For a while in the final ever episode of Succession, it looked like there might be a happy ending for the Roys. A happy alliance, born out of Shiv and Roman conceding that, fine, Kendall could take the role he’d been promised since he was seven in the Candy Kitchen with his dad. Kendall even smiled! And drank the gross Meal Fit For A King smoothie (including Peter’s cheese: sorry Pete).
But! That was never going to happen, not with Jesse Armstrong and the other masterful Succession writers at the wheel. Instead, everything swerved in the other direction. It was game over for the Roy siblings, who’ll probably never speak to each other again, and one surprising person became victorious. Here’s how it all went down…
HBO
The greedy Swede
Apparently spooked by a magazine cartoon portraying Shiv as puppet master, pulling Matsson’s strings (it’s the commitment to tiny little prop details we’ll greatly miss in Succession) the GoJo boss decides to change tactics. After Shiv signs her own death warrant by telling Matsson that Tom would do the bidding of just about anyone who wields enough power and influence, Matsson decides to make Tom his meat puppet instead.
Taking him out for a fancy French meal, Matsson prods Tom. He gages Wambsgan's reaction to the news that he wants to “fuck” Shiv, and if he can’t, then he wants to, as he charmingly puts it: “Why don't I get the guy who put the baby inside her instead of the baby lady?”. Tom, here to serve, goes along with it, cementing the fact that he’ll be CEO in name only, and Matsson will be free to walk all over him from this moment on.
Lost in translation
This isn’t Greg’s first rodeo after a few wild nights out with the GoJo team (“They made me drink things that aren’t normally drinks”), and he’s wised up to their secretive conversations in Swedish by downloading a translation app. Hovering near Matsson and Oskar at the bar, he correctly deduces that they’re going to shaft Shiv. So who does he phone? Kendall, who’s currently on a whistle-stop tour to his mum’s Caribbean abode with his siblings, and this news couldn’t have come at a better time.
David M. Russell//HBO
The new-gen new-deal
After persuading Shiv that this info wasn’t just “a move” (and after she saw a draft of the media memo that had [XXXX] where her name should have been) each of the kids made their case to each other as to why they should take the coveted successor role. Roman revealed before Logan’s death, the pair had become close again, and he believed he was gearing up to offer it to him. Shiv talked about being promised the role, and Kendall showed how the cursed carrot had been dangled in front of him since he was seven years old. A bit of back-and-forth banter ensued, and Shiv and Roman - after joking about killing Kendall - eventually relented. Then the most charming scene of the sibs followed, messing about in their mums kitchen: in another universe, one where they hadn’t been bred to kill each other for dominance like fighting dogs, they could have all had a nice relationship! Well, it was fun for the five minutes it lasted.
The vote
The next day, it’s all set, the Roys are going to vote “no” to the GoJo deal, and they’ve got the backing of Stewy, Sandy, Ewan et al. It’s in the bag… until Roman falters slightly, before ultimately saying, “Yeah whatever.” It’s down to six-six, with Shiv as the deciding vote. Whether it’s this that causes Shiv to rethink her vote (or maybe it was seeing a smug Kendall relaxing in her dad’s old chair) she runs out of the room dramatically.
David M. Russell//HBO
The truth hurts
What we’ve all been waiting to re-emerge since the end of series one – and since the siblings learned about in series three – the not-so-small matter of the waiter that Kendall left for dead in a lake. It was a timely reminder of the lesson Tom delivered to Greg in an earlier episode: “Information, Greg, is like a bottle of fine wine. You store it, you hoard it, you save it for a special occasion, and then you smash someone's fuckin' face in with it”. This was Kendall’s face-smashing moment.
Seeing the coveted CEO role slowly fading from his grasp, Shiv went in for the kill, saying (quite rightly) that he would be terrible in the role, and reminding him: “You can’t be CEO. You can’t. Because you killed someone.” Kendall then lies, saying he made it up so they could “bond” at a difficult time, and then (hah!) that it was a “false-memory”. There’s a punch up, he swings for Shiv, and Roman reminds him is pregnant. Roman then cruelly calls Kendall’s kids “randos” and “buy ins”, Kendall goes ballistic and beats up Roman’s already beat-up face. All of this, incidentally, is being watched by the board. Did they hear what Shiv said? Either way: it’s all over. Shiv lives up to her name and votes “yes”, meaning the ‘ayes’ have it.
HBO
And the victor is…
A slow-hand clap for Tom Wambsgans, who has risen up that greasy pole by a mixture of servitude, arse-licking and a willingness to sell himself out to anyone with a higher social standing than him to become victorious. He will preside as US CEO over the Waystar-Royco-GoJo company, and once Roman has begrudgingly signed the papers and posed for an awkward photo, it’s all Tom’s to lose. A special shout out to Matsson, of course, one of the most unhinged tech bros ever to be committed to screen, who despite sending blocks of his frozen blood to his colleague, managed to pull off the deal. Greg, as well, comes out on top, after selling Tom out (and engaging in a hilarious bitch-slapping toilet incident), as Tom assures him: “You are a fucking piece of shit… but I got you.” After all the Disgusting Brothers have been through: of course he does.
Where we leave them
Roman sinks his sorrows in a high-end bar – ordering Gerri’s favourite drink, did you notice? – and a half-smile crosses his face. He’s finally free of all this “bullshit”, and he’s just another hideously destructive billionaire probably going out in the world to keep smashing stuff up in order to feel something, anything. As for Tom and Shiv, the power dynamic has completely changed, with Tom holding all the cards, as all through their relationship Shiv has told him that she was “too good for him”. Now, the only bit of power she has is through him, she’s humiliated, and when telling him “congratulations” in the back of their car, she can’t even commit to fully holding his proffered hand. She’s back in bed with a monster she created. How’s that going to work out for her, and their child? The poison looks like it’s going to drip down again.
Kendall heads back to the water, a motif throughout the entire series, broken and alone. Well, apart from Colin, who we see has taken him up on his offer of being his security detail. As an earlier, touching scene showed, his dad Logan may have been a terrible man, but as the dinner party video scene highlighted, he had people around him who cared for him, and who he shared good times with (even if they were on the payroll). In the most Shakespearean of endings, Kendall has literally killed off everything around him in his quest to be king, only to end up with nothing. Was it all worth it, Kendall?
Laura Martin is a freelance journalist specializing in pop culture.
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