Note: This article incorporates spoilers for a number of Succession episodes, significantly season 4, episode 4, “Honeymoon States.”
In “Honeymoon States,” the fourth episode of Succession’s closing season, everybody’s weaponizing Logan’s reminiscence to swimsuit their very own ends.
While he was alive, Logan maintained a tightly held picture of shrewdness and unassailable energy, however even he can’t management how he’ll be remembered. Early within the episode, the Roy kids rifle via their father’s many newspaper obituaries; “The reviews are in,” Roman quips. They’re filled with euphemisms that the children have enjoyable translating. According to 1, Logan was a “complicated man,” which Kendall takes to imply “threw phones at staff”; one other calls him a “business genius,” which is clearly a beneficiant technique to describe somebody who by no means paid taxes.
The core drama of this episode, nonetheless, revolves round one other piece of paper: a doc that Waystar vice chairman Frank Vernon (Peter Friedman) discovers in Logan’s non-public secure. It seems that at one level, Logan (Brian Cox) had named Kendall (Jeremy Strong) as his successor. Kendall is rocked by what appears like tangible affirmation that Logan selected him, however can also be suffering from the maddening ambiguity of the piece of paper. It’s riddled with pencil scribbles, together with a mark close to Kendall’s identify. Was Logan underlining it or, as Shiv (Sarah Snook) pounces on as a risk, was he making an attempt to cross Ken’s identify out? (“It sure as fucking shit doesn’t say ‘Shiv,’” Kendall bites again.)
Later, he asks Frank if it’s actual, hardly capable of imagine his personal eyes. It looks like not solely proof of Logan’s esteem, however even no matter love and affection he had for his second son. It’s additionally merciless in quintessential Logan style — an ambiguous little bit of hen scratch from past the grave for Kendall to obsess over. “He made me hate him, and then he died,” Kendall says ruefully. Frank reassures him. “He was an old bastard — and he loved you,” he says.
Kendall and his siblings in all probability gained’t ever know for certain what their father actually thought or meant, however that gained’t cease them from deciphering Logan’s cryptic final message via the lens of their needs and insecurities. Being named Logan’s most popular successor is legally meaningless — the CEO is set by a board vote, not by Logan’s will. The different Waystar execs, and Kendall’s siblings, are fast to level out that the doc is undated, and that nobody was knowledgeable of its existence. But for Kendall, it has all of the which means on this planet: He now has a story about what his formidable father wished, and he’s working with it.
Musical chairs of energy
The entirety of “Honeymoon States” takes place in Logan’s condominium, the place a circus of political leaders and titans of trade have gathered to mourn the just lately deceased household patriarch. Even Marcia (Hiam Abbass) has returned from her purchasing journey in Milan, staking her declare over her citadel (and likewise swiftly promoting it to Connor when he reveals curiosity in it). The foremost occasion, nonetheless, is a board assembly the place a brand new interim Waystar CEO shall be appointed. The household eating desk is now occupied solely by Waystar fits, and as a substitute of Logan, chief monetary officer Karl Muller (David Rasche) is sitting on the head. Roman (Kieran Culkin), as he appears on the tableau, remarks that Logan had been planning on firing half of them.
But Logan isn’t round anymore, and the Waystar execs whisper avariciously about which attainable CEO to rally behind. The Roy kids, unsurprisingly, are nowhere on their checklist; Karl suggests telling the board that Logan’s spawn aren’t “constitutionally well-equipped at this point to take on the role” — or, as Tom places it, they’re “screw-ups and dipshits.” The masks have come off. Everyone is scrambling to throw their names into the hat, they usually rapidly get snide with each other. Karl refers to Gerri Kellman’s (J. Smith-Cameron) temporary tenure as interim CEO as her “tilt at the windmill,” whereas Gerri implies that it’s long gone time for Karl to retire.
