Succession Season Three Post-Mortem

When I started the season three finale of Succession, I was disappointed. After the series dropped two of the show’s biggest series bombshells in its penultimate episode – Kendall’s apparent drowning and Roman’s ill-sent dick pic – it appeared to dismiss them out of hand with two throwaway lines of dialogue. Kendall was physically fine, thanks to Comfry’s quick thinking, and Roman didn’t get Gerri fired due to his choice to leap on the dick pic grenade. After the numerous hot take pieces spawned by those two story beats over the past week, it appeared that the status quo had once again been reached in the Roy family. It appeared being the operative phrase.

What Jesse Armstrong and his writing staff did was let these plot threads slacken so that we wouldn’t notice that they were each essential in the final death blow dealt by Logan to his three youngest children in the season three finale. Think Kendall’s negligent (or intentional – we still aren’t 100% clear on that one) actions in the pool were a minor blip? Nope, they allowed his siblings to reach out and offer support – something he’s been desperate to receive but denied for the whole season. His breakdown – telling them about the death of the waiter – is an olive branch of trust and instead of rebuffing him and threatening him, Shiv and Roman respond with as much kindness as we’ve ever seen from them. He’s back in the sibling fold – especially when it becomes clear they need his vote to torpedo the sale of Waystar Royco. We’ve been waiting for this sibling team up since the outset of the series, and Kendall’s brush with death was the key to unlocking it. As for Roman’s dick pic, well, yes, it eroded the trust his father placed in him for several reasons. (Does he really worry about Roman’s sexual proclivities? Perhaps. But what he cares more about is Roman’s penchant for embarrassing him.) But it all but torpedoes his relationship with Gerri. As she told him early in the series: She acts based on what makes the best business sense to her position – what will strengthen her hand. Right now, that isn’t Roman. So she freezes him out. It might not be the same as Logan’s betrayal of his kids, but it’s just as devastating to Roman. This is the final betrayal in an episode full of it.

The genius of Succession is that you can never truly predict where the story will go, but you can always trace the end point back through the narrative. Of course Roman would send that picture and get knocked out of his father’s good graces. Of course Shiv would overplay her hand – in every way – and get tossed from the inner circle, only to realize her paranoia regarding her security in the company was well-placed. Of course Kendall would be beaten down only to realize his siblings are truly all he has. Of course Tom, poor emasculated Tom, whose wife doesn’t love him (another instance of Shiv’s hubris – saying the quiet part out loud for once), who needs to beat on Greg to feel like a strong, powerful man, would be the one to turn to Logan in the eleventh hour.* And, of course Logan would run with the only deal left that lets him walk away saying that he won – while sticking it to his ungrateful, undisciplined, unnecessary children.

*For a series about so many different things, the exploration of what it means to be a man is certainly right at the top of so many of the earth shattering moments within the story. Logan’s main disgust with Roman’s text was that it might mean he wasn’t a real man – interested in young, hot women. Kendall wanted to prove he was a tough business man. Tom has been chaffing under Shiv’s disgust with him for two seasons now. Roman’s sensitivity is shown to be a weakness when it absolutely could be a strength and he works to suppress it through crass jokes and deflecting what he feels. And Shiv attempts to walk the line between strength and softness, often tripping over her own two feet while trying to both erase her femininity and be seen as Daddy’s Little Girl. Gerri, on the other hand, has shown how to be a woman in this cold, masculine posturing world – and Roman’s stunt threatened that by reminding Logan the she is a woman and can still be seen as attractive – something Logan clearly doesn’t want to think about at all. Lady Macbeth was right with her “unsex me now” line – it’s only through denying their feminine nature that women can succeed in Waystar Royco – something Shiv tried and failed at. As for the men, any sign of feminine-coded weakness is cause for ridicule and dismissal.

We should have seen it coming. Hell, the kids should have seen it coming. But there it is: Logan is about to sell his company to an outsider, removing any question about which of his kids takes over, and allowing him to take a golden parachute to the tune of $5 billion. However, what I’m most interested in for season four is the Tom of if all. Always on the outside, never a true member of the family, Tom finally became a true Roy with his last betrayal of the Roy children. He stopped getting pushed around by Shiv and pushed back – doing the one thing he knew would absolutely devastate her the way her words devastated him in the penultimate episode. Tom is playing with the big boys, banking that Logan really won’t forget about him*, and was willing to go scorched earth on Shiv, Roman, and Ken to do it. Naturally, he saved his loyal lackey Greg.

*I mean, Logan will toss him aside the instant it’s advantageous to do so, full stop. Tom has to know this – he has to go into his decision with his eyes wide open – for this to work out for him. Unlike the kids who would trade their souls for the company, Tom can’t expect that type of return on investment. He was willing to go to jail for Logan. He was willing to throw his wife under the bus for Logan. He must have named his price and gotten it before he went in for the kill shot. Otherwise, why do it? And what was that price?

But I can’t imagine Tom made the right, calculated choice here. He knows that Logan only cares about people in terms of how they can help him (similar to Gerri’s personal ethic, although Logan is far more open about his willingness to betray those who can’t help him anymore while Gerri tries to avoid outward messes when she can – another quote from early series Gerri). I can’t see this ending well for Tom – but then again, Tom doesn’t want to be CEO. He wants to be comfortable. He wants to have the money he thinks he deserves, the position he wants, and that’s it. Unlike the Roy children, he’s not asking for the Moon, just the International Space Station. And he doesn’t think he’s entitled to it simply by existing. He proved his love and trust of Logan in ways the kids never would – and in the ways they mocked Tom for. That Tom gets his own side dish of revenge on his wife? Well, that’s just gravy. It’s a Machiavellian move I didn’t think Tom was capable of undertaking, but what a move it was.

So, where does Succession go from here? It’s the rare show where nothing fundamentally changes no matter the moves of its core characters – it’s reshuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic, really – while everything fundamentally changes as well. A paradox of a series. We have the pending sale of the family business, the kids frozen out from decision making processes – both through their own failings and the pettiness of those around them, and no earthly idea how this will all shake out come season four. If that final shot of Shiv is any indication (a big change for the series, which usually ends an episode on a distraught shot of Kendall), the kids think they’ve been soundly beaten. Shiv knows that Tom sold them out. What will this mean for all of these awful people moving forward? I don’t know – and I won’t pretend to think I can work it out – but I cannot wait to find out.