On paper, there shouldn’t be much linking Succession, the multi-award winning show about a toxic media dynasty, often cited as one of the greatest TV series of all time, and Red, White & Royal Blue, a light-hearted queer rom-com adapted from a popular YA book.
But amid all the heart-warming love-ins and furtive sex scenes in RW&RB, there are some pithy one-liners going on in the script. When the US president’s son Alex (Taylor Zakhar Perez) tells Prince Henry (Nicholas Galitzine) that he’s never had sex with a man, the Prince comforts him, only half-joking: “I went to an English boarding school, dear. You’re in good hands.” Similarly when Henry says that he wants to “make love” Alex fires back: “What, are we gonna like, listen to Lana Del Rey when we do it?”
Most of the killer zings, however, are given to Zahra (Sarah Shahi) the single-minded Deputy Chief of Staff to Uma Thurman’s president. And when she discovers Alex and a Henry practically in flagrante, she lets rip. It's not unlike the scene in the first episode of the last season of Succession when Cousin Greg brought “Bridget Random-fuck” with the “ludicrously capacious bag” to Logan’s party and failed to get her security-cleared.
This isn’t the only moment with a parallel to Jesse Armstrong’s opus. Later in the same scene, Zahra tells Henry to, “get his ass back to merry old England right now. I want you chewing on a goddam crumpet by sunset. And if anyone sees you leaving this hotel I will Brexit your head from your body.”
Then calls Henry “Little Lord Fuckleroy” – a play on Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Little Lord Fauntleroy, obviously – and if that insult sounds strangely familiar, that’s because it first appeared on Succession. It’s in series 3, episode 4, when Kendall dials in to a heated conference call with his Pops and leaves the sweary fake name in the recorded joining-the-call message.
What makes this particular scene memorable is the pleasing way Kendall then gets to bow out, with the automated voice informing an inflamed Logan that: “Little Lord Fuckleroy has left the call.” You can, of course, now get the branded t-shirt and a coffee cup with the name on it too.
So perhaps the co-writers, Matthew Lopez and Ted Malaware, are big Succession fans and wanted to pay tribute to one of the genre-defining insults of the series. Or maybe it was simply a coincidence on their part; one of those lines you’re convinced that you came up with yourself. Either way, it’s as satisfying as ever.
Red, White & Royal Blue is streaming on Amazon Prime Video now.
