You’ll Never Guess Who Made a Sex Tape on ‘Succession’

As we enter the fourth and final season of Succession, every moment with the Roys is precious. The series creators know this, and in turn, have given us a jam-packed Season 4 premiere episode full of new companies, family drama, and a sex tape. Succession is back, baby!

Where did we leave Succession in Season 3? The Roy children—Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Roman (Kieran Culkin), and Shiv (Sarah Snook)—had all teamed up against their father, Waystar Royco CEO Logan (Brian Cox). Their revolution failed, leaving them with no company, no trust, and plenty of drama. When we reunite with them in Season 4, the trio are planning their next venture: in their words, a “revolutionary new media brand” that’s “Substack meets The Economist meets MasterClass meets The New Yorker” called The Hundred. RIP Vaulter. Your replacement is here.

Well, maybe. Right before the kiddos are about to pitch to investors, they hear their father is back on a quest to acquire PGM, another media conglomerate owned by Nan Pierce (Cherry Jones) and her family. Since Nan is closer with Shiv and her “morals” (or rather, what’s left of them), the brothers push their sister to chat with Nan and win her over to their side. If they can outbid their father and acquire PGM, they’d be showing Waystar who’s boss, beginning their own venture together, and busting one of their father’s biggest life goals.

Across the country, Logan is celebrating his birthday (this seems to be a recurring theme throughout almost every season of Succession) with everyone in his inner circle—not his three doofus children. Connor Roy (Alan Ruck) is there, promoting his current campaign (they’re trending upwards, polling at 1 percent) while showing off his new fiancée Willa (Justine Lupe).

Then there’s good ole’ Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen), the betraying spouse cozying up to Logan for a plum position in his wife’s father’s company. Tom’s relationship with Logan remains brilliantly unchanged—though Logan now owes his entire life to Tom, he still can’t be bothered to utter one remark to the man. Tom is a lackey. He was never a part of the family, so it doesn’t matter if he and Shiv divorce.

“If we’re good,” Logan says to Tom after he asks what might happen if they were to divorce, “we’re good.”

Which is…good, because divorce is exactly what the couple plan to do. Though this isn’t exactly a change from their first few years of marriage, Tom and Shiv have been sleeping around and seeing other people in a “trial separation” following his betrayal with the company business.

In their first phone call this season, Tom reveals to Shiv that he got dinner with Naomi Pierce (Annabelle Dexter-Jones)—Kendall’s ex and a key daughter to win over from the Pierce family. Tom promises there’s no funny business going on. Kendall suggests otherwise, since he and Naomi haven’t been seeing each other (and what a loss for Kendall, since Naomi looks stunning in this episode, sporting a new shaggy pixie cut and the coolest dad sunglasses you’ll ever see).

Tom’s not sleeping with Naomi—it’s just business, and he apparently prefers models anyways—but his partner-in-crime Cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) has been egging him on in a weird, sort of “match” to get laid the most. The pair have become the “Disgusting Brothers,” a title as good as Tom’s old college friends the “Fly Guys,” that will likely get adopted as the meme of the week on social media soon after the episode premieres. While Tom is all business—it’s Logan’s birthday, for chrissakes—Greg has brought a date to the soiree. The poor common girl Instagrams the entire event. She even dares to ask for a selfie with Logan.

Though a handful of party monitors attempt to convince Greg to escort her out, fearful that she may be a journalist or a spy sent by the kids, he’s too lovestruck to tell her to go. But the selfie with Logan is what causes her to self-eject, fleeing to Greg with an ask to vacate the party. We don’t know what happened. But based on Logan’s disdain for the girl (and people in general), we can assume the words “fuck” and “off” were involved.

Too bad Greg doesn’t listen to her or any of the other dissenting voices telling him to take her out of the party. Instead, the Disgusting Brother takes his date into one of Logan’s guest rooms, where the pair have “a bit of rummage” in each other’s pants. We don’t see this intimate moment—and thank god, because I don’t think my face muscles could handle the amount of cringing required for a Cousin Greg sex scene—but Greg boasts about his sexcapade to Tom in private.

Tom has to burst his bubble. When does he not? Whether it’s true or not, Tom informs Greg that Logan has every room decked out with cameras and that he watches the footage every night, as if it were the nightly ATN News. “You’re fucked,” Tom says to Greg. “He’s going to gut you like a rainbow trout.” Greg’s giddy just-got-laid glow fades to make him look a pale green, as if he were about to puke.

Greg tries to tell Logan, who calls him “disgusting and despicable” though he also “kind of smiled.” Still, there’s too much Pierce drama happening for Logan to worry about a sex tape in one of his guest bedrooms. The kids seize control of Pierce, leaving Logan in existential shambles by the end of the episode. A sex tape would only make it worse—though perhaps Logan misses his three boneheaded children enough to make Greg a fitting replacement for their foolish antics. The Roy bloodline is strong, and though Greg doesn’t have as much as Kendall, Shiv, and Roman, he sure acts like he’s one of them.

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:

- As Greg attempts to persuade Kerry to keep Bridget at the party, he references the fact that Marcia would want her to stay. “Marcia’s not here,” Kerry interrupts him. “Marcia’s in Milan shopping forever.” Rest in peace, Marcia?

- The Roy family can’t let go of Bridget, and neither can we. When Tom confronts Greg about his lady of the hour, he blasts her purse. “She’s brought a ludicrously capacious bag. What’s even in there, huh? Flat shoes for the subway? Her lunch pail? I mean, Greg, it’s monstrous. It’s gargantuan. You could take it camping,” Tom says. Greg rolls with the punches, as always. “Well whatever,” he shrugs it off. “She’s another tick on the chart.”

- While talking on the phone with Kerry, Roman takes a bite out of his potential stepmother-to-be after she references how well acquainted she is with their father. “I think we know him pretty well, actually,” Roman says. But, he adds, “we’ve never licked his big omelet nipples.”

- Near the end of the episode, Logan clearly misses the banter he has with his kids, so he asks his new allies to play ball. Greg tries his hand at a roast: “You’re mean. You’re a mean old man. You’re a mean old bastard and you scare the life out of folks. That’s your thing. You’re scaring me right now. That’s why I don’t even know what to do,” Greg says. Then, he goes in for the kill: “Where are your kids? Where are all your kids, Uncle Logan, on your big birthday?”

- It doesn’t take long for Greg to eat his words. “Where’s your old man, huh?” Logan fires right back at Greg. “Still sucking cock at the county fair?” I’d say the score between Greg and Logan is tied, all things considered.

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