It’s a reality of life that everybody orbiting Waystar and the Roy household tries to make use of their proximity to energy to their benefit, however this episode is a reminder that no matter energy they handle to seize, they ceaselessly stay standing on quicksand. We see each Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) and Greg (Nicholas Braun) making an attempt to get in anybody’s good graces, like a pair of barnacles in the hunt for a whale to connect themselves to. Kerry (Zoe Winters), Logan’s assistant-turned-lover, has additionally plummeted within the energy rankings. She makes an ill-advised look on the condominium, babbling virtually incoherently about going upstairs to gather her issues. But Marcia coldly tells her that her issues are already in a bag. Kerry blathers one thing about Logan making preparations to marry her, nevertheless it’s clear that’s about as helpful as fairy mud now. Kerry is taken out the again entrance; Roman protests that that is all a bit of harsh, however Marcia, in a brutally calm voice, tells him {that a} taxi will deposit Kerry on the subway station so she will return to her “little apartment.”
Kendall is again on a damaging path
Throughout this season, Kendall has saved up an affectionate, collaborative relationship along with his youthful siblings. They’re nonetheless planning on shopping for and revamping Pierce Global Media as quickly as Waystar is offered to streaming firm GoJo — which could not occur in any case. (GoJo founder Lukas Matsson ((Alexander Skarsgård)) is being cagey, and now desires the Roy kids to go to him in Sweden.) Kendall even brags about how remedy has been serving to him along with his grief; regardless of Logan’s demise, he’s mentally in all probability in one of the best place we’ve ever seen him.
But Kendall is ceaselessly an addict, most of all an addict to the thought of being a person his father can be pleased with. He can’t cease obsessing over the concept Logan had written down which of his offspring was most worthy of taking on his mantle. This is one thing tangible. It has much more weight than no matter momentary little bit of flattery Logan threw at his children when it was advantageous to take action.
Kendall thinks he ought to be interim CEO, and confides in Frank — who, regardless of plotting to wrest energy from the kids moments in the past, is ceaselessly Kendall’s confidant in his most susceptible moments. “You really want back in?” Frank asks, understanding that making an attempt to be Logan 2.0 has despatched Ken to the brink of demise earlier than. Maybe Frank’s simply angling to take away among the competitors, however you additionally sense that he actually does fear about Kendall getting again into the ring simply when he appeared to be doing higher.
Shiv is pregnant and alone
Kendall will get to work on rallying troops behind him: He will get Waystar board members Sandi Furness and Stewy Hosseini on his facet, after which nervously approaches his siblings. Roman’s and Shiv’s hackles are up as quickly as Kendall tries to rationalize why he ought to be CEO. To calm them down, he assures them he’ll simply be the figurehead for what’s actually a three-way reign. Shiv and Roman don’t like that their egalitarian partnership is being dissolved, and so Kendall magnanimously agrees to share the highest function with Roman.
Shiv bristles at this exclusion. If each of them are going to be CEO, why not simply make it three? Kendall tells her she has no expertise, and Roman backs him up. “Three is a bit wonky,” Roman says. Her brothers make murmurs about Shiv nonetheless being on the within of all the pieces, that they’d solely be CEO till the GoJo deal goes via. We’ve heard this one earlier than; the previous three seasons have proven how the Roy siblings thrive on making an attempt to bury one another. What’s extra, if the GoJo sale falls via — which appears eminently attainable — the interim CEO would truly change into a everlasting CEO.
We discover out early on this episode that Shiv is pregnant, and that aggravates the frustration and powerlessness she feels. She hates that her brothers are leaving her out once more, but when she falls out with them, she would have nobody left on her facet. Throughout “Honeymoon States,” Shiv is more and more angered and flustered by how lonely she feels. In some methods, she was unquestionably Logan’s favourite. They used to have weekly one-on-one dinners; he referred to as her Pinky. She blames herself and her brothers for his or her father’s demise — they compelled Logan into getting on a aircraft to Sweden. Tom, who doesn’t appear to know that she’s pregnant, does sense how unloved and damage she feels. He tries to remind her of what may very well be if she simply opened herself as much as being cared for, mentioning a candy previous reminiscence of their early courtship. “That was a while ago, wasn’t it?” Shiv says dully. He pushes again. “Not that long.”
Like father like son
In this episode, we see how, within the blink of a watch, Kendall can slip between the model of himself that simply desires a wholesome relationship along with his family members and the model of himself that can kill if mandatory.
The final time Logan and his kids spoke, Shiv accused her father of pondering he might make one thing true simply by claiming it was true. But Kendall understands the ability of a story too. Just days in the past, he would have advised anybody who requested that his dad was