What about the kids? Prudence is the inspiration for Connor Roy (Alan Ruck), the oldest, least important sibling with a different mother than the rest. Prudence doesn’t have Connor’s same eccentricities — those come from Alan Ruck himself — and her main concern is getting her father’s acknowledgment. In particular, she wants an apology for when he accidentally said he had “three children” in an interview.
Elisabeth is Shiv (Sarah Snook) — she works outside the family business because her father won’t make a woman his heir. While Shiv went into politics, Elisabeth founded the TV production company the Shine Group. Her then-husband, Matthew Freud, gets the most focus on the Murdoch spouses (barring Wendi) in the script, mirroring the important role that Shiv’s husband Tom Wambsgams (Matthew Macfadyen) plays in “Succession.”
Matthew, a social-climbing PR executive, is recruited by KRM to convince Elisabeth into signing the revised trust. She catches on and is baffled that her own husband is running PR for her father. This calls to mind Tom’s eventual betrayal of Shiv to Logan in the “Succession” season 3 finale, “All The Bells Say.”
Speaking of: true to reality, the Murdochs are all married. In “Succession,” Kendall is divorced, Roman (Kieran Culkin) is mostly single, Shiv is in a rocky marriage, and Connor is seeing call girl Willa Ferreyra (Justine Lupe). Giving the siblings different types of relationships opened up the door for more storytelling possibilities befitting a TV series.
