It’s the last season of Succession, and though we always knew that showrunner Jesse Armstrong would take the show out in a blaze of glory, Episode 3 provided an epic rug-pull moment. Launching such a shocking storyline just over a quarter way through the season? A punchy move that will likely go down in TV history.
So who saw it coming, and more importantly, so early on? Certainly not me, even though I’d been speculating that it was probably an inevitability this season. The chaos and confusion running through the episode made it a gripping hour. Was Logan actually dead? Was he faking it to play mind games with his children once again, in a bid to get the GoJo deal back on track? For the audience, watching the events unfold was as tumultuous as it was for the Roy siblings. Kendall, Shiv and Roman couldn’t get a grasp on the situation, but neither could we.
In a futile gesture, Kendall threw money at the problem - a one-percenter default mode - and frantically hunted for Shiv among Connor ‘n’ Willa’s “fancy dan” boat wedding (sidenote: possibly the worst place on earth to be trapped on for all this to unfold). He had to break the awful news to his sister: Dad is dying, or dead? We just… don’t know.
And so the strange, strained calls began. Though the signal was sketchy, each Roy had a few minutes on the phone. With Tom holding a phone up to Logan’s ear, each said a painful few words to their estranged, dying dad. Much has been made of Logan’s similarities to King Lear in this particular run, now it was the kids’ turn to mimic Lear’s three daughters, forced, in public, to declare their love for their dad.
Any last words?
It’s difficult to know whether Logan ever heard his children’s conflicted and stuttering “I love yous” down the phone. But what will certainly be running through the Roys’ minds will be their last words to their dad. Just a few hours - and one episode - earlier, in the karaoke session, Logan came as close to apologising for his behaviour as he ever would. “I don’t do apologies, but if it means so much to you, then sorry,” he told his kids, only to be told by Shiv: “There’s nothing you could say to me now that I would ever believe… you’re a human fucking gaslight.”
For Kendall and Shiv, their last words to their dad might bring some shame - ordering him to go and get them more cash. Shiv says: “I think I can speak for everyone when I say go ask him [Mattson] for more money,” while Kendall backs her up: “It’s just good business sense, gotta make our own pile, right Dad?”
Logan’s last words to all four of his children - Connor, lest we forget, was sitting quietly in the corner, as always - are typically Logan Roy. For the first time, possibly ever, he tells his kids that he loves them, but then finishes with a brutal, accurate barb: “I love you, but you’re not serious people.”
Was it all a desperate ploy to get them to go through with the GoJo deal as it stood? Or was Logan truly sorry and looking to make amends to make a “fresh start” and to reunite his family? We’ll never know. But Logan did show his true colours again briefly when luring Roman to his mansion to tell him that he “needed him”, though what he really needed him to do was to sack Gerri. In more excruciating scenes at the beginning of Episode 3, Roman does exactly what Daddy wants, then leaves him a heated voicemail, finishing with his own last words to Pops, wondering (and committing to digital memory forever) if Logan is a bit of “a cunt”.
It wasn’t until the camera panned out onboard the PJ and showed Logan getting the last of a failing CPR that it hit home: he was gone. For Kendall, Shiv and Roman, it’s not long after that they also find out it’s all over. Amid all their sparring, any hope of a true reconciliation between them all has been cruelly snatched away from them. Logan might have been famous for his “fuck off!” catchphrase, but it’s his kids - for better or worse - who ultimately threw it back at him right before his death.
‘Succession’ continues weekly on Sky Atlantic and NOW TV
