Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin in a scene from the fourth season of Succession. Photo / AP
Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin in a scene from the fourth season of Succession. Photo / AP
Warning: Contains spoilers
In retrospect, the spectacular coup de theatre that will shock audiences worldwide was always lurking in plain sight. Succession has always been a show half in love with easeful death, and its title and central premise are predicated upon the idea that, inevitably, Brian Cox’s snarling, Lear-like Logan Roy is going to die – and that the war to succeed him will begin in its immediate aftermath.
Yet what few could have seen coming was that the old monster’s demise would end up being not merely cathartic for audiences but positively traumatic; it is hard to remember any series that has depicted grief in all its confusing, painful horror, and that has done so in such an effective, even revelatory fashion.
In the most recent episode of the series, Logan finally departed the world of Waystar Royco in suitably jolting fashion. Yet the most surprising (and, it must be said, affecting) aspect of the character’s death was how swift and understated it was.
Brian Cox as Logan Roy in season 3 of Succession. Photo / HBO
Just as, in life, few of us have the chance to die surrounded by our family, making grand farewell speeches, so Logan did not depart with a Shakespearean flourish. Instead he met his end offscreen, suffering a heart attack while visiting the toilet on his private plane and dying swiftly afterwards. Typical both of the character and the modern age, his final reported act was to grasp for his mobile phone, in a vain attempt to find solace.
Very little that happens in Succession has not been meticulously worked out in advance, and so it proved in this swansong episode for its protagonist – undoubtedly the boldest and most unexpected end for a character since Sean Bean’s Ned Stark was decapitated in the first series of Game of Thrones.
A pivotal scene in the first season of Game of Thrones is when Ned Stark (Sean Bean) is executed. Photo / supplied
At least Stark had the opportunity to go out with his metaphorical boots on. Logan’s offscreen departure gave him no final “f*** off” catchphrase, and no raging against the dying of the light. The only similarly matter-of-fact end of a major character it can be compared to is the death of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s mother Joyce in the acclaimed 2001 episode The Body – killed by an aneurysm, rather than anything supernatural.
At the time, the pre-disgrace Joss Whedon was widely acclaimed as a genius for depicting what he described as “the black ashes in your mouth numbness of death.” Eschewing music and using heightened sound and camera effects to convey the sheer strangeness of what sudden loss can be like, The Body is rightly regarded as one of the finest episodes of television ever broadcast. Yet the most recent instalment of Succession – entitled, knowingly misleadingly, Connor’s Wedding – at least equals it, if not surpasses it.
The character of Joyce was kindly and supportive of her daughter – if, necessarily for plot purposes, unaware of her superpowers and vampire-battling activities – so her death was both a shock and a tragedy. In the case of Logan, however, viewers are invited to feel something more ambivalent. Right up until the moment of his death, we are shown the character in typical bullish, manipulative humour, asking his son Roman to fire his quasi-mother figure Gerri and relishing the power that his actions offer him.
His last words – “Clean out the stalls, strategic refocus. A bit more f****** aggressive” – are typical of the man. He dies as he lived, with his boots on, although suffering a final collapse in the loo represents an ignominious end for a man so powerful. Which is, of course, the point.
The details of Logan’s demise and the subsequent, panicked fall-out will ring eerily true to anyone who has ever lost anyone close in unexpected circumstances – ie, the vast majority of us. And the way the goodbyes were said over the phone, to a somebody who may or may not be conscious enough to hear, will hit especially hard to those forced to grieve through the pandemic. Amidst the apparently hyper-realistic presentation of the world of the 0.01%, complete with omnipresent helicopters to ferry the characters anywhere they wish to travel, it is a stark reminder that all the money and power imaginable cannot fend off mortality forever.
Logan Roy's death is a stark reminder that all the money and power imaginable cannot fend off mortality forever. Photo / supplied
Although Tom is one of the show’s most morally abhorrent characters, it is hard not to feel for him when he is trying, and failing, to break the news of his boss’ imminent end to Roman and Kendall. “Your dad is very, very sick,” he says gently, and the ever-excellent Matthew MacFadyen beautifully captures the supreme awkwardness that comes with conveying tidings of this magnitude. A natural desire to cover up the worst with euphemisms and obfuscations can only hold out for a few moments until it is wholly clear that “he’s sick” will translate into “he’s gone”.
Kendall, Shiv and Roman, meanwhile, epitomise the classic stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. From Roman’s refusal to accept that his father is dead, despite being told that his heart has stopped and that he is no longer breathing, to Shiv’s calm reserve breaking down in a gut-wrenching howl of pain for her father, each of their reactions is deeply affecting.
Roman, who has earlier left a splenetic voicemail for his father asking him “are you a c***?”, is wracked with guilt and refuses to accept Logan’s death (when he is told that his father’s heart has stopped, he replies “that doesn’t mean he’s dead”). Later, the most heartfelt response that he or any of his siblings have to the development is when he says to Gerri: “I’m pretty sad…I’m totally numb.”
Killing off Logan in the third episode of the final series was a bold move to say the least. Photo / supplied
Kendall, meanwhile, delivers a final speech to his father (who simultaneously saved and betrayed him) in which he attempts to come to terms with the ambivalence that he feels towards this titanic, horrible man. “Hang in there…it’ll be OK, you know we love you dad, I love you dad… I do, I love you… I can’t forgive you, but, yeah, it’s OK, and I love you.” Imagine hearing those words as you head through the Pearly Gates.
Shiv, perhaps typically, misses her chance to deliver some final words to her father, and, like Roman, her first response to his death is denial. “I can’t have that,” she says, as if she is trying to negotiate some especially unwelcome board deal. (Later in the episode she admits that “I was hoping it was mom”.) And the ever-hapless Connor, whose wedding day has been so spectacularly ruined by the news, has the apt response that “he never even liked me”, delivered by Alan Ruck with the perfect blend of understatement and poignancy that has defined his character throughout the show. “My father’s dead, and I feel old,” he says to Willa.
Killing off Logan in the third episode of the final series is a bold move, but as Armstrong commented in a behind-the-scenes interview: “There’s a couple of factors in where Logan’s death falls in our narrative trajectory. One is a sort of base one, that maybe it will surprise people. I am not immune from such thoughts as wanting to keep the show exciting and fresh. I think much more prominent was the feeling that if we do this, we don’t want to see people crying, have a funeral, and be done with the show. We want to see how a death of someone significant rebounds around a family.”
It will be especially interesting to see how this affects Kendall – a man who once angrily informed his father 'I’ll be broken when you die'. Photo / Supplied
It will be especially interesting to see how this affects Kendall – a man who once angrily informed his father “I’ll be broken when you die”.
There have, of course, been countless TV series that kill off their protagonists, from Breaking Bad to The Wire, and the softer likes of This Is Us and Grey’s Anatomy that use grief to bring characters closer together and to teach them (and us) the truth of the adage that in the midst of life we are in death. Yet it is hard to recall any show that has presented the complex, messy reality of a loved one’s sudden end with greater clarity; even if the bureaucracy depicted in Succession after Logan’s demise is alien to most, the maelstrom of chaos and uncertainty is not.
It was perhaps appropriate that this instalment of the most theatrical of shows was executed and shot almost as a one-act play–in long, unbroken takes allowing the cast to deliver performances that surely deserve every award in the business.
Yet as we head into the unknown in this final series of Succession, it might be apt to remember Brian Cox’s comments on Logan’s demise, which could apply either to his family or to the audience at large: “I feel they’re gonna find it tough. They’ve lived with Logan for so long. They’re going to miss him.”
