We’ve had three Roy family weddings, now it’s time for a funeral.
In the wake of last week’s controversial election call, the streets of Manhattan have erupted into protests against the newly elected (at least in ATN’s eyes), fascist-leaning Jeryd Mencken. But for the Roys, this is just background noise — in the penultimate episode of Succession they are finally burying their father.
Roman has offered himself as the eulogizer, and we open with him rehearsing his lines. He’s quick to emphasize his own similarities to Logan (mainly their shared status of “middle child of three,” which is sadly surface-level). This is clearly a play to gain authority with the powerful attendees of the service, less so a way to honor his father. “See Shivy cry, see Kenny lie, see Roman the Showman light up the sky,” he monologues, in the creepiest possible tone. His conviction in his having “pre-grieved” Logan’s death is clear as he glosses through his eulogy, thinking of only the impression he will make in comparison with his siblings. The thing about grief, though, is it doesn’t tend to wait for the right moment to appear.
Kendall “Queasy Gonzales” Roy, on the other hand, is in a much less confident state — he’s particularly perturbed by the growing presence of protesters outside the church (a concern Roman dismisses easily). Even more concerned is Rava, who calls to let him know that she’s taking their children upstate instead of to the funeral. Sophie has already been harrassed once this election cycle, and Rava doesn’t want to risk being around even more unrest. Kendall reacts in a very Kendall way: with an immediate emotional meltdown. He drives to Rava’s apartment, yells at her, tries to get the kids out of the car, and finally threatens to lay in front of the car so she’ll have to hit him to leave (which, of course, he doesn’t even remotely try to do). It’s pathetic and doesn’t work, but it’s so fitting for the tragedy of Succession — the closer Kendall gets to the top, the more alone he gets.
Shiv, meanwhile, is coaching Matsson on using the media frenzy around the election call as cover to inconspicuously drop the news about his fake data. She also laments Mencken’s ascendency — but as Matsson is quick to remind her, “you’ve been a democracy for like, 50 years.” Again, hate it when this man makes points!
Finally, we have Tom, who is so slammed in the cleanup of the mess left behind by yesterday’s call that he can’t even leave with Greg to head over to the funeral (leaving the Roy cousin to hilariously ride a Citibike all the way there). Tom’s lack of urgency to be in an important room with important people is surprisingly out of character — are the strain of the job and of his tensions with Shiv finally getting to him?
At last, the three Roy siblings join up in one car to travel to the funeral — and to share what’s bothering them. Kendall, the fact that Rava has taken the kids; Shiv, the fact that she is about to have a kid of her own (having to clarify that it’s Tom’s is… something); and Roman… nothing.
As they enter the church, Roman gets one last dig at Kendall, remarking that his sunglasses are hiding his tears so he can “emerge victorious as the winner of the funeral!” He will soon be eating those words, but for now Kendall is definitively on the losing side, as before heading into the service he pressures Jess into telling him why she scheduled a meeting for them next week, which is in fact her meeting to submit her resignation. He throws a fit, telling her she’s dumb, but YAY! Finally!!! Be free, Jess!!! Yet another woman has refused to back away from their walk out of Kendall’s life, as his circle slowly shrinks around him. Still in that circle? Professional gossiper Hugo, who informs Kendall about Matsson’s fake number news on the steps of the church. Hugo, king of timing.
Inside is the who’s who of the Roy family and social circles. First up, Connor, who has prepared his own winding and potentially legally troublesome eulogy for their father, which Shiv promptly shuts down. Business associates are arriving, including Sandi, Sandy, and Frank — all of whom Roman talks to in an attempt to get them behind him as CEO (which Frank immediately declines — he’s #TeamKendall all the way). Then Mencken makes his entrance, to the sounds of murmurs from the crowd.
Finally, Caroline, mother to Kendall, Roman, and Shiv, arrives. She treats them coldly as ever, immediately guesses that Shiv is pregnant, and then pulls her greatest move ever: gathering together Logan’s wife, ex-wife, and ex-mistresses (Kerry and Sally-Anne — played, in fact, by Brian Cox’s actual wife) into the front row. Ladies get in formation! They share a moment of nostalgic teasing over their late lover’s nighttime teeth grinding. What’s past is past.
Shiv, on the other hand, is focused on the future. She pulls Matsson aside and pitches an idea: he appeases Mencken’s regulatory controls by naming a U.S. CEO to act as a figurehead for Waystar Royco, while Matsson is really the one pulling the strings behind the scenes. And who might that CEO be? Of course, Siobhan herself! The Swede is willing to consider it, but there are now more important things to attend to — namely, the funeral.
With Tom still at the office, Greg steps in to help wheel the casket down the aisle. He does this job well, but fails at his more important job: stopping his grandfather, Ewan, from speaking. Logan’s brother gets up before Roman can, and immediately issues a banger: “What sort of people would stop a brother speaking for the sake of a share price?” It’s on! From there, Ewan delivers a speech that both strangely humanizes Logan Roy — sharing some of the traumas he went through as a child, from nearly three days of silence as the family floated at sea to avoid German U-boats in the war, to being convinced that he caused his sister’s polio infliction — and gives him no leeway for the monster he became as a result. As Ewan says, “he fed a certain kind of meagerness in men. Perhaps he had to, because he had a meagerness about him, and maybe I do about me too… I try. I try. I don’t know when, but some time he decided not to try anymore. And it was a terrible shame.” That’s really the crux of it all. All of the Roys have dealt with trauma, despite their riches — much of it inflicted by each other, on each other. Yet instead of attempting to work through it, they let the trauma excuse the deeply evil actions they continue to take against themselves and against anyone less fortunate. They’re content not to try.
