Succession series finale review: A remorseless, rewarding farewell to TV's unhappiest family
Warning: This article contains spoilers for the Succession series finale, "With Open Eyes."
In retrospect, this was the only way it could end. The Roy children got nothing because, as Roman (Kieran Culkin) declared in a bleak and liberating moment of epiphany, they were nothing — nothing without the man who raised them to exist solely for his approbation, at any cost.
The remorseless and rewarding finale, "With Open Eyes," delivered on the series' title: Savvy sad-eyed sycophant Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen, in the supporting performance of the year) is anointed the Chief Executive Officer and "pain sponge" of Waystar Royco by the company's callous new owner, Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsg?rd). But Succession's final season was never really about who would take the corporate crown. By killing off Logan (Brian Cox), the fearsome Roy family patriarch, so early on, the last seven episodes honed the series' focus to its most pressing question of all: Could Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook), and Roman ever be free of their father's emotional vise grip?
Macall B. Polay/HBO (From left): Justine Lupe, Alan Ruck, Sarah Snook, Jeremy Strong, and Kieran Culkin on 'Succession'
The finale begins and ends with familial betrayal. In the wake of his funeral meltdown and subsequent scuffle with anti-ATN protestors on Fifth Avenue, Roman flees to the Caribbean on the invitation of his audaciously aloof mother, Caroline (Harriet Walter). Kendall and Shiv follow, as the board meeting on the GoJo sale is looming, and they each need Roman to vote their way. But for all her talk about longing for a lovely family gathering, Caroline reveals her own mercenary motives at dinner. Her slippery husband, Peter (Pip Torrens), blindsides the captive siblings with an investment pitch. It's an acerbic and funny bit of foreshadowing, lest we forget that in the Roy family, all love is transactional.
That isn't to say that Kendall, Roman, Shiv, and Connor Roy (Alan Ruck) can't show up for one another. They clumsily soothed Kendall after his heart-wrenching confession on a sun-baked Tuscany street in "All the Bells Say"; they braved a dive bar with Connor when his fiancée, Willa (Justine Lupe), got cold feet in "Rehearsal"; they sprang into action when Roman the showman went to pieces on the big stage at Logan's funeral in "Church and State." This final season saw flashes of intense closeness between the Roy children, which spawned from the shocking news of their father's death — a harrowing, hours-long ordeal that found them saying frantic, fraught goodbyes into the blank face of a cell phone. The experience produced a unity so rare the siblings treated it as something sacred, swearing "on yesterday" that they wouldn't betray one another again.
But yesterday didn't last. Though Roman and Shiv decided to vote Kendall in as CEO — and sealed it with an exquisitely relatable bit of sibling silliness and torment called "meal fit for a king" in Caroline's Caribbean kitchen — the noxious spirit of Logan Roy lingered. When it came time to vote, a reluctant Roman picked Kendall's side, but Shiv balked. "I just don't think you'd be good at it," she told an incredulous Kendall. In the end, the trio of Roy heirs reverted to their primal state as broken children, and a day that began with a chipper recitation of a childhood nursery rhyme ("Silence in the courtyard/ Silence in the street/ The biggest fool in England is just about to speak") ended with vicious name-calling and nasty physical scrapping. It was Logan Roy's final "f--- off" from beyond the grave, driving his children to resent one another so much that they'd rather lose it all than let one of them win.
David Russell/HBO Matthew Macfadyen and Nicholas Braun on 'Succession'
Over the last few weeks as the finale has approached, fans and pundits have puzzled publicly over the question, "Who is the worst person on Succession?" This may sound strange, but when it comes to the Roy family, pity was my primary emotion. Yes, Logan and his brood were awful, but Succession always accentuated the pain underneath their ugliest behavior. These were people raised by wire-monkey parents, hyper-attuned to betrayal because it's all they've known. In lesser hands, Succession's characters would all be standard-issue villains we'd reflexively love to hate. Instead, they are tragic figures we agonized over, laughed at, ached for, and hated to love — an alchemy achieved through the brilliance of its writing and the transformative talent of its ensemble.
"RIP to every other show competing at the Emmys this year, truly," tweeted one viewer, alongside a clip of Roman's funeral breakdown. Good luck to voters trying to choose between Strong, Culkin, and Cox in the lead actor category, and congratulations in advance (I hope) to supporting star Macfadyen, who effected Tom's intensifying soul rot with vivid and painful hilarity. Was there a more viscerally entertaining moment in the entire finale than Tom claiming ownership of his forever lackey Greg (Nicholas Braun) by placing one of Connor's estate-auction stickers on the young man's forehead? (I can't help but wonder if the writers created Connor's sale for the sole purpose of gifting viewers with that image.) And Ruck did his best work of the series this season, as Connor — the only heir who never had a shot at the CEO spot — proved he might be the only sibling equipped to move forward in a Logan-less world.
Courtesy of HBO Jeremy Strong on 'Succession'
If "With Open Eyes" wasn't quite as piquant as some of the earlier episodes, it's only because the season frontloaded so much acute brilliance: Connor's breathtakingly honest first reaction to his father's death ("Oh man. He never even liked me"); the suspenseful chaos of the election episode; Shiv and Tom's balcony blow-out, and so on. But the ending stayed true to the bleak and bold vision set forth by creator Jesse Armstrong and his team in 2018: Yes, parents can f--- up their children. In fact, they are capable of destroying them completely — and for some, that's even the goal. "I don't think Dad gave a f--- about anything more than putting one foot in front of the other," Shiv notes.
Abandoned at birth and unraveled by death, the central Roy children end up alone — even Shiv, who must now take on the role of the power-adjacent outsider in her marriage. For Roman, the denouement is a bitter relief, but for Kendall — the cog built to fit only one machine — it is akin to annihilation. We're left with the image of the devastated eldest boy staring sightlessly into the horizon of New York Harbor with the haunted look of a man who might jump. The Roy children end Succession even more obscenely wealthy than they began, but it's the words of Robert Burns — sung by Karl (David Rasche) and Logan on that old home video — that are likely ringing in their ears:
The warl'y race may riches chase,
An' riches still may fly them, O
An' tho' at last they catch them fast,
Their hearts can ne'er enjoy them, O.
Finale grade: A-
Series grade: A
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