That's Rich (No, Really)

The zeitgeist’s favourite shows about billionaires behaving badly live and die by the details, from watches to wine to yacht design. So how do the producers get things so right?

- Jay Cheshes

When HBO’s Succession premiered in June 2018, the scathing satire about a powerful family at war with itself got some behavioural tics of its uber-rich New Yorkers completely wrong, from their outerwear to the table settings at the patriarch’s birthday lunch.

“We had people tell us that rich people don’t use napkin rings, that rich people don’t wear coats when they go out because they just go straight from the car into the venue,” says Mark Mylod, an executive producer and director of the show, which began airing its fourth season in March. So, as filming progressed, the producers quickly recalibrated, compiling a roster of insider tips. “Somewhere there’s a whole file of various observations,” says Mylod. “For season one, we used it like a bible: the etiquette of how the rich behave in New York City.”

In other words, if the fictional lives portrayed on Succession and its growing list of imitators feel familiar, it might be because while you’ve been watching the shows, they’ve been watching you.

Cold comfort: Succession's Kendall Roy shouldn't be shivering. The walk from jet to limo isn't long enough to catch a chill.

Extreme wealth, more often skewered than celebrated, dominates the chatter about television these days, from masters of the hedge-fund universe sparring with federal prosecutors on Billions to the familial power plays on Succession to the vacation foibles of the merely rich on The White Lotus. And the popularity of these shows—a subgenre that we’ve termed Helipad Drama— among the demographic they feature is linked directly to how well the art imitates life.