And the shocks just keep on coming. Photo / Supplied
And the shocks just keep on coming. Photo / Supplied
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
Friends, enemies, frenemies. This recap of Succession season four, episode four, titled Honeymoon States will include spoilers. It will have all the spoilers. OK, maybe not all, but definitely the major ones.
Please don’t read on if you haven’t seen the episode. Don’t rob yourself of the delicious delights of Jesse Armstrong’s superb dramedy. But please feel free to come back once you have because this is an experience to be shared.
OK, so have you recovered from last week’s absolute banger of an episode? Logan Roy’s death was telegraphed from the very start of the series, but when it came, it was no less shocking or discombobulating.
How could such a titan prove to be so disappointingly mortal?
Before we jump into the main fray of Honeymoon States, a couple of points in the wash-up from last week. First, it seems like Brian Cox might have been paid for the whole season despite being killed off in the third episode. Nice work if you can get it.
If you don't want spoilers ... Photo / Supplied
But the Scot said we are likely to see him again – he shot some flashback scenes that are yet to be broadcast.
Cox also said each episode this season takes place over one day, and this fourth instalment is the day after Logan’s death, so everything we’ve seen so far has spanned a mere four days. Does that mean this whole season runs over 10 days? Probably, unless there’s a time-jump somewhere in between.
But it certainly makes everything feel urgent and escalated. Not only is there a confirmed end date in terms of when the last episode will air, there’s a real sense within the narrative itself that it is all coming to a head.
And now, on to the episode itself!
A bundle of joy
Kendall, Roman and Shiv are all waking up to a world without the spectre of their dad – Ken is looking the most forlorn, wrapped in his surely-to-be-cashmere blanket and crouched in a foetal position on the ground in his architecturally designed apartment.
Shiv’s phone rings and it’s her doctor. She has some news. She is pregnant, which is not news to her, because the doctor is calling to say some test results from an amniocentesis look good and everything is healthy. But it is definitely news to us. Big news. After the game-changing shocks of last week, Succession is intent on giving us all heart attacks. Although, technically, Logan died from a pulmonary embolism.
You can tell Shiv is really happy. Like, just ecstatic. Photo / Supplied
Considering the state of her marriage to Tom, is it a happy bundle of joy or an unwanted complication?
Interesting side note: actor Sarah Snook is pregnant in real life. She walked down the red carpet of the March premiere and said she was 32 weeks along. Did Armstrong change Shiv’s character arc to respond to Snook’s pregnancy? Or did both things just happen to happen?
There’s also a question over whether Shiv will actually appear pregnant in the show. The series was still in production earlier this year, in which case Snook was definitely showing.
But if the season really does race through over 10 days, the onscreen character is never going to get to that point.
As she speaks to her doctor, her face is indiscernible. Is it good news to her? Or can she really just not cope with any of this in light of everything else that’s happening?
It’s also tempting to think about Shiv’s pending baby as a continuation of the idea of succession. Shiv, Kendall, Roman and Connor are the second generation but now here comes another rival in the third generation.
Could there be a sequel at some point in the future in which Shiv’s child faces off against Kendall’s kids Sophie and Iverson?
Later in the episode, every time Shiv spies Tom, she’s darting him daggers. These are not the looks of love.
The ghouls are circling
Over at Logan’s townhouse, everyone has descended, but especially Marcia, who is greeting everyone with her performative grief, complete with her black outfit and the insistence that she and Logan spoke every day. “Intimately”, even.
The grieving widow, obviously. Photo / Supplied
Just like Shiv, we also want to sue over the thought of Logan and Marcia having even pretend phone sex.
We all know they’ve been estranged, and that he had to negotiate her public support during last season’s Senate hearings – hardly the marker of marital bliss.
But Marcia needs to get hers, and she understands that she needs to establish a narrative of a loving and supporting and definitely-not-estranged wife to maximise that payout from his estate. Marcia is a lot of things and chief among them is she’s smart and calculating. Good for her.
The sibs have another bonding moment and they are the only ones who, in this confusing aftermath, really know what their position is. As Logan’s kids, they are first in line for … something.
What that thing is is undecided but everyone else around them doesn’t know what it is either, and they don’t know their rankings to boot.
Tom arrives and joins the huddle of Gerri, Karl, Karolina and Frank, who are all individually and collectively plotting their next moves.
An interim chief executive needs to be appointed as soon as possible. The lackeys clearly think it should come from within them, and plot how to sideline the kids. Karolina backs Gerri and Frank backs Karl. Gerri, whom Logan tried to fire yesterday, and Karl who, uh, is a fool.
Gerri lands a blow on Karl by referencing his work in the 90s, Karl points out Logan was souring on Gerri and Tom comes in and calls them both “senior” and “grey beards”.
But Karl hits back at Tom as a “clumsy interloper and no one trusts you and the only guy pulling for you is dead and now you’re just married to the ex-boss’s daughter and she doesn’t even like you”. Ouch. And true.
Karl goes for the jugular. Photo / Supplied
Everyone keeps saying “board” and it’s increasingly obvious that this gathering is about jockeying for power, money and influence. Everyone there wants to be seen, they want to be in the realm of Logan’s power and now that he’s gone, everyone is, to varying extents, lost.
How the post-Logan world shapes up will be formed in these lushly appointed rooms – and you have to be there to make the play.
Greg is a ship without a port. He tries to ingratiate himself with Shiv, Kendall and Roman, emphasising their bond as family, and not-so-casually dropping his grandfather Ewen’s name. Roman tells Greg to get a new mummy. Awww, bubba.
