The big shock of Succession’s final season should have been so obvious. The HBO series practically RSVP’d the surprise death ages ago.
One constant throughout the series’ four seasons — among a churning sea of business dealings and crumbling personal allegiances — is that weddings aren’t weddings. Weddings are funerals.
Back in the final two episodes of the show’s first season — titled “Pre-Nuptial” and “Nobody Is Ever Missing” — we see the Roy family brought together for the wedding of the corporate-ladder-climbing Tom Wambsgans to the boss’s daughter and potential heir to the throne, Shiv Roy. In many ways, it’s not a marriage born of love, but more of convenience.
As Shiv admits her own infidelity to Tom, she proposes an open marriage — on their wedding night. This act serves as a sort of poison pill that slowly destroys their relationship. But the main casualty of this wedding night is the young waiter that Kendall Roy convinces to drive under the influence in order to score more drugs.
Their trip is short lived as the waiter veers from the road and crashes into a small body of water. Kendall escapes the submerged vehicle, but the waiter never surfaces. During the breakfast reception following the night of the wedding, news of the waiter’s death hangs over the festivities like a pall. The consequences of Kendall’s actions hang over him long after that.
Our next tying of the knot comes in the season three episode “Chiantishire.” Here we see the Roy family travel to Tuscany to attend the wedding of their mother, Caroline. The first turn of the blade comes when Caroline tells Shiv that she never wanted children and coldly suggests that Shiv never become a mother.
After a meltdown at his decadent birthday celebration and an insulting buyout offer from his father, Kendall reaches another lowpoint. He drinks excessively while lying facedown on a pool float. The episode ends with Kendall allowing himself to sink into the water — seemingly an attempt at suicide.
The following episode — season three ending “All the Bells Say” — reveals that Kendall has survived. Although how relieved he is to do so is unclear.
The three main Roy siblings learn that their father, Logan, is moving ahead with a sale of the family business — dashing their chances of ever seizing control of the company. A broken Kendall confides in his siblings. He escaped the water that took the waiter’s life during Shiv’s wedding. He once again escaped the water during his mother’s wedding. Now it is time to come clean.
Kendall’s siblings absolve him of his guilt, and together they set out to topple their old man. That is until they learn that a last-minute deal between their parents has cost them leverage. This is the final betrayal by Caroline. As far as her children are concerned, they are motherless.
Then we have the wedding of the forgotten Roy — Connor. As Logan’s oldest son from a previous marriage, Connor has always been pushed aside. Now, partially in hopes of finally impressing his father, Connor has launched a doomed presidential campaign.
Growing short on campaign funds and in dire need of more voter support, Connor talks his reluctant fiancee, Willa, into turning their special day into a PR event to bolster his campaign. In aptly titled season four episode “Connor’s Wedding,” the Roy siblings find themselves together on Connor’s wedding barge. Roman Roy described the occasion as a “sham marriage and the death of romance.” Again, “death” being the operative word.
Then shortly into the episode, the Roys received the sudden call that their father is dead. Or dying. But mostly dead.
The bulk of the episode is the various characters grappling with the emotional and economic ramifications of the death of a father and business titan. For Connor, the news that his father died on a flight overseas forces him to recognize that his father had no intention of attending his wedding.
This realization leads to a somewhat positive emotional development for Connor and Willa. She admits that his money is a crucial component of their relationship. But she also says she isn’t running away anytime soon.
They decide to move ahead with the wedding ceremony, although hardly anyone remains in attendance. This is Succession. There are no weddings. Only funerals.
