What the latest Succession finale means for season 4
The third season of HBO's hit dysfunctional family drama blew up the status quo in a major way. Here are the implications looking ahead to next year
TV Features Succession
That was one hell of a rug pull. Once again, it looked like Logan Roy (Brian Cox) was about to finally get his just deserts—only to reveal that he was, as usual, staying one step ahead of everyone else. But this time, it wasn’t just Kendall (Jeremy Strong) getting thrown under the bus, or some competing corporate interest being outplayed. No, the sacrifices this time were all of his children. Shiv (Sarah Snook), Kendall, and Roman (Kieran Culkin) thought they were harpooning the great white whale; instead, the whale smashed their ship to pieces, leaving them helpless to resist. Apparently, when Logan’s getting ready to have more kids, suddenly the existing ones don’t seem quite so necessary.
Season three of Succession ended in a crescendo of duplicitous dealings and explosive family drama. (You can read Ashley Ray-Harris’ full review of the episode here.) But the implications of what took place are going to massively shake up the world of the Roys. Below, we break down some of the most dramatics changes coming to the moneyed elite of this messed-up family—and how it could play out in season four.
Kendall, Shiv, and Roman are finally on the same team—in a bad way
Look, the Roy kids may love each other in some vague, loose sense of the word, but historically, that’s never stopped them from metaphorically slitting each other’s throats if it means gaining even an iota of tactical advantage for their careers and pocketbooks. Hell, it was just earlier this very season, in episode three, that Shiv published a letter that eviscerated Kendall’s character down to the smallest detail. For all the ways they dealt with one another, it always seemed like it came from a position of competition—none of them ever wanted to back the others.
But now, they’re all on the same side: the losing one. After learning Logan is moving to sell Waystar Royco (thereby destroying any chance his kids would have of one day running the company—the golden goose each of them sought), the three youngest siblings team up to push their father out of the company and save their precious positions of power. (Well, Shiv and Roman want that. Kendall just wants to take out the guy he thinks ruined his life.) And for once, they all seem to see the value in one another. As Roman puts it, “Even though this literally makes me wanna vomit and I want to kill you both every day, and it’s all gonna end horribly, I do think that we—puke—could make a pretty good team.”
If only they were as business-savvy as they think they are. When they show up ready to throw cold water on their father’s plans, he upends theirs instead, stripping the three of their power to block the sale and leaving them adrift, with no authority. Their long-dreamt-of careers are tanked.
In season four, the Roy children will no longer be scheming against one another to earn daddy’s good graces and a shot at running Waystar Royco. They’re stuck with each other (for now, anyway), frozen out of what they saw as their birthrights. Kendall was already at loose ends—witness his breakdown earlier in this episode—but it seems like Shiv and Roman will now be his partners in defeat. They could join forces to try and carve out a new place at the media-elite table, or they could once more fragment and snipe at each other, to no effect. Unfortunately, the latter is a place in which they’ve grown very comfortable.
Which could make way for a new power player…
Tom Wambsgans steps out of Shiv’s shadow
The person who arguably walked away with the biggest victory this episode (other than Logan, of course) is Shiv’s long-suffering husband, Tom (Matthew Macfadyen). He had already scored big points with Logan this season by offering to be the fall guy for the Waystar Royco cruise line scandal. And now, by betraying his wife and alerting Logan to the power play the patriarch’s kids were making, he has presumably secured a new position of power for himself in the coming post-Waystar world.
In season four, the shaky foundation of Shiv and Tom’s marriage is likely getting demolished. Shiv is good at many things, but keeping her thoughts to herself isn’t one of them. Yet as many have noted, the pair have an oddly codependent relationship. So it’s entirely possible they’ll stay together, but with a switch in the balance of power. Shiv was always on top, thanks to her family and the strength of wealth and nepotism. But now, Tom may be the one with the inside scoop, the access to power, the ear of the king. Shiv may find herself relying on her husband in the same way he once kowtowed to her—and Tom is nothing if not a fan of enjoying privilege.
