As ‘Succession’ ends, a look at the show’s key moments

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for “Succession.”

There are numerous questions to be answered when the finale of “Succession,” the much acclaimed series about a rich, ruthless family at the head of a media empire, airs Sunday night.

Will siblings Kendall (Jeremy Strong) and Roman Roy (Kieran Culkin) manage to scuttle the sale of their father’s Waystar Royco conglomerate to tech company GoJo? If they do, which one will assume their late father’s crown? If the sale goes ahead, will sister Shiv (Sarah Snook) best her brothers and become the CEO of the new entity?

And another equally important one: how will the 90-minute finale top Episode 3 of this final season, a thrilling, jaw-dropping hour of television in which patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox) dies, setting off the ultimate scramble for power?

In a TV series known for its gobsmacking twists, Logan’s death in the bathroom of his private plane was the most shocking of all coming as early as it did in the season, and also the most satisfying for the mastery of its execution.

As we wait to see how it all ends, here’s a look at other big “Succession” moments, listed chronologically.

Logan’s ‘bear hug’

In the Season 1 finale, Logan uses blackmail to get Kendall to drop his attempted takeover of Waystar Royco, a so-called “bear hug.” His leverage is Kendall’s accidental killing of a waiter at the wedding of Shiv and Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) in the English countryside. In an echo of Ted Kennedy’s Chappaquiddick incident, Kendall got high on ketamine with the waiter, drove a car into a lake and was unable to pull the young man out. Logan agrees to snuff out the police investigation, but at the cost of Kendall’s pride and ambition.

Boar on the Floor

This scene in the third episode of Season 2 leaves no doubt that Logan will go to brutal lengths to keep his grip on power. At dinner during a hunting retreat in Hungary, an enraged Logan decides to smoke out a rat in his organization — someone has talked to a biographer about him and someone tipped off rival news conglomerate Pierce about his takeover ambitions. He singles out son-in-law Tom, grandnephew Greg (Nicholas Braun) and underling Karl (David Rasche), making them crawl around on the floor, oinking like pigs and fighting over a sausage in a game he calls “Boar on the Floor.” Utterly ruthless.

Greg’s power play

We would be remiss not to include a Cousin Greg moment in this roundup. He started out in the first episode being the closest the show got to a character with a conscience: refusing to pull rank as a member of the family when he got fired from a Waystar amusement park for barfing through the eyes of his mascot costume. He is also the series’ chief comic relief, particularly in his exchanges with frenemy Tom. But there’s deviousness behind the awkward exterior, like when Greg hung onto documents implicating the Roys in a scandal in Season 2.

‘This is the day his reign ends’

In the Season 2 finale, the family meets on their yacht to figure out who will fall on their sword over the cruise ship scandal, in which migrant employees were sexually assaulted, even killed, and the crimes covered up. Kendall is dispatched to New York to give a press conference but, instead of taking the blame, points the finger at Logan. “The truth is my father is a malignant presence, a bully and a liar, and he was fully personally aware of these events for many years … I think this is the day his reign ends,” Kendall tells shocked journalists. It wasn’t, of course.

Is Kendall dead?

Episode 8 of Season 3 — set in both Tuscany, where the kids’ mother was getting remarried, and New York, where the GoJo deal was starting to take shape — was absolutely packed with moments. There was Kendall’s tense dinner with Logan, at which Logan refused to let Kendall leave the company; mother Caroline’s (Harriet Walter) cutting conversation about motherhood with Shiv; Roman accidentally sending a “dick pic” to his dad instead of Gerri, the older Waystar employee with whom he had a creepy pseudo-sexual relationship, to name a few. The one that most shook fans was Kendall falling asleep on a pool floatie and apparently on the verge of drowning. (A clean copy of that clip wasn’t available, so enjoy Caroline and Shiv’s sniping instead.)

‘I killed a kid’

Kendall was a broken man by the end Season 3, bested professionally by his father, left to mainly fend for himself by his siblings, culminating in his near-drowning. In a remarkable scene in the season finale, he confesses to Shiv and Roman about the waiter who died in Season 1, telling them, “I’m bad. I killed a kid.” Shiv and Roman initially fend off his confession with reassurances and jokes but end up getting down in the dirt with him to comfort him. It’s a rare moment of genuine bonding that leads to them banding together to try to stop Logan from selling his empire to GoJo.

Guns turned to sausages

Later in that same episode, Kendall, Shiv and Roman confront their father about the GoJo deal, reminding him of a clause in their mother’s divorce agreement that gives them veto over the sale. Except, they quickly learn their mother has sold them out by altering the agreement. “I have you beat, you morons,” roars Logan. “You bust in here, guns in hand, and now you find they’ve turned to f — king sausages.” As the kids flounder, trying to figure out who tipped off Logan that they were coming, Shiv sees Logan put a fatherly hand on the shoulder of her husband, Tom, and it’s clear to her — and to stunned viewers — who betrayed the siblings.

‘Your dad is very sick’

Those words, uttered by Tom in a call to Roman after Logan collapsed on his private plane, set off a roller-coaster of an episode in which characters and viewers alike came to the shocking realization that Logan Roy was dead. He was undoubtedly already gone by the time Tom held a cellphone to Logan’s ear so that Roman, Shiv and Kendall could say their anguished goodbyes. A large part of the genius of this episode was the way in which Logan died: off camera, without any last words, our only glimpse of this larger-than-life character a 10-second view of the top of his head as a flight attendant did chest compressions.

‘Should we have a real conversation?’

Tom and Shiv’s marriage seemed doomed ever since Shiv told Tom on their wedding night she wanted an “open” relationship. By the start of this season, the not-so-happy couple were on the path to divorce. And yet, they reconciled — or at least they had until the night before the presidential election when all the rancour of the relationship spilled out in a vicious argument. Shiv called Tom a “hick” and a “snake” who was using her to climb the ladder, and he told a secretly pregnant Shiv she was incapable of love and “not a good person to have children.”

Kendall’s eulogy

The penultimate episode of “Succession” finally brought a funeral for Logan, at which Roman was to give the eulogy. But when he turned into a sobbing mess at the sight of his dad’s coffin, Kendall stepped up and gave a speech that solidified him as his father’s most likely successor. “It’s true what my uncle said, my father was a brute, but also he built and he acted,” Kendall said. “Yes, he had a terrible force to him and fierce ambition that could push you to the side, but he was only that human thing, the will to be and to be seen and to do.” Of the “magnificent awful force of him,” Kendall said, “my God, I hope it’s in me.”

We’ll all learn Sunday night if that force is in Kendall or any of Logan’s children.

Debra Yeo is a deputy editor and a contributor to the Star’s Entertainment section. She is based in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @realityeo

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