable. After all, Parekh understood that "humiliation on-camera is still being humiliated," even in character, and the whole sequence was deeply humiliating.
Funny, dark, and eye-opening
The scene ended up working brilliantly, in large part because "Succession" balances its darkness with humor and the sheer absurdity of it is played for laughs. When Roman starts filming the whole thing on his cell phone and giving directions for their oinking, it's grotesque but funny. Rasche pointed out that the scene reveals so much about everyone because of their reactions, and that no one stepped in and stopped the madness, and he's spot-on. Roman is quick to make the spectacle into something even more awful by recording it, while Logan revels in getting some of the other men in the room wound up and drunk on his power. Tom, Greg, and Karl are all willing to act like little piggies to appeal to Logan, while Karl and Gerri seem disgusted by the whole affair. But no one, absolutely no one, tries to stop Logan in his cruelty, because they're all too afraid that they would be next.
The "Boar on the Floor" scene is a perfect example of the unique tone of "Succession" and the wild places the series can go. The show is often just people standing around boardrooms swearing at one another, but occasionally their misanthropic madness explodes and things get totally unhinged. It will be interesting to see what moments of mayhem happen in the fourth and final season, currently airing on Sunday evenings on HBO and HBO Max.