A month before HBO premiered season four of the smash hit “Succession,” Jesse Armstrong confirmed in an interview that this would be the series’ last. Seemingly inherent in this declaration was the understanding that the lead character, the family patriarch and CEO of Waystar Royco, Logan Roy (Brian Cox), would pass away by the finale. However, HBO loves itself a red wedding (not to mention a surprising offing), and “Succession” filled both those briefs with episode three.
Warning: Spoilers for “Succession” season four follow.
In what may be one of the greatest TV episodes of all time — and will certainly be a 2023 Emmy submission — “Succession” killed off Logan Roy in the most unexpected way possible: quietly and off-screen. (In an interview with “Deadline,” Cox said he was not even on set for the filming of this episode.) It was tremendous television. And the loss of Logan, the roaring lion at the show’s heart, provided a master class in how to capture modern grief by focusing on those helplessly left shellshocked thousands of miles away.
Narrated by his lackey, Tom (Matthew Macfadyen), Logan’s death is told Shakespeare-style, in a stop-and-start explanation given over speakerphone to Logan’s three children by his second wife. Siblings Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Roman (Kieran Culkin) and Shiv (Sarah Snook) have been fighting for three seasons to succeed their father as CEO. It’s a fight that has divided the family, both emotionally and literally.
Logan and Tom were midair on a private jet flying to Europe when the titan collapsed. The kids, along with their older half-brother, Connor (Alan Ruck), were on a cruise off California for Connor’s wedding, 4,500 miles away. This is perhaps the only part of the episode that’s a little on the nose: Logan’s children remain physically adrift even as they become emotionally unmoored. But the setting also adds another wrinkle to the cycles of loss and denial, as cell service falters and…
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