Now that Succession has ended, and we know the final successor, everyone has been waiting for one big answer. It’s the answer that will put a button on this life-changing series. It’s do or die. It’s all anyone can talk about on the internet. Everyone will be hypothesizing about this specific detail throughout the rest of the weekend, if not the rest of the year, if not through TV history, and maybe even the rest of our lives—an ending as jarring as The Sopranos’ final shot. We’re all wondering it.
Will Waystar Royco have to change its name?
Perhaps there are more pressing topics to discuss than the future of Waystar Royco, especially considering we’ll see none of what lies ahead after tonight’s final CEO selection. We now know who runs the company. (It might not be who you think!) We now know who was screwed over. (It’s not how or why you would think!) And we know who is left sat staring at the sunset. (This might be the only one you can predict!)
All that said, as I finished the final few minutes of Succession’s series finale, my mind lingered on this one thought. The Fox News-coded company might be following in the footsteps of its home network, HBO, whose streamer just underwent a big name change (from HBO Max to, simply, “Max”). In all of this dramatic Succession finale plotting, art is imitating life. But it could never be as dramatic—or as gratifying—as Sunday night’s 90-minute series finale was.
The company is heading into another life-or-death board meeting in this episode, which feels like “Which Side Are You On?” from the show’s first season—if that episode was paired with brutal emotional whiplash and several characters’ swan songs as a final gut punch. The board will vote on the GoJo deal in “With Open Eyes”, which would either see Shiv (Sarah Snook) take control as American CEO with Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård) having ownership over the company, or keep Kendall (Jeremy Strong) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) in control as co-CEOs.
Kendall panics over the votes, dialing up Stewy (Arian Moayed) as many times as he can before his phone overheats, as hot as the sun. For Shiv, this is a cool day at the beach. She and Matsson have the votes. But a political cartoon in an unnamed magazine—we saw a shout-out to the New York Times in last week’s episode; so much political journalism at play, but where’s The Daily Beast?—threatened to throw Shiv off her game. A big redheaded version of Pinky was drawn as a puppeteer controlling Matsson, her puppet. It looks like that scene in Chicago where Richard Gere positions a slack-jawed Renée Zellweger on his lap to plead her murder case to the public. In other words, this cartoon was very emasculating. And if there’s one thing these male characters hate, it’s losing any ounce of their Waterford crystal-levels of fragile masculinity.
Shiv and Kendall head out to Barbados, where Roman, still battered from his time as a counter-protester, tries to clear his head. He can’t. His siblings won’t stop bickering over his vote at the board deal. Caroline (Harriet Walter), their frustrated mother, tries to clear the air—but Kendall and Shiv go back and forth at each other like a series of tiny dogs trying to win a tug-of-war with a tennis ball. It’s Roman! He’s even less important than a tennis ball. At least a tennis ball can bounce back.
While the siblings trade “fuck off”s for “Yeah? Yeah.”s, Matsson kicks the episode’s big twist into action. Though Lukas has been talking to Lawrence Yee (Rob Yang) of ex-Vaulter fame—don’t get your hopes up, there’s no Lawrence sighting—he’s got someone else in mind for the CEO position that was promised to Shiv. Lukas has made a decision. If the GoJo deal passes, with Shiv none-the-wiser, he will elect Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) as the new CEO of the company. Though Tom accepts the offer over dinner, would Lukas’ reasoning—that Shiv is too sexy to be the boss—not be a bit more concerning to him?
“I wanna fuck her a little bit, and I think under the right circumstances, I think she’d want to fuck me too,” Lukas explains. “Why don’t I get the guy who put the baby inside of her instead of the baby lady?”
How nasty; but also, this line, carried with such a careless cadence from Skarsgård, really brings home who this disgusting freak is and has always been. In these past two seasons, we saw just enough of this pitch-perfect character: We see what a weirdo he is, but also, it’s not an overbearing amount.
Shiv is in a weird place with Tom—though perhaps that’s a redundant statement to write, considering the fact that this couple has been in an awkward position since we met them in Season 1. “Are there any positives about the nightmare we shared?” Shiv asks on a call with Tom, before he knows he might be CEO. “If there was, it would be so convenient.”
“It would be incredibly convenient, because then you would be married to your husband,” Tom replies. “You don’t like to fail a test, do you, Siobhan?” The pair have played a cat-and-mouse game of staying together and falling apart all season, serving up excuses to share a bed and then being brutal and cruel to the other person once they realize they have the upper hand in the relationship.
All hell breaks loose when Greg (Nicholas Braun) discovers Google Translate. While three shots of vodka deep with a couple of Scandinavians who want to take over his family’s company, the oddball uses this new tool to figure out that there are nefarious plans that will screw over Shiv. He opens the voice translator at the bar, where he can now overhear Matsson explaining how he plans to tell Shiv about her demotion. Shocked at seeing his new CEO abusing the birth-right succession line like this—Greg is, like, eighth in line to the throne, guys—Greg phones in some help from his closest ally, Kendall. (Of course, he tries to secure himself a higher position in the company before offering up the information.)
Kendall still feels some allegiance to the sibling alliance. He tells Shiv, who panics, but then realizes that the strategy must begin: One sibling must be named CEO. After hemming and hawing, Roman and Shiv finally settle on Kendall. The trip to Barbados has healed them. The trio goof around in their mother’s kitchen, licking her boyfriend’s sacred cheese and blending up every ingredient they can find to create “a meal fit for a king,” who is now Kendall, the hopeful new CEO of Waystar. They have the votes. For once, even though Roman and Shiv are not in control, they finally have closure. This is it. Kendall will lead in the “horrible job that clearly kills you.” They should be grateful he’s willing to take over for them.
