Stream It Or Skip It?

The success of Succession has opened the door for dramas and dramedies that involve a family going to war with each other over a wealthy patriarch or matriarch’s surprising will or nebulous succession plans. It’s gotten to the point where the succession twist isn’t even really a twist anymore. A new Polish drama gets that twist out of the way in the first episode; it’s what happens before and after that twist that’s interesting.

Opening Shot: “We all have a debt. And I don’t mean money. For gratitude. For time. Attention. Sacrifice. And those are priceless.” In a driving rainstorm, someone drags a body onto a boat; an arm with a watch on its wrist is shown. The person takes the boat, named Johnny, out on the water, and dumps the body over the side.

The Gist: Johnny Mroz (Johnny (Jacek Koman), a former Naval captain, has died, and his daughter Hanka (Magdalena Poplawska) is getting his boat ready to fulfill his request to spread his ashes on the water.

To that end, she makes sure her husband Wojtek (Wojceich Zielinksi) has different ashes in the urn that will be displayed at the funeral and used for a cemetery burial. But he forgets to get Johnny’s uniform, so Hanka annoyingly goes to her father’s house to get it. For his part, though, Wojtek gets Hanka to stop checking her phone, because she’s dealing with issues in the family’s fishing business.

Johnny was well-regarded in the fishing town of Hel, and lots of people come to his funeral. Hanka’s brother Pawel (Grzegorz Damiecki), a town councilman, gives a eulogy at the burial. But nowhere to be found is Hanka and Pawel’s brother Maciek (Bartoz Gelner). He hangs back at the burial with his wife Ola (Michalina Labacz) and their daughter Maja (Michalina Brzuska), out of sight.

But when a whale becomes beached on the nearby shore, as people were proceeding to the family’s restaurant for the wake, Maciek makes a dramatic appearance, while Wojtek, a marine biologist, goes to study the dead whale.

Hanka is happy to see her brother, but Pawel isn’t; he’s angry that Maciek has barely been a presence in their lives in recent years, especially as Johnny’s health declined. He’s been out of his siblings’ lives for so long that he only met Hanka’s 10-year-old younger son once. He has his reasons, but ones that we don’t really know about as yet. Maciek’s intention is to stay for two days and disappear again.

The siblings, along with Ola and Wojtek, take the boat out on the water that night and spread Johnny’s ashes (it’s illegal to do so in Poland, which is why they needed the fake ashes for a traditional burial). Then, the next day, Johnny’s will is read, and the three siblings get a surprise: All of Johnny’s estate goes to Maja, with Maciek managing it because his daughter is a minor.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Heritage (original title: Scheda) is definitely reminiscent of Succession or I, Jack Wright, with a bit of a psychological thriller like Pieces Of Her mixed in.

Our Take: Given that we see a body with a watch on being dumped at the beginning of The Heritage, it’s not a spoiler to say that this story about siblings who are trying to figure out why they were cut out of their father’s will turns dark in a hurry. Eight months after the will is read, the headless body is recovered, and Maciek is conspicuously absent from the group that comes to the dock to see about the body — but Ola is there. So is Maciek missing? Is he the headless body found in the water?

The first episode sets up the story pretty well, except for one factor that we hope gets more play later on. We’re first introduced to Johnny Mroz after his death, with his three adult children all reacting to it in their own ways. But we don’t know much about Johnny, other than the fact that he loved the sea so much that he wanted that to be his final resting place.

We suspect that a lot about Johnny will come out during this series, probably in the form of flashbacks. It seems that the three siblings had different levels of affection for the old sailor, and we get the feeling he wasn’t exactly a guy who was in touch with his feelings. There has to be a good reason why Maciek has stayed away. But why is he all of a sudden in charge of his dad’s estate, and what happens to him after that?

Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.

Parting Shot: Wojtek tells Ola that the body they found is headless, and gives her a hug.

Sleeper Star: We don’t see much of Michalina Brzuska as Maja in the first episode, but her presence will be important going forward, given that she gets the entire estate when she turns 18.

Most Pilot-y Line: Weronika (Zuzanna Galewicz), a bartender at the restaurant, recognizes Maciek when he bums a light from her. He hasn’t seen her since she was a kid, quoting back to her, “I’m eight and jellyfish scare me?”, to which she replies, “Nineteen and they’re still gross.” It’s a clunky bit of exposition, but it seems that Wera will have a place in this story somehow.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Because the basics of the relationships between the three siblings are so well established in the first episode of The Heritage, it’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out. And we’re saying this while acknowledging that plots involving surprising estate or succession plans are starting to feel a little played out.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.