Meanwhile, Connor buys the house off Marcia for $63 million and they seal the deal with a saliva handshake, which makes such an agreement very official.
By the way, Kendall has a great grief guy, and he’s at least (semi?) convinced that he talked to his dad through Patricia Arquette and that Logan “is good”. I’m going to assume at least one of you watched Medium because it ran for 130 episodes.
Oh, and Hugo seems to have committed a little light insider trading.
The letter
In Logan’s study Tweedledee and Tweedledum – ie Frank and Karl and I’m not sure who is who – are considering a letter found in Logan’s private safe. It looks to be decent paper stock, printed writing and then some handwriting scribbled around the sides and over the top.
But it’s got everyone in a real tizzy, particularly the undated writing in pencil because it says that Logan wanted Kendall to take over the business. No one is sure when this brainflash happened, and whether a line around this particular instruction is an underline or a cross-through.
Is that an underline or a cross-through? Photo / Supplied
Kendall is trying to process the news that, at least at one point, his dad wanted him to ascend the throne.
We’ve seen Shiv, Kendall and Roman all be favoured at various points during the past three and a half seasons and each of those moments has brought forth complex emotions in those characters.
They’ve all striven for their dad’s approval their whole lives and, perhaps like Lucille Bluth in Arrested Development, he got off on withholding. He certainly played them against each other and it would not be an understatement to say that they’re all emotionally damaged from this exhausting game.
So now, especially the day after his sudden death, any skerrick of data that Logan may have loved or approved of any of them is the kind of thing billionaires cannot buy.
Gerri wants to emphasise that the letter has no legal value because the family does not have controlling power, and the board will choose the successor, interim or not.
There’s a lot of quibbling from everyone about the letter. Shiv is at pains to point out that maybe Logan crossed out Ken’s name. Gerri calls the whole a collection of musings. Sure, when musings include information on Logan’s “impressionist investments”.
Just thinking about how Logan might have had three Goyas in that weird jurisdiction-free art warehouse Christopher Nolan blew up in Tenet. Rich people.
Greg decides to have a real punt when he finds out his name is on the letter, that maybe Logan wanted him to be Ken’s No 2. OK, Greggie, OK.
Greg is a ship without a port. Photo / Supplied
Ken admits that Logan didn’t like him, which, if you’re counting, is the second son who expressed exactly this sentiment in less than 24 hours. Father of the year. But Frank does the only decent thing anyone does in this episode and reassures Ken that Logan loved him.
(Interim) succession
Shiv is harbouring some guilt over Logan’s death, telling Tom that she feels as if she, Ken and Roman killed him, forcing him on to that plane to rescue the Gojo deal they tried to torpedo. It’s a rare moment of honesty and vulnerability from Shiv when she admits that she actually lost something she wanted.
And Tom’s reminiscences of the first heady days of their romance seem to thaw through her icy exterior. But it’s only for a moment and she then reverts to sarcasm and droll barbs. She’s not comfortable with real emotion.
Kerry shows up and her actual grief, her snotty distress, is a real contrast to everyone else’s measured, almost nonchalant grief. Kerry is blocked by Marcia from going up and the awkward scene really highlights how bizarre the rest of the formalities have been.
She’s genuinely sad, and not just trying to position herself for the future, until she whispers to a compassionate Roman that Logan had been talking to her about getting married, and that can Roman check with the lawyers. I guess you can both be calculated and super grief-y.
Emboldened by the letter, Ken is making a play for interim boss, and he’s talking to Sandy and Stewey, shoring up their support for the board vote. Ken assures Stewey he’s “twin track, I’m dead but I’m alive”, which screams confidence.
But the hardest hurdle is Shiv and Roman (not Connor, because he literally doesn’t matter in this board vote). When you want it for yourself, it’s a lot to work through as to whether you can brook one of your siblings taking it, which is still preferable to not one of them.
Roman puts his hat in the ring again, reminding everyone that he’s still chief operating officer and the COO is in the draft emergency plan anyway. And he’s best positioned to land Matson on the Gojo sale.
It’s finally looking up for Ken. Photo / Supplied
With Roman’s COO position and Ken’s name on the letter, that leaves Shiv on the outs. Her bros grab the position for themselves and argue the board would not go for three.
There are some noises that she would have a role behind the scenes. She extracts a promise from her brothers that they’re not going to shaft her, but you can tell she’s not convinced. With all the history in that family, we’re not convinced either.
It’s been a hard day for Shiv. She tumbles down the stairs and, while it’s not quite a “Gina Rinehart at the Melbourne Cup” moment, it’s still embarrassing.
Even though it’s only been about 24 hours since Logan’s death, Karolina and Hugo are already floating two opposing communications strategies. One which concretes his legacy as a great operator and then the other, as Roman puts it, is “Operation s..t on Dad”.
The latter involves dredging up Logan’s worst sins, including bringing in Connor’s mum, the Kerry affair and basically telling everyone Logan was losing it and that the kids have been running things anyway.
Everyone agrees to go with the former, expressing distaste for the nasty option. But Ken secretly sidles up to Hugo and tells him to softly action the “bad dad” plan, with “no prints”. When Hugo wants to bring the others in, Ken slyly smiles and the implication is clear – fall in line or I’ll tell everyone about the insider trading.
It’s a ballsy Loganesque move. Maybe the old man knew exactly what he was doing when he wrote Ken’s name in that letter.
Succession is available to stream on Neon and Sky Go
