Connor’s wedding doesn’t go quite as planned. Neither does just about anything else.
‘Succession’ Season 4, Episode 3: ‘The Wedding’
Up until tonight, the succession part of “Succession” has been a lot like the Godot part of Samuel Beckett’s play “Waiting for Godot.” Over and over, Logan Roy has made plans to step down as the big boss of Waystar, either by appointing one of his children or underlings as his successor or by selling out to another company. But again and again, either Logan has changed his mind or something else has happened to scotch the deal. Godot never comes. The essential does not change.
So what happens this week, with no warning? The old man dies. In an instant, everything is different — for a little while anyway.
I say “with no warning,” but that is not entirely so. “Succession” has been building up to this moment since the series premiere, when Logan was felled by a stroke. From time to time in the ensuing seasons, Logan has been worryingly incoherent or sickly. Then in the first episode of Season 4, he delivered a morbid little speech to his bodyguard Colin about how when people die, nothing comes after. Clearly, the shadow of death has been chilling him for a while.
As this week’s episode begins, Logan is on his way to sweet-talk Lukas Mattson, with Tom, Kerry, Frank (Peter Friedman), Karl (David Rasche) and Karolina (Dagmara Dominczyk) by his side. At the same time, much of the rest of his Waystar power structure — including Logan’s immediate family — is on a yacht in New York Harbor for Connor and Willa’s wedding. Roman, whom we saw Logan recruit once again to his side at the end of last week’s episode, receives a call from Logan on his way to Connor’s wedding. He assumes his father will be there, too, but no: Logan is calling to to test his son’s loyalty by ordering him to fire Gerri.
Against his better judgment, Roman does this as soon as he sees her on the boat. (Actually he says, “It’s not official,” adding, “I’m just heads-upping you.” He also notes that, “I am, like, on a human level, obviously sad.”) More on this later.
Suddenly phones start buzzing. Shiv’s rings, and it’s Tom, but she ignores it. Kendall’s does, too. Then, while Kendall and Roman are sequestered off from the rest of the guests and Shiv is elsewhere on the boat being social, Tom finally gets through to Roman. Logan is “very, very sick,” Tom says. It is “very, very bad.”
The next 10 to 15 minutes of television are absolutely harrowing. All we can see of Logan is his lifeless body, stripped to his waist, as crew members aboard the plane give him CPR — even though his heart and breathing have stopped. The kids fall into a state between panic and denial. Shiv — who has to be retrieved from the party one deck below — is practically catatonic when she finds out why she has been summoned. Her first response when she gets the news is, “No, I can’t have that.”
The hero of the day — though he is a complicated hero — is Tom. He maintains a sense of calm while talking with his freaked-out in-laws, reassuring them that, “The plane people are lovely.” And he has the good and humane idea to get the younger Roys to say goodbye to Logan by phone, holding the phone up to Logan’s ear even though the old man is almost certainly already dead.
Granted, none of them can summon much to say. Roman starts out by trying to reassure his father — or is it himself — that he was a good dad; then he cuts himself off, says, “I don’t know how to do this,” and passes the phone like a hot potato. Kendall gives a little Logan-esque “yeah,” telling him to “Hang in there” before his complicated resentments take over and he declares, “I can’t forgive you, but it’s OK and I love you.” Shiv is reduced to utter confusion and tears, a little girl suddenly pleading with her “daddy” to, please, “don’t go.”
As nerve-racking as the middle section of this episode is, the rest of the hour is often very funny, in that gallows-humor way at which “Succession” excels; the tone even brightens a bit once everybody starts shifting into post-Logan mode. Although the contingent on the jet and the folks at the wedding are in shock, both groups also know that how they react will eventually be judged by the press and the markets. As such, they do not want to make any move that, as Kendall says, “restricts our freedom of movement.” Naturally, they all blunder into further trouble.
