2023-05-29 04:39:39
[This story contains major spoilers for the Succession series finale, “With Open Eyes.”]
Whether or not you “pre-grieved,” the time for mourning has finally arrived: Succession is over, and with it, the story of the Roys.
Heading into the 90-minute series finale, creator Jesse Armstrong’s Emmy-winning drama faced the daunting task of resolving numerous individual and interconnected character arcs, all with an eye on one major question: who will succeed Logan Roy (Brian Cox) at the head of Waystar Royco?
Entering the finale, there were numerous possible answers. Would Kendall (Jeremy Strong) embody his middle name and transform into the killer his dad always told him he’d never become? Would Shiv (Sarah Snook) become the tip of the spear for a successful GoJo deal with Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård), and where would Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) land within that?
How about Roman (Kieran Culkin), so thoroughly anguished over the death of his father that he had to walk out into an ocean of political unrest (thanks for that, Jeryd Mencken!) in order to feel something other than sheer grief? Could this story end a la Game of Throneswith an unlikely candidate on the Iron Throne — like Greg (Nicholas Braun), as one oft-repeated theory in the Succession fandom? Which skeletons from the closet (or in Logan’s “cat food Ozymandias” tomb, as it were) would come dancing out for one last scare?
No more need to speculate on any of those questions. Ahead, here’s how the finale shook out for all the major characters and plot lines. Look away or else face down massive series-ending spoilers for “With Open Eyes,” written by Armstrong and directed by Mark Mylod.
Who Won Waystar Royco?
“Shiv, you should probably know: it’s me.”
So speaks Tom, the new presumed CEO of Waystar Royco. In a rollicking episode where the momentum passes from hand to hand more than a few times, it’s the outsider Tom Wambsgans who ends up at the head of the table.
Here’s how it happened.
Matthew Macfadyen and Dagmara Dominczyk in “Connor’s Wedding.”
Macall B. Polay/HBO
The Path to the Waystar Throne
“With Open Eyes” begins the day before the board’s vote about the GoJo sale. Shiv thinks she’s locked in with Matsson as his pick for an American CEO. Turns out, not so much. During dinner with Tom, Matsson confesses he’s over Shiv and her ideas, and doesn’t want to get into a messy situation given his attraction to her. Tom takes the news on the chin, especially when Matsson says he would like to place the crown on Tom’s head as an alternative to Shiv who also wears the Roy mantle.
Meanwhile, Shiv and her siblings reunite in the Caribbean at their mother’s tropical home. Kendall catches word of Matsson moving on from Shiv, and fills his sister in on the shattering news. Shiv and Roman reluctantly agree to sign on with Kendall as the king. Over time, the reluctance turns into mania, as the three siblings celebrate by pouring a disgusting smoothie on Kendall’s head, serving as a liquid crown of sorts.
When they return to New York for the vote, the siblings head to Logan’s old apartment, where Connor is selling off his dad’s wares. Kendall, Shiv and Roman are visited one last time by their dad’s ghost by way of a home video, taped at a recent dinner before Logan’s death. It’s a haunting moment for the brothers and sister, one that would seemingly only serve to unify them further, especially after Tom tells Shiv he’s the one Matsson wants as CEO; that news goes over about as well as you would expect.
But when it comes time to cast the votes, it’s a six-six tie, with Shiv’s vote hanging in the balance. She recuses herself to consider whether or not she wants to back Kendall or Tom, though it’s not much of a debate at all; Shiv chooses Tom. To say Kendall is devastated doesn’t do justice to the fallout, as the three siblings almost literally tear each other apart over old wounds, from Kendall’s role in the death of the cater waiter at Shiv’s wedding (which he says never actually happened, in a sign of Ken’s degrading state), to the fact that Kendall’s children are not his by blood. Ken and Rome come to blows, and as they’re fighting, Shiv goes and casts the winning vote for GoJo.
The episode ends with a highly confident Tom waltzing into Waystar Royco like he owns the place, because he effectively does. Shiv rides away in a private car with Tom, taking his hand when he coldly offers it up. Roman ends the series alone at a bar, sipping a martini, perhaps liberated from his father’s shadow once and for all.
Sunset for Kendall
The final image of the series: Kendall Roy, walking through a park, with bodyguard Colin (Scott Nicholson) close behind him. Ken walks up to a park bench, staring out at the water as the sun starts to set. We hear the sound of waves as Kendall stares out, his next moves uncertain — both for him, and certainly for us, who will never know what happens to “the eldest boy” now that he’s lost the only thing that ever mattered to him: the power seat his dad promised him in a candy store decades earlier when he was a seven-year-old boy.
Kendall’s crossed-out ending comes underlined with some powerful foreshadowing from Jeremy Strong, who cleverly teased his sundown of an ending in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter following the final season premiere: “We finished filming on location somewhere I’m probably not allowed to say … then I flew to Denmark, where I have a house near the ocean. I went to my house directly from the airport, took a long walk, sat on the beach, watched Kendall go down with the sun, and said, ‘Adios.’”
Adios Kendall, indeed.
The Name of the Win
Even if we don’t know the next steps for Kendall, Shiv and Roman, at least we know who’s sitting at the head of the table: Tom, whose victory was seeded throughout the series in numerous ways.
In his first scene, Tom buys Logan a watch for his birthday; a sign of the man biding his time. In season three, while helping Logan through an illness, Logan refers to Tom as “son.”
Then there’s the last name Wambsgans, which has been linked to the baseball player Bill Wambsgans, who executed a legendary triple play — a move Tom pulled off at the end of season three when he outmaneuvered the siblings, and one he’s done again, this time with an assist from Matsson’s misogyny, as well as Shiv, who lives up to her name in her own right and shivs her brother right when it matters most.
Succession is now streaming on Max. Read THR‘s Succession finale coverage.
#Roy #Saga #Ends #Breathtaking #Blindside #Hollywood #Reporter