Succession's 'Boar on the Floor' Turns Fatal in The Gentlemen

Move over, Boar on the Floor, there's a new game of humiliation in town — and this time, it's fatal.

Underneath the drugs and violence of it all, there are a few obvious parallels between Succession and The Gentlemen, a spin-off of Guy Ritchie's 2019 film of the same name. While Succession concludes with the death of media mogul Logan Roy (Brian Cox), The Gentlemen begins there: When the Duke of Halstead dies, he defies centuries of tradition by bequeathing his title and extravagant estate to his second son, respected military man Eddie Horniman (Theo James), over entitled "eldest boy" Freddy (Daniel Ings), who's ruled by his cocaine addiction and hedonistic impulses.

The late Duke's decision opens up a fissure between the Horniman brothers, one that grows even deeper when Eddie discovers Freddy owes a ruthless crime family £8 million. In a bid to erase his brother's debt, Eddie and Susie Glass (Kaya Scodelario) — who runs a successful cannabis empire on the Hornimans' estate and thus seeks to prevent their financial ruin — appeal directly to Tommy Dixon (Peter Serafinowicz), the gangster who holds Freddy's fate in his hands. Tommy agrees to cut Freddy's bill in half, but it comes with strings attached, and bizarre ones, at that. In order to reduce his debt from £8 to £4 million, Freddy must film an apology video and sing a modified version of "Ee-I-Ee-I-O" ("I'm a posh twat who f*cked up, ee-i-ee-i-o") while wearing a chicken costume.

Tommy doesn't just want Freddy to admit he's "a cock" — he wants him to "actually be a chicken." For the Liverpudlian criminal and his brother Gospel John Dixon (Pearce Quigley), who uses the Bible to justify his violence, shaming Freddy and recording it for posterity isn't enough; they seek to reinforce his place at "the bottom of the food chain" by stripping him of his dignity and personhood. "I don't want any vestige of humanity left in ya," says Tommy. "I just want to see bird."

The Dixons' power play calls to mind Succession Season 2 episode "Hunting," in which Logan hazed three of his employees — Tom (Matthew Macfadyen), Greg (Nicholas Braun), and Karl (David Rasche) — by forcing them to play "Boar on the Floor," a game he made up to root out the rat in his inner circle. As the rest of the group looked on, Logan commanded the trio to "oink for [their] sausages," proclaiming, "The last piggy to eat a sausage is the mole." Logan's logic was obviously flawed, as both Tom and Greg pointed out, but "Boar on the Floor" was never really about the leak. It was a show of force from the Roy patriarch, a reminder of just how quickly he could bring his employees low and the lengths to which they were willing to go to appease him.

The Gentlemen's chicken dance reflects a similar dynamic. From a plush chair in the Hornimans' wood-paneled study, Tommy barks orders at Freddy (now wearing a feathered bodysuit and rubber chicken head), telling him to "peck the grain," "lay a f*cking egg," and pretend to fly. When Freddy fails to meet his standards, Tommy's commands become even crueler: "There's a worm!" he says, pointing at the ground. "I want you to eat the worm, you f*cking chicken!" As the music swells, shots of Tommy screaming at Freddy, who pecks at the carpet beneath his feet, are intercut with images of Freddy, a shell of the man he was just a few minutes prior, sobbing in the bathroom.

But unlike the "piggies" of Succession, Freddy doesn't sit back and take the humiliation. Grabbing the shotgun he used to shoot clays earlier in the premiere (call it "Chick-hov's gun"), he charges into the study with fire in his eyes. "Who's the chicken now?" he asks as he aims the gun at Tommy's head. The drug dealer manages to yell out just two words before blood spatters on the wall behind him: "F*ck off!" he says, doing his best Logan Roy impression.

The premiere ends with a dazed Freddy celebrating his successful effort to seize power back from the Dixons — "I shot him in the head because he was a cock, ee-i-ee-i-o" — but Tommy's murder has far-reaching implications for the rest of the season. The shooting draws Eddie further into the criminal underworld, as he and Susie must go to great lengths to clean up Freddy's figurative and literal mess. And though Freddy is no longer at the bottom of the Dixons' food chain (for now), his rash move lowers his standing in the Horniman brother rankings. Whatever sliver of respect Eddie had for his brother is gone; it's abundantly clear that Freddy is a liability who must be kept in check.

For Eddie, the challenge becomes asserting control over Freddy without breaking his spirit entirely, lest he become the next victim of his brother's instability. It's a fine line to walk, but if Logan Roy can get away with it for decades, Eddie can manage for a few weeks.

The Gentlemen is streaming on Netflix. Join the discussion about the show in our forums.

Claire Spellberg Lustig is the Senior Editor at Primetimer and a scholar of The View. Follow her on Twitter at @c_spellberg.