The chaos that follows is a perfect storm of Roy family greed and pettiness. Logan’s big plan to sell to GoJo and to buy Pierce Global Media might have gone off without a hitch had his children not decided to pursue Pierce themselves and tried to squeeze extra money out of GoJo — largely, whatever they might say, out of revenge, which rarely makes for smart decision-making. (And who knows? Maybe all that aggravation added some extra stress, contributing to Logan’s death.)
But then there are all the questions left behind by Logan’s death — unanswered partly because of Logan’s insistence on always keeping even his closest allies in the dark. Is Gerri still fired? Do the kids have any say on what happens next? Logan’s stalwarts and the Rebel Alliance each want to get in front of the press as soon as possible — partly to shape the narrative about who is in charge and partly to protect the stock price. But no one really knows what Logan would have wanted, or what the smart play here is.
Perhaps the most devastating casualty of the day is Logan’s oldest son, Connor, whom Logan never even bothered to inform that he was going to miss the wedding. Alan Ruck has been a stealthy M.V.P. of this season, wringing pathos from Connor’s realization that neither the American voters nor his family really care about him. In an uncommonly touching heart-to-heart with Willa, he admits that he is scared she will leave him — he is pretty sure she agreed to this marriage, he says, only because she wants to be rich. (Willa doesn’t exactly deny this, though her response is charming enough that they end up getting married anyway, after nearly everyone has gone.) When Kendall gives him the news about their dad, all he can mutter is, “He never even liked me.”
Perhaps because of some lingering sympathy for and loyalty to Logan’s children, the Waystar execs ultimately allow the Roy kids to draft the statement to the press — with the idea that Frank or someone on the board will sign off. The statement, which Shiv will deliver, is meant to be a simple expression of fact and sorrow, leaving an impression of stability and continuity at the company. The statement should also include mentions of Karl, Frank and Gerri by name, Frank insists, for the sake of “market confidence.”
Instead Shiv ignores the executive team’s edits and makes no mention of any of them. And although she said she would not take any questions, she lets it slip on the way out that she and her brothers plan to be involved with Waystar going forward. This, no doubt, will cause trouble in the weeks ahead. The stock plunges immediately.
“There he is,” Roman says, pointing to a line graph on his phone that looks like a cliff. “That is Dad.”
So this is the Logan Roy legacy: No clear line of succession, a company in trouble, a multi-billion-dollar deal in limbo and none of his loved ones in agreement on what to do next. Nothing is certain. Nothing to be done. Still no Godot.
Due diligence
I called Tom “a complicated hero” because while he manages this particular crisis well, in private moments he reveals some of the cunning, evil side that we have seen in the past. Before Logan dies, he mocks Cousin Greg for being left out of the Mattson trip, quipping that, “I’ve got three, four people Gregging for me.” (Greg’s morose reply: “Don’t turn me into a word.”) Then, after the death he admits that he is mainly upset because he just lost his “protector” in the company, then urges Greg to “sing my song” by spreading the word that he was by Logan’s side.
After “firing” Gerri — who now appears very much not fired — Roman leaves his father a voice mail message letting him know how much he hated doing it. Then when he finds out Logan died, he worries that his message was responsible. As always, Kieran Culkin is so good at playing Roman’s deep-rooted guilt and self-loathing, which often overwhelms the man so much that he just physically collapses and has to lean against whatever is handy — as though keeping his whole horrible self animated were too taxing.
If nothing else, this tragedy may have just rid Waystar and ATN of its Kerry problem. Her reaction to Logan’s death is so wildly inappropriate — saying, with an awkward smirk, that the whole experience of watching Logan die was “nuts” and “weird” — that everyone quickly sidelines her from any of the post-Logan planning. (Tom notes that her grin made it look like she just “caught a foul ball at Yankee Stadium.”)
Kendall, calming his siblings when they can’t wrap their heads around planning a memorial for their father: “We’ll get a funeral off the rack. We can do Reagan’s with tweaks.”
Source: Television - nytimes.com
