If Succession wasn’t the breakout HBO hit in 2018, then it’s achieved hit status in its second season, one of the best sophomore outings in recent TV memory. After nine episodes that brought us such landmark moments as the Con-heads, Cherry Jones at Tern Haven, literal bed-shitting, the Kendall rap, Greg v Tom’s water bottles, Shiv’s point of no return, and the Kermit the Frog dancing to the Succession theme meme, the finale promised, as Logan said in the penultimate episode’s final scene, a “blood sacrifice”.
The gang was all there for the extra-long episode, This Is Not For Tears, with Logan Roy presiding over his (yacht) war room of loyalists – his children included – in the final countdown to the shareholder meeting that will determine Waystar Royco’s ownership. RIP to Shiv and Tom’s potential threesome, Greg’s not-favorite Rosé and Connor’s iPad – “you need to be a killer,” Logan told Kendall before (potentially) severing their relationship for good, and this finale was always going to see a few casualties. In a high-water mark for an already impressive season, here are merely some of the more brain-breaking points. Sails out, nails out, bro.
How would you rate your call?
Succession has always been careful to keep its distance from its .001% characters; you’re not so much rooting for them in the world as rooting for them to fuck over each other. The second season in particular has highlighted the great insularity wealth provides the Roys and their ilk. Several of the episodes have been contained to remote, inaccessible, lush locations – a Hungarian hunting lodge, an Aspen-esque ideas festival, private jets, the peak of WASPness that is Tern Haven, the yacht – and hinted at the small army of assistant, PR folk, and housekeepers who buffer their every interaction with the world. Case in point: the season finale’s jarring image of Logan Roy at a highway-side coffee stop somewhere in Europe, avoiding an inconvenient automatic door while Facetiming a major shareholder (apparently no amount of billions can insulate you from the unflattering below-chin Facetime angle).
The shareholder tentatively floats the mood of his representatives: that Logan take the hit for the cruise scandal and step down. The likelihood that this would ever happen, despite Logan seeming to consider it in public, was always close to zero; throughout the season, any move toward answering the question of his succession has only entrenched Logan deeper into his increasingly maniacal reign. But the cruise scandal was toxic enough – mysterious deaths, sexual harassment, “no real person involved” – that even Logan’s power grip isn’t immune. He’s also not immune to “how was your call reception?” pop-ups on his cell phone, notable in how striking it is to watch Logan have even a small brush with daily inconvenience.
‘Death sentence vibes’
After a teasing glance at Cousin Greg’s bumbling congressional testimony on the buried cruise mismanagement, Succession moved to the Mediterranean, where the Roys tower over lowly fishing boats in their huge yacht. (The setting is ironic – a cruise break from the cruise-line scandal – but also evocative of the several real-life media mogul yacht dramas, such as Rupert Murdoch’s fall on his son’s yacht in Australia.) Logan was, again, not going to go out from the company quietly, and the public demanded at least one head roll for the cruise fiasco. The Waystar Royco yacht cruise may abound in breezy linens and sunhats, but the mood was, as Tom said, “death sentence vibes”. Someone was going down, if not the company itself, a possibility heightened by the arrival of annoyed, and hostage-situation-chastened, Roman. On the up from two brutal slaps this season – Logan calling him a moron, Logan literally knocking out his tooth – Roman rebounds with the uncharacteristically sober (and probably correct) assessment that the central Asian money is bullshit. Without the option to go private, the options for the company are *Shiv throat-slice motion, Tom tumbles off waterslide*.
The finale seems to mark a maturation of sorts for Roman – we see him offering rare honest advice to Logan, sincerely, if awkwardly; defending Gerri in the breakfast summit; expressing genuine concern for Kendall when he seems defeated by Logan’s blood sacrifice. By episode’s end, Logan names Roman permanent COO, solo. But given Kendall’s last-second twist, does Roman’s upward arc bend toward his father, his brother, or somewhere new?
‘Gobble the odd side dick’
All is not well on the island of Shiv and Tom, after a season in which Shiv’s ruthless attempt to ascend Waystar Royco has been largely despite, not alongside, her husband. Their partnership has always seemed odd and for Shiv, somewhat inexplicable in its uselessness for exploitation; one of the show’s few flaws is that it has yet, in this viewer’s opinion, at least, to convey why Shiv even went out with Tom in the first place, let alone remained so loyal to a husband whose tone-deaf kiss-assery elicits her eye rolls at least once an episode. I mean, Shiv asked/demanded an open marriage on their wedding night – a “gobble the odd side dick” arrangement Tom finally confronts in the finale, after backing out of their planned threesome with a yacht waitress. Their relationship seems to disintegrate further after Shiv doesn’t hesitate to question tossing Tom to the cruise-ship wolves in the family summit, and Tom delivers the devastating line: “I wonder if the sad I’d be without you is more than the sad I am with you.” (Not to be overshadowed by another Tom food powerplay – last season’s finale saw him forcing Shiv’s lover, Nate, to pour wine back into the bottle; this year, he eats a drumstick off Logan’s plate.)
Will Shiv and Tom’s relationship survive? Will the third season offer new insight into the origins of their relationship? Shiv, seemingly humbled by the prospect of a breakup, ultimately asks Logan for Tom’s protection. But with Cousin Greg now a cruise scandal turncoat, how vulnerable is Tom?
‘Someone’s getting shitcanned’
Someone was always going to take the fall for the cruise scandal – get “shitcanned”, in Roman-ese – and the blood sacrifice provided an opportunity for what Succession does best: contained scenes of characters spitballing off each other over expensive meals, using backhanded compliments and polite burns to fuck each other over. The breakfast table scene in which the Logan acolytes, including all his children, build up each other’s company loyalty to throw them under the bus is among the seasons’s best, up there with the dinner summit with the Pierces at Tern Haven. Besides which loyalties survived the fire (it looks like Roman and Gerri are fine; Gerri and Shiv, less so) the meeting brings up some important questions: what viral moments came out of “Sprinkle” Greg’s testimony? Does the public know about Shiv’s witness intimidation? Will Connor quit his campaign? (And also, what did the New York Times say about Willa’s play? Does the end of Connor’s candidacy mean the end of the perpetually embarrassed Willa?) Was tearing each other apart Logan’s intent in the first place?
Logan’s No 1 boy no more
The loser of the shitcan battle was, of course, Kendall, who goes from defeated and self-effacing company skull to whistleblower on his own father by episode’s end. It’s fitting that the night’s big twist belonged to Kendall, once the heir apparent, after last season finale’s shocker: Kendall’s drug-fuelled, Chappaquiddick-esque car crash that killed a British waiter. Kendall has spent most of the season haunted, a wounded dog with an emotional crater so deep it drew even the concern of his sympathy-void siblings and former friend Stewy. After a season of dutifully serving his father’s whims (RIP Vaulter), what turned Kendall to that crucial, Karolina panic-inducing “BUT” in the final press conference? Was it Naomi Pierce’s cutting observation that Logan “loves the broken you”? Logan admitting he never thought Kendall had the killer instinct for the top job? Secret documents on the jet from Greg? Had he planned it all along? That and Logan’s half-smile at Kendall’s treachery are up for debate – the show-runner, Jesse Armstrong, told The Hollywood Reporter that “different interpretations are valid”. Whatever the case, Kendall’s betrayal leaves the show with fertile ground for season three: retreading the son v father battle from the first season, but with new stakes, heightened ammunition, and loyalties potentially up for grabs.