Connor may finally have an interest in picking sides
Connor Roy (Alan Ruck) has historically tried to play Switzerland in his family’s Byzantine relationships, remaining neutral during intra-Roy squabbles. While he always made sure Logan saw him as the dependably servile one—the better to keep his coffers filled while doing no actual work—he also tried to maintain good relations with everyone, even when it seemed as though the fault lines between various relatives had grown too vast to be repaired.
But Connor wanted Waystar in the family, because he saw their media control as his route to political power. When he learns the company might merge with GoJo—let alone be sold—he has a conniption fit, seeing it as the end of his lofty aspirations. So the complete sale of the company is presumably an even more disastrous conclusion. This could well push Connor toward his equally bereft siblings, as they are united in common ouster. The sale may be just the push he needs to throw his lot in with Kendall, Shiv, and Roman.
Especially because he’s now engaged! Willa Ferreyra (Justine Lupe) accepted his proposal, and while the brief look of “What have I done?” on her face immediately following her “fuck it” acceptance implies she may already regret that choice, it does solidify Connor’s personal life in a profound way. It’s likely, given his need for an injection of cash from Logan last season, that Connor’s lavish lifestyle requires a continued revenue stream from a corporate titan like Waystar Royco. Without that, his options are limited, which could well help push him toward his siblings. Lord knows, he’s not about to scale back his luxe tastes.
Cousin Greg chooses Tom over timidity
All season, Greg (Nicholas Braun) the egg has been steadily shedding his doormat persona: Improving his grooming and mannerisms, gaining confidence in interpersonal situations, and even beginning a tentative courtship. As he gains confidence, however, he’s lost the inner moral compass that used to pop up now and again, as though the power of the latter simply shifted to the former. By accepting Tom’s offer to make a deal with the devil (“Boo, souls!” he crows), Greg has secured a position on the winning side—the cost to his “soul” as yet unknown.
Looking ahead, Greg will likely achieve exactly what Tom promised him—a spot in “the bottom of the top,” with “20 Gregs” beneath him as his own lackeys. That should leave him well-placed in whatever ecosystem sprouts up following GoJo’s acquisition of Waystar. However, it also leaves a big question mark as to his role vis-a-vis the rest of the Roy family. He will seemingly have little reason to continue interacting with the Roy children on any professional basis. That is, unless the biggest question mark of this season finale makes a play of his own.
What will Logan Roy do next?
Logan made an enormous production tonight out of the fact that he had to move to secure the best possible deal for himself—that nothing else mattered as much as achieving the closest possible version of victory, given the cards he’d been dealt. “You should’ve trusted me,” he mutters to Roman with an almost wounded sense of pride—topped by a bigger sense of scorn, of course. He’s leveraging his position to secure a deeply profitable payout from the company he built.
And yet. If there’s one thing we know Logan Roy won’t do, it’s go quietly into that good night. So what’s the play, here, exactly? His kids always insisted he was the mad Ahab of Waystar Royco, who would rather go down with the ship than ever see it passed on to someone he viewed as a usurper. And given his thinly veiled hatred of Lukas Matsson (or “Hans Christian Anderfuck,” as Logan refers to Matsson), there’s almost no chance he’s happy to hand over the keys to his media empire so cleanly.
So Logan Roy isn’t done playing God. He probably never will be. That means season four, to some degree, will be all about what Logan’s endgame really is—whether he’s planning to start something brand new, and compete with the company he just handed off, or if there’s some more Machiavellian scheme at work, where he’s baked some sort of poison pill into the deal with GoJo. Could Logan Roy end season four by returning the conquering hero at the company he founded? Given his track record, it certainly seems plausible.
That’s what’s most exciting about this season finale: It completely resets the game (and as more than one character on Succession has insisted, no matter the lives at stake, this is a game), leaving everyone wide open to make unpredictable moves, no longer dependent on the existing chain of command. No one has any need to bend to Logan any more—by selling, he’s taken away the one thing that kept every member of his family in check, even when they were actively fighting him for it. That’s a thrilling proposition: Could Logan ever be just another player, instead of king?
