Succession Series Finale: Post Mortem

In the end, the number one boy of Succession was the guy who had been willing – since the inception of the series – to put himself in just the right position to secure his continued success. He didn’t seek out power for himself; rather, he placed himself just close enough to the power centers to ensure that he was there for the victories and couldn’t fully be blamed for the defeats. And his proximity to power taught him how to abuse those below him (you can’t make a Tomlette without breaking some Greggs, after all), how to twist himself into a human pretzel to ensure he could tell those above him what they needed and wanted to hear, and how to never have an opinion for himself lest he be seen as someone looking to usurp the throne. Tom Wambsgans (the great Matthew Macfadyen) made it to the top of the Waystar RoyCo pyramid through promising to accept any pain and punishment thrown his way by those in power – in fact, his ascension to the CEO position came about by telling Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgard) that he would be the Swedish billionaire’s human shield in all business things – something that none of the Roy children could ever stoop so low to do, and something that Tom has repeatedly offered to those in power above him.

Now, I suspect many things will be written in the wake of this series finale – I know many a TV critic is, like me, typing quickly away at the moment, having been forced to watch the finale live with the masses – but what struck me the most about the episode was how we finally got the chance to see two of the three Roy children grow beyond their seemingly insatiable need to win. When a series is called Succession, the purported purpose is to discover just who will be the anointed one to succeed the patriarch of the family in the position of CEO of the family business. And, over the course of four seasons, we watched as Logan Roy’s three youngest children did everything in their power – including, but not limited to, betraying one another time and time again – in hopes of winning the coveted kiss from Daddy. It was Shakespearean in scope, the betrayals, the anger, the resentment, the pain, suffered by these poor little rich children who could have had anything material their hearts’ desired, but who were so desperate for the love of their absentee father that they were willing to destroy one another in hopes of getting a mere moment in the sun. But, in the end, two of the three broke down – for different, but equally important reasons – and decided they couldn’t keep repeating the same cycles with one another.

And make no mistake, had Kendall (Jeremy Strong, who gives Matthew Rhys a run for his money as the saddest man on television) taken on the role of CEO, that cycle would have absolutely continued. At the first perceived slight, Shiv (Sarah Snook, always a steady and sure presence) and Roman (Kieran Culkin, so good as comic relief but absolutely gutting in his dramatic moments) absolutely would have been willing to go ten rounds with their brother to make their voices heard. But, as with some of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies (Macbeth is the one that rings truest, here at the end of things, with Shiv ultimately being the Macduff to Kendall’s Macbeth – no man of woman born, indeed), this story ends with the business deaths of the Roy family – at least as far as Waystar RoyCo is concerned – and the rise of a new anointed king in Tom (the puppet for Matsson, but still the king). Shiv’s choice to destroy her brother is one that will be up to interpretation (at least until someone from the series spells out her true motivation), but there were several options to choose from. She could have simply not wanted Kendall, who is erratic at the best of times, an absolute disaster at the worst, to have control of the family legacy with no one to truly check him. She could have hoped that giving Tom this olive branch could help bring them back together – although that final scene in the car certainly made it look like Shiv isn’t all that thrilled with Tom truly having some power in the relationship now. And she absolutely could have still been angry that it wasn’t going to be her, so why not make sure it’s no one in the Roy bloodline? And Roman, who finally broke upon the realization that he destroyed his one ally in this world with his firing and betrayal of Gerri? Well, good for him for getting the hell out of this arena and living to fight another day. If anyone would be better off not working in this shark infested landscape, it’s Roman. I hope he gets some therapy and can move on with his life. Buy an island and stay away from his family for years.

