Succession season 4 finale review: 10 episodes of Roy sibling regression

In its very early moments, Succession threatened to be the story of how one excessively egotistic son — with far less talent, acumen, and venom than his father — might one day take over a media empire and grow into the role or be swallowed by it. This felt like an obvious metaphor of the Murdochs, with a focus on drawing as many parallels in real life as possible. This version of Succession, however, has seemed like a bait-and-switch ever since the first season’s finale, when it became clear that Logan would continue to wield power both in the world and in the family for at least a few more years — and that Kendall (Jeremy Strong) could never really be out from his father’s shadow.

What replaced it was a far superior ensemble show about a deeply fucked-up family trying to survive each other without ever stumbling from their positions far atop a world that doesn’t look much like ours at all. With the final death of Logan Roy’s (Brian Cox), Succession’s fourth season The same dynamic that started it off was used.

In conclusion, Succession Leaning into the inherent tragedy of their siblings. Shiv (Sarah Snook), bolstering her own power, votes to goJo. This leaves Kendall and Roman behind (Kieran Sulkin). It’s a move that feels calculating and winning and completely at odds with the sibling bonding we’ve seen before this season. But the show’s writers decided that the Roy siblings’ divides would always conquer them in the end. The deal represents the father’s final revenge: an incident that will forever damage their relationship. Logan and his successor were not all that. Succession was.

Logan was dead from the moment he died. Succession’s second and third seasons felt like they stopped mattering. The sibling rivalry, fights, tempering and backstabbing of those two seasons were thrown out in favour of the dynamics introduced in the first season.

Shiv’s dad has always placed her at the right side of those who are most important. Shiv wants to stay there, forever. Tom (Matthew Macfadyen), a power-hungry man, is willing to do anything to rise above his humble origins. He cannot separate his love of Siobhan and the influence her name and family afford him. Roman is the fuckup who wants desperately to be his father in terms of power and position without the competence, grit, or patience to see things through, and the only thing that gets left behind is a void, a nothingness he can’t help but stare into. Then there’s Kendall, forever the child groomed from adolescence for greatness and always missing the votes of confidence from the people who mean the most to him — and no idea how to see reality or life beyond that fact.

None of this is to say that these ideas are wrong, or bad, or even uninteresting; they just aren’t the ideas that the show’s spent the last two years trying to communicate to viewers. The show has been focusing on the same ideas since season 2. Succession Logan, WayStar and their flunkies may not be as monolithic of media Logan would like them to portray. With technology on the rise, from streaming to startups, Logan’s way of business was made to seem antiquated and the show’s driving interest came from watching three (sometimes four) siblings try to escape from the wake created by their father’s business in its death throes. They showed glimpses of their relationship without him, such as when they were having fun on a boat or taking care of each other in small wedding scenes. All while Cox’s seismic performance created an inescapable field of gravity that kept pulling each Roy back for their own reasons.

Logan’s departure caused the show to fall into the void he had left. But instead of running away, people were desperate to fill that power vacuum. It was the same as when Logan appeared on the deathbed at the beginning of season 1 with no lessons learned.

Now, it’s true that the Roy children don’t often seem like the lesson-learning types (after all, Logan certainly didn’t raise them to be), but character stagnation doesn’t make for good TV, especially if the show around those characters doesn’t really support their lack of growth.

After the family civil war, Roman and Shiv were both competent businessmen with a hard-earned faith in their brother and each other. Roman and Shiv had both returned to their seasons 1 personalities by the time they reached season 4. Roman was reckless, firing anyone at will, then changing his decision a second later. Far from the independent streak she’s had in the last two seasons, Shiv goes from finally feeling like she might deserve power to backing Mattson and doing anything to bask in the glow of authority. Even Kendall, who seemed to spend two straight seasons learning he wasn’t his father and he didn’t have to be, spends season 4 flitting between being the can-do, Jay-Z-blasting almost-CEO he starts the series as and the petulant child who thinks he’s his father’s business acumen is his birthright.

Photo: Claudette Barius/HBO

David M. Russell/HBO

There’s a case to be made that the reason for this regression is that the version of these kids we saw in the early episodes of season 1 is the most true version of them: When the cards were on the table and dad was dying, their true selves came out. The issue with that is that it isn’t the most interesting version of any of the Roy kids, and the series seemed to learn that the hard way as it progressed toward a killer ending to season 1 and stronger second and third seasons.

Seeing the Roy siblings find ways to work with each other and discover that the three of them were the only solid ground in each other’s lives over the course of seasons 2 and 3 was the glue that held together the corporate jargon, profanity-laced babble, and topsy-turvy fantasy world that Succession They had been so successful. The siblings are back in their most competitive and power-hungry forms for season 4. The siblings’ story may have been tragic from the beginning, but their relationship felt more genuine and heartfelt than the question of who would get the company.

Its core is a fundamentally different approach. Succession The show is what it has always claimed to be. A story about who controls a massive media empire once the giant legend who founded it passes away. This was basically a game show. For that story, the ending was perfect; WayStar Royco now is just a nameless throne. It’s a bloated media empire, controlled by a mildly interested billionaire who wants a puppet who the whole world can see the strings on. Tom is the final winner and the shiny crown makes the strings less noticeable. It’s a shame that the version that was most successful remembered just how insignificant this role is. For at least two seasons. Succession It was more than just a big business.