Of course, with a half hour to go, we know Succession can’t end with three siblings goofing around, happy as clams. That’s not how things roll around here.
So then, the back half of Succession becomes a thriller movie, waiting for the moment that will screw everything up for the Roy family. Will it be the voters? No, Shiv has secured the votes. Will Greg throw a wrench in the plan and tell Tom? No, because even when Tom does find out, slapping Greg doesn’t get the vote in his favor. Will Roman self-implode? Yes, but he’ll still be present to cast his disapproving vote of GoJo.
Roman has his final moment with Kendall, where he pleads: “Why wasn’t it me?” Kendall can’t find the words. He offers a hug as reconciliation, an act of compassion their father would never display. Yes, Roman is in future scenes in the episode—but this is really his big moment. Finally, after all this time, he realizes why he was never going to flourish in this field. He droops into the board meeting like a child who has just lost every last token at the arcade, whimpering a simple, “No,” when he’s called upon to vote.
Roman isn’t fit, Shiv isn’t fit, but is Kendall really fit for the job? While the trio manage to scrape up enough votes, thanks especially to Stewy (that “Team Ken all the way” got me), the final, deciding vote is Shiv’s.
Shiv, who knows that if the vote doesn’t go to Kendall, it’ll go to Tom. Either way, she won’t end up as the CEO. But she also can’t end up locked out of the company, as would Kendall and Roman if the GoJo deal passed. If she made a vote that would favor Tom, who begs to her to consider voting yes, Waystar Royco would be passed down to her children instead of Kendall’s.
Shiv flees the board room, followed by an infuriated Kendall and Roman. She asks for space. They give her none. When they beg for answers, all she can offer up is, “I just don’t think you would be good at it,” over and over again. And then, eventually: “You can’t be CEO. You can’t because you killed someone.”
Kendall tries to back out of admitting he murdered someone, but claiming that he lied about manslaughter comes out worse than the actual confession itself. Both Roman and Shiv gang up on him. The argument climaxes when Kendall says that, if Shiv votes no, she’d be dismantling the business’ bloodline—and, bluntly, Roman fires back that Logan (Brian Cox) never thought his adopted children were a part of the bloodline anyway. Kendall claws the stitches out of his warped little brain.
The violence is enough to send Shiv packing. It’s over. Kendall, screaming in a neighboring office, loses everything while Shiv takes second position in a board meeting that was always going to end up with her as the first loser.
Tom is then seen swaggering into the office in a way that feels so Logan Roy, and yet, feels uniquely his. His entrance, triumphing over all, reads the same way as the footage of Logan in the show’s opening title sequence—in that thick cable knit sweater, shot from behind as he reads some sort of paperwork. Tom is front and center. I wanted to look away—anywhere except at his threatening face—but I couldn’t.
Matsson and Tom sign the deal. It’s over. That’s it.
We end on a series of three parting shots. First, Roman sips a martini at the bar, confused but blissfully relaxed. Again, it’s closure for the second-rate son who was never really going to be CEO—except for when his delusional father deemed him worthy in his last moments.
Then, we see Shiv and Tom, who share a car together, “happily” “married.” He places his hand out for her on the armrest beside him. She rests his palm on his. Her fingers skyrocket upward, as far away from fully holding his hand as possible.
Finally, we see Kendall, dragging his feet towards the Southern tip of Manhattan—more water imagery for the number one boy. He is followed by Colin (Scott Nicholson), Logan’s bodyguard, a sure sign that Logan always cared deeply for his first born (kind of) son, even after death.
So what now? Waystar Wambsco? Wambstar Royco? Tomstar Roygans Whatever demon baby Shiv and Tom give birth to, it better love its three gonzo uncles. They’re going to need that little niece or nephew to keep them afloat in the world.
Keeping Up With the Roys
Even though they may not be in the main plot, we still want to highlight the most blazing burns and spiciest moments of Succession. Here they are from this episode:
-”New Jess! New Jess!” Kendall shouts at his assistant, who has replaced the dearly departed Jess (Juliana Canfield). Well, she’s not dead. But maybe to Kendall, she is. (Still, he can’t get his mind off of her.)
-Kendall and Roman learn that their CEO duo has been labeled “the incredible fuck brother bandwagon.” Kendall asks if people actually call them that. “Everybody,” Shiv replies, without any hesitation.
-When Shiv and Roman finally declare Roman as the king, he sits solemnly (and shirtless) on a floating dock in the middle of the ocean. “You can smile, bitch,” Shiv demands. He smiles.
-Our last moments with Connor (Alan Ruck) and Willa (Justine Lupe) are in Logan’s home, which is about to be decked out in a cow print couch. How tasteful. As they decorate with their new belongings, the newly married couple divide up Logan’s close-of-kin into two factions: the siblings and the “second tier bereaved.” Cut to Kerry (Zoe Winters), wispy, on a couch as she waits to claim what she can of her whirlwind romance. Second tier!
-After Matsson and Tom have inked the deal, they pose for a photo. “Jesus and his disciples,” Matsson proclaims of himself. “Even Judas is in the room!” Cut to Greg, on the other side of the table—but, hey, still in the room. He made it. Barely.
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