Oh, but here’s something we can likely say for certain:
Sorry, Gerri-Roman ’shippers
If there’s one thing that’s dead in the water, it’s Gerri and Roman. Barring some profound mea culpa on both sides, it’s awfully tough to see how everyone’s favorite mildly kinky couple makes it through. But if we’d love to be wrong; guess we’ll have to wait until season four to know for sure. [Checks calendar.] Is it late 2022 yet?
55 Comments
Once again, it looked like Logan Roy (Brian Cox) was about to finally get his just deserts—only to reveal that he was, as usual, staying one step ahead of everyone else. I think this episode was another great example of the fact that Logan succeeds not because he is particularly smart or clever, but because he is a bully who rules by brute force. Tom helps Logan because Logan is the person in the room he’s most afraid of.
he also decides what exactly counts as winning when he wants. for 2 seasons control was winning, now it isn’t but he still gets to go ‘fuck you i win’ because that’s how the world works when you’re a rich psycho.tom also rightly noticed that everyone got fucked, constantly, except for logan, who really is bulletproof.
“he also decides what exactly counts as winning when he wants.” = life is nothing but a game of boar on the floor!!
Yeah, that’s one of the dynamics the show doesn’t really make obvious or draw attention to, but it is pretty interesting how rarely Logan seems to do or say anything particularly brilliant or cunning. I mean, even at the time he said it I thought that “Hans Christian Anderfuck” was a line that more had the cadence of a joke than any actual humor to it, just to use one small example. Everyone treats him like he’s Thanos, presumably because he actually was when he was younger, and he just keeps bellowing profanity at the top of his lungs, and when you’re a staggeringly wealthy white male media titan, “bellowing profanity at the top of your lungs” is all you need to be considered an unkillable behemoth.
Exactly. Shiv even alludes to this at one point. (Maybe during the UTI scare at the shareholders meeting?)Roman says something along the lines of “It’ll be fine, this is dad we’re talking about.” And she says “Yeah, but Dad now, not Dad twenty years ago.”
“and when you’re a staggeringly wealthy white male media titan,
“bellowing profanity at the top of your lungs” is all you need to be
considered an unkillable behemoth.”
Arguably, his cunning is realizing, more completely than anyone else on the show, that this is what it takes to be the unkillable behemoth.
The one time he “lost” – ie, the tangle w/ Stewie/Sandy/Sandi – was that it was the one context where this didn’t work.
He’s not unkillable. He’s giving up control of his company.
Fair point – I should have used the past tense.I mean, the show title itself implies a changing of the guard. I wonder if the realization that he just doesn’t understand digital came with the realization that being male and retrograde (and crafting a product which reflects that) doesn’t let you yell yourself to success anymore.
The other other point is that recognizing that his ex-wife will slice the kids out of the picture in exchange for more loot does imply a very astute judge of character. (That applies to his ability to “turn” Tom to his side.)
You saw it too with the Pierces, Logan tried to woo them, etc, and couldn’t pull it off. All he has going for him is sitting at the top of a giant pile of money and lawyers. The show’s thesis was pretty definitively stated in season 2 by Logan himself: ‘money wins’.
Not that he isn’t pathologically committed to being ‘on top’ to the degree that he can’t have any human connection. And he has an understanding of business that his kids don’t have, which is that everything is fluid. So the man who can endlessly throw money at anything and anyone because he has to win, will always win.
As dramatically inert it is how static that makes the show, it’s also the most realistic part of the show. Everywhere around us these old people simply refuse to go away, or give up.
Not everyone treats him like Thanos though. It is really only people in his inner circle that treat him that way. Beyond that, there seems to be plenty of disdain for him. This season alone, two separate douchebros have made fun of his age and irrelevance to his face and he just sat there and took it. Also notice his complete inability to scare Stewy and Sandy/Sandi off their takeover bid. They see right through his bluster.
And his almost too-deft ability to manipulate. The kids come in to tank the deal, and he plays it as betrayal – “you should have trusted me”, that they came for him without cause, when he’d cut them all out of the deal entirely when he sent Roman away. He positioned himself as the attacked who only lashed out in self-defense. I’d prefer the Roy kids get out and get intensive therapy, but if they won’t do that, at least start considering counter-moves when you put a plan of attack together.