Ewan’s speech is incredibly affecting to watch — James Cromwell guest star Emmy incoming! — and is so both to us, the audience, and to the characters. Especially Roman. The youngest Roy brother gets up to follow this eulogy with his carefully prepared notes, and suddenly all the “pre-grieving” gives way to the real grief he has been hiding. Between the stories of Logan’s childhood and the sight of the casket, he fully breaks down into sobs. As his siblings surround him, he asks, “is he in there? Well, can we get him out?” It’s a devastating moment — and I appreciate that the Succession writers are continuing to throw in moments that are difficult not to empathize with among the many despicable acts of these characters.
With zero hesitation, the Roy siblings agree that Kendall should take over. And take over he does, delivering the perfect Kendall eulogy: sounds fantastic but means practically nothing. He starts off honest, calling Logan “a brute.” But then he takes a Hamlet-esque route, emphasizing Logan’s penchant for acting. He acted. He did. This action is his legacy, but so is the money he made. And, so appropriately for this family, he turns Logan’s eulogy into a eulogy of capital — money, the “corpuscules of life gushing around this nation, this world.” For him, products are life — “bloody, complicated life.” In case anyone watching were taking his words seriously, there’s a great cut to Caroline’s eye roll when he gives Logan sole credit for creating Kendall and his siblings. But overall it’s a powerful speech — not necessarily in what he says (though Mencken seems to respond well to his ode to the dollar), but in how he says it. To the people in that room, and their ideas of power, he sounds like a leader.
Not to be outdone, Shiv steps up to give her own remarks. The words are not quite as forceful, but they are revealing — she is clearly still grappling with what image to hold of her late father, and to reconcile the difficult parts, how he kept everyone (even his own children) at a distance. The most challenging part, though, was how hard he was on her as a daughter. “He couldn’t fit a whole woman in his head,” she says. But she forgives him for this.
As the mourners leave, Hugo has another tidbit for Kendall — he overheard the plan to have a U.S. CEO to placate the new administration. While before Kendall was dismissive, he perks up at this, sensing that betrayal from Shiv is still underway.
Next stop, the cemetery, where the siblings see for the first time the hideously gaudy mausoleum Logan bought from a man who gained his riches from selling pet supplies. I love that Connor already knew about the purchase and had visited the site — he and Logan connected on a uniquely human level without the pressure of potential company leadership in their way. Connor was never a threat to Logan (perhaps just to his bank account), and he seemed to have let him in in small ways, despite never giving him any respect. Connor takes his siblings on a tour of the space, which includes additional spaces for their own coffins. They joke around about how uncomfortable it would be to spend eternity with their father, and almost as an aside Roman finally reveals the extent of his fear of the man: “He made me breathe funny,” he says. Only in his permanent absence can Roman finally stop explaining away Logan’s abuse.
After the service, Shiv is still seeking answers, asking Frank and Karl “how bad was Dad?” They’re honest with her — “what you saw was what you got.” There was no hidden goodness in him, he was a hard man through and through. Marcia, too, shares her honest thoughts with Shiv — “he broke my heart and he broke your hearts too.”
But Kendall is already back on his business bullshit, telling Hugo straightforwardly that he needs him to be his dog in the new fight against Matsson, and in return he’ll receive millions of table scraps, so to speak. “Woof, woof,” replies Hugo. I’ve never been so grateful for a side character.
The reception is held at the St. Regis, because of course it is, and Kendall has a few propositions to make. First, to Logan’s former driver, Colin, who Kendall has learned is seeking therapy. He offers Colin an alternative to therapy, which is working for him. Reader… the laugh I laughed! It’s clearly a ploy to stop Colin from divulging the information he knows about Kendall’s vehicular manslaughter, but I’ve got a feeling Colin sees this clearly — whether he goes along with it is another matter to be seen.
Kendall’s next order of business is to speak with Mencken, who was highly impressed with his eulogy. “I thought you were the sound system, now you want to choose the track,” Mencken responds to Kendall’s pushing on the politician’s regulatory agenda (a great line, from the absolute worst man!). Kendall can’t get too much information, though, because Mencken is soon swarmed by members of the Roy family — Greg, Roman, and Connor, specifically — until Shiv has to come to the rescue and lead him to Matsson. They meet, the Swede shares once again his platform of “privacy, pussy, pasta” (his use of this line a second time turned him so immediately into a dork, it was astonishing). But it seems like there’s some hope for an alliance.
Finally, Tom arrives. He is exhausted to the point of tears — and also, the weight of having been the last to say goodbye to Logan is finally catching up to him. Shiv is moved, allowing Tom to go sleep at her apartment. These two!!! This roller coaster!!! It’s too much!!!
Whatever thoughts she’s having about Tom are interrupted by Matsson, who calls her to let her know that Mencken is open to the U.S. CEO idea. Who the CEO will be, he doesn’t say — though Shiv assumes it’s her, giving her brothers a sneer. Kendall is too busy telling Roman how badly he fucked up to notice though, and it sends his younger brother running out of the room and down to the street below, where he encounters protests. Perhaps in his disappointment in himself for, in his eyes, flubbing his audition to be CEO (though I might argue that crying during your father’s funeral is quite understandable!), he seeks someone to beat him up for it — since Logan was usually there to fill that role. Walking against the tide of protestors he agitates a few of them, leading him to get pushed around and finally punched in the face.
There’s one more week of Succession and the teams are set — basically, every sibling for themself. We know who won the funeral, but who will win the whole thing… if anyone?