It was a hell of a finale and a hell of a final season – one that took the show’s initial premise (who will get the kiss from Daddy) – and turned it on its head. Sure, we all wanted to know the answer, but it was more interesting to watch how the gloves came off once Logan (Brian Cox, simply superb through the series) was gone. The sexism, the true disgust and hatred, the decades of pain and distrust, it all bubbled to the surface and instead of being a dark comedy about the elite we could laugh at, it became a series where we saw the worst of human nature laid bare for our amusement. Looking back, all of that was also baked into the series from the word go (lest we forget, Roman offered the caretaker’s child $1 million if he could hit a home run all the way back in season one, signifying that if he’s willing to turn a faceless nobody into the butt of a joke, what would happen if he had real power over other elites?), but we, the audience, were able to gloss over it so often thanks to the silliness and squabbles amongst the characters that turned them into jokes to us. It was only in the third to last episode of the series, when Roman callously made sure that Mencken would become president per the ATN call*, that the real monstrosity of these characters was made clear. One episode later, Shiv, who always saw herself as the moral center when compared to the rest of her family, was more than happy to throw her lot in with a fascist to ensure that she could be CEO. And Ken? Well, he was willing to watch his daughter suffer to make sure that he had power. Perhaps he also saw her as not really a Roy in the grand scheme of things, as Roman said Logan always felt in the finale’s most chilling moment between the siblings. Despicable, the lot of them. And yet, in the end, I found myself rooting for them – that sequence in the kitchen in the finale turned our trio back into the lovable cuddly zoo animals from the early days of the series.

*A brief mention, but an interesting one – it appears the Wisconsin court challenge to Mencken’s victory in the state wasn’t going his way, which could mean that all the plotting and machinations to ensure his support of the deal would end up being moot. And who knows, if he doesn’t end up winning, might the deal get torpedoed by Jimenez, setting us right back to the start of things? Perhaps the cycle will continue after all?

At the end of the day, Succession was a show about awful people doing whatever they could to keep ahold of power. And, in the end, none of the Roys were able to grab the brass ring because they were so incredible broken that they couldn’t even manage to trust one another. Logan Roy may be gone, but the damage he did in his life by pitting his children against one another in a competition for his approval managed to torpedo them all. He broke their hearts. He broke their spirit. And he made sure that they would never truly find peace together. It’s no coincidence that any time the three kids managed to come together with an idea they ultimately fell out with one another because of a lack of trust. That was the key: trust. It was never about who should be in charge. It was about how they couldn’t trust one another thanks to their father’s poison dripping in their ears for years. After all, you never need to give up power if the next generation is so focused on killing each other off that they never think to come for you. Logan was a true master manipulator. And while his children each thought they could be as well they all fell woefully short.

But a series like this one doesn’t work without sharp, focused writing to make it sing. Jesse Armstrong and his team managed to craft a series that worked from start to finish, providing us some truly inspired and hilarious beats of comedy alongside some incredibly complex dramatic moments. And this cast. What a cast. Outside of Cox, who has been around the proverbial block many a time, it was populated with relative unknowns (or in the case of someone like Culkin, actors who were excellent supporting character actors but who hadn’t been asked to carry the load like this). But Snook, Macfadyen, Strong, Nicholas Braun (Greg), Alan Ruck (Connor), J. Smith Cameron (Gerri), and so many more, took on the challenge of crafting these characters and making us root for them. I hoped against hope that Gerri would come out on top (and it sounds like she will – if continuing as Chief Counsel is really what she wants at this stage). I wanted Roman to find some slice of happiness. I hoped Shiv could get out of her own way to find a path to do something she genuinely loved. And Kendall. I just wanted him to be happy – and for a brief moment, he actually got to smile.

It’s rare that a series is able to provide a strong marriage of writing, direction (those one-take shots, my god, were things of beauty), and performance. Succession will go down as yet another great HBO drama. The best? No, but it’s in the conversation among some of the all-time greats of the network (and of television as a whole). And, perhaps the greatest complement I can pay it, it understood when it was time to leave the party and leave us wanting more. This was the perfect ending to a truly exceptional series about some truly horrific people. And I loved every minute.