I think Tom helps Logan, because Logan shows at least a minor level of respect for Tom now. That’s all Tom wanted. Why should he stick by Shiv? The woman who openly hates him? Who delights in telling him that at their most intimate moments? Logan is the devil, but at least the devil genuinely pats Tom on the shoulder now and then.
I think his reactions in that episode were key to his finale decision. When he learned he wouldn’t have to go to prison, he ran to Greg, but he was also surprised when Logan took the time to clutch his hand and say it wouldn’t be forgotten. Shiv, meanwhile, just could not find any happiness over his reprieve – hell, even the awkward toast she gave was a setup for the awkward toast she gave in the finale. Shiv had saved Tom from prison back in the season 2 finale, so she did try, but their relationship had heavily deteriorated in the months following that moment, and she had not adjusted. Logan cultivated the relationship she let decay. Of course Logan will end up being horrible but if Tom only had the two choices, he’s going to choose Logan after his memories of that day.
It illustrates how self-defeating the children often are. Shiv could have had Tom’s loyalty so easily. But so thoroughly took him for granted, she set herself up to be backstabbed. Shiv can’t even take feelings to manipulate others and that’s a weakness when going against her father who is a master of that.
The kids are so drawn to the idea of Logan as the center of everything that they have never been able to form any genuine relationships. Roman is the one who probably tries the most, but these are usually really screwed up quasi-incestuous bonds with people who are using him (like that fascist ATN is backing for President) or who will always have to put themselves first (Gerri). The kids think if they get Logan’s approval, nothing else matters. Only in the finale did they finally realize that will never happen. We’ll see if it sticks.
I dunno. Shiv treats Tom like shit constantly so he appears meek but Tom’s a shark himself. He asked Shiv what his place in their plan was and she obviously hadn’t even considered him a part of their plan. And while he might have supported her still out of love, she’s made it pretty clear lately that she doesn’t love him. So the only way he could achieve his own goals was to go with Logan and there was no real reason for him not to do it.
Thank you. There may have been a time when Logan successfully paired business savvy and cleverness with his bullying and domineering behavior. That time had since passed by the time the events depicted in the series take place. To the extent Logan gets his way, it is solely by attempting to bully people. He no longer has actually innovative ideas (seriously, he’s going to shore up his position as a dying legacy media company by….buying up a bunch of local TV stations?), and what ideas he can manage to come up with he executes poorly (see the entire attempt to buy Pierce). When he hears rumblings of discontent over is plan to buy Pierce, does he make a calm, well-informed pitch to his management team (who after all, are actually getting paid to think through things like “Does this massive merger make business sense and is it even achievable”) explaining how it is sound business strategy that bolsters them against a takeover bid? Nope! BOARS ON THE FLOOR! That’s how he brings his team around to his hugely risky idea of dealing with an existential crisis. To the extent Logan “wins,” it’s solely because of how much of a bully he is willing to be, and who he is willing to be a bully to.
The show truly is a mirror of the world we all live in. Trump and every single other ultra-successful person had to be conniving and heartless at times, playing a character a la The Matrix where the only way to get the ‘high score’ in life is to fuck everyone else over and don’t look back until after you succeed (and the soul is gone).Realistically, we can all be nice and average; however, the truly successful know the rest of us are guilt-driven fools and they use that enormously powerful leverage to one-up billions of other human beings.
best thing about this show is i don’t really care about predicting what happens, i only care about how it happens when it happens and who it happens to.
Everyone here are equally awful, so there’s no corner for me to stand in. These people are ruthless and miserable, and I’m loving it.
Every season finale leaves me at “wow! How the fuck are they going to move forward from this??!?”, only for the next season to slide into the enjoyable groove of party/event-of-the-week and I remember that the real pleasures of this show is watching these people hang out in gigantic rooms and bicker about the same things over and over again.
I think what they’re setting up is that Logan’s triumph is actually his downfall. If Logan wanted to get paid off for selling Waystar and spend his days in leisure, he would have done it at any point in the series. Hell, the show began with him about to do exactly that, handing the company off to Kendall. What we’ve seen, over and over again, is his inability to give up control, even when the only real benefit he gets is control itself. Logan himself recognized that the $5 billion he would lose by hesitating on the deal is basically meaningless to him. So how can he possibly be happy with selling the company, no matter how wealthy it makes him?In the final scene, Logan promised his kids that they’d be taken care of in the deal, because they were important to Matsson, and the kids rightly recognize that that was nonsense. Once Matsson controlled the company, he’d control it, and wouldn’t have any use for the old guard. But it’s telling that, even as we’re supposed to see Logan as some kind of genius schemer, similar hollow promises were apparently enough to win him over to the deal. Matsson promised him that his contributions and long leadership of Waystar would be recognized and respected, and that he didn’t have any wish to humiliate Logan. But once Matsson controls the company, why will he have any more patience for Logan than he’d have for the kids?
His kids always insisted he was the mad Ahab of Waystar Royco, who would rather go down with the ship than ever see it passed on to someone he viewed as a usurper.Kind of an interesting thing to say given I seem to recall that one of his kids refer to Logan as Moby Dick directly – referencing how he can still put up a big fight while being harpooned left and right.
The only thing I can think of close to this turn of events — very close, now that I think about it — is when Louisville’s Barry Bingham Sr. tired of the family infighting and sold off all the family’s media holdings. All the properties they fought over were gone and he told ’em “Screw y’all — the power’s all gone. All you get is money.”For some light reading:
https://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/19/business/the-fall-of-the-house-of-bingham.html
I expect the shocking season 3 finale will mean something similar to what the shocking season 2 finale meant for the show: not much will change.
Actually this season paid off the idea of the show having actual forward movement storyline-wise after S1 and S2 largely flipping back and forth towards storylines and direction.
I really hope this season was setting up Connor joining fully into the family power contest next season. But I am not sure he will be joining the ill-fated Team Shiv (as Roman called it).For one thing, I am not sure Team Shiv itself is going to survive its miserable failure to take down Logan. But I also thought Connor’s protests over not being given his rightful status as the eldest son were a possible sign of him breaking away from Caroline’s kids and instead finally treating them as rivals.And while it has been a slow burn, I do think this season has set up Connor being increasingly serious in his political ambitions, and increasingly frustrated about the lack of support from the rest of the family. I note that proposing to Willa was precipitated by the possibility of her background becoming a political liability for him. And I could see that being a marker of Connor being willing to “get serious” in other ways as well.
“What the latest Succession finale means for season 4″It means that Greg and Tom are well on their way to sailing off into the sunset together, as it was meant to be.“Gom”? “Treg”?
Wambsgreg
Somebody mashed up all of Greg and Tom into a rom-com spoof, and it is amazing:
I’m guessing Season 5 before they share a bed. But its definitely happening.
It was laughable to see Roman look to Gerri for last-minute help… as if his harassment of her had somehow “earned him” favor with her. He’s truly vile.
Roman was obviously desperate, but I saw him appealing to her at least much as a former co-conspirator and strategic partner as a quasi-lover (and I note this season, Gerri had really kept it to the former).And so when she turned him down with, “But it doesn’t serve my interests,” I similarly saw her as saying not just that there is no personal relationship between them, but also that she no longer saw him as a useful vehicle for her own ambitions.Ouch.
She said that very same line to him earlier in this season, told him that he should always be thinking, “How does this serve my interests?” regarding leaking Tattoo Man’s picture. Hard lesson to learn for Roman.
When I think of Tom and Logan, I think of Baron Harkonnen saying, after he killed Dr. Yueh, that he never trusts a traitor, even one he made himself…
What can Logan even do for Tom, if he can’t even really secure a future for his own kids when the deal is done? For all Mattson’s talk of how he valued Roman …I think he wouldn’t last a year at the new company without Daddy in control.I guess Logan could hold on to ATN, which GoJo probably isn’t especially interested in for streaming purposes. Get rid of Syd and have Tom as his #2.
Tom would likely get a contract that guarantees an executive position and a huge payout if he’s let go. He’ll basically be a Frank or Geri, a suit who’s always around and no one really remembers why… Presumably there are a lot of those at the top level of every corporation and many of them may have had one smart play like this in their history.
A multibillionaire is always going to have power positions to hand out. Also, Tom, perhaps reasonably, believes Logan is going to find a way to get ahead despite the purchase.
if he can’t even really secure a future for his own kids when the deal is done?I mean…hasn’t he, financially speaking? Any and all of the Roy kids could walk away with their current assets and live out their days. They’re not really trying to “save” the company, and especially not for their own well-being. It’s just like Kendall not taking the buy-out and walking away. I think next season is going to be very interesting for that irony; this buyout should be an excuse to walk away and live life, and none of them are going to take that opportunity.
Oh yeah, I should have been more clear, I don’t think any of them will really have to worry about money regardless. I mean their future in the company, one day taking over or having any sort of real influence.
Technically they can’t just walk away. The season one finale, when Shiv and Roman confront Kendall over his betrayal, explicitly state that all the Roy kids are cash poor and rich only on paper. EVERY dime they own is stock in the family company; their actual bank accounts are bare save for whatever trust fund cash they might have gotten assuming Logan didn’t make access to said trust fund conditional on his death as opposed to them accessing it at a certain age. They basically only have the money they make via salary and whatever corporate expense accounts they have access to charge stuff on. Hence them losing their mind over the betrayal, because a hostile takeover would make their stocks take a huge dip in value. Also, I would not be shocked if Connor is an example of what happens if you try and “walk away”. IE Logan will use the carrot of financial support to keep you forever under his thumb, even if you aren’t on the company payroll.
They explicitly stated that the company won’t go 100% to Matts; Logan will get to keep a few choice pieces of his empire with him per the sale, most likely the news division where Tom is stationed at with Greg. Also, there is the Presidential Election to factor into the equation. I would not be shocked if Logan bets everything on being kingmaker in that race, with Tom as his chief agent.
No, the sacrifices this time were all of his children.I choose to assume this is not a mistake, but rather a great joke at poor Connor’s expense.
HE IS THE ELDEST!
Him brandishing a butter knife was perfect. He briefly looks threatening, but no, it’s not a real knife.
We know how passionate Con is about butter. “The butter’s too cold! The butter is fucked!”
It’s going to be interesting because the strength of the show is getting 2 or more Roys or Roys in Law in a room together.
It’s hard to see a realistic way of that happening. Selling Royco also seems to dramatically lower the steaks whether they are fighting for control of the company or their fathers love and attention.
“Lowering the steaks”????Is that something that happens during “Boar on the Floor”?
I would’ve said the same about the setup for season 3, yet the writers found tons of reasons to get them all in the same room. It’s practically baked into the show at this point; even though they’re trying to professionally ruin one another, they’re still all going to sit at the same Thanksgiving table.
They always leave a goof stake uneaten.
I LOVE that they blew up the show going into their last season. The entire series up to this point has revolved around each/all of the kids trying to gain daddy’s favor. And now that’s off the table. Really excited to see where they go with this.
The creator of the show said that the Fox sale to Disney was on his mind when writing this. So I wonder if ATN will stay in the Roy family hands the way Fox News did in real life.
It seems likely. Mattsen offered Logan the bits he really cared most about – which is presumably (given that it’s the historical core of the empire) the news division. Which, after all, isn’t worth much to Mattsen’s streaming empire anyway. [well, it’s worth something, but it has limited synergy value, so Mattsen may as well sell it (or not buy it) and use the money for something more relevant to his interests]
He will seemingly have little reason to continue interacting with the Roy children on any professional basis. I would’ve said this about Kendall and the rest of the family for season 3 but, as the show has been clear about since Kendall first tried to “kill” Logan midway through season 1 only to show up at family therapy the following episode: the fact that these people are at war business-wise doesn’t preclude them from hanging out, like, all the time. I love the irony of that.
Historically, this was also true of royal families that were actually at war with one another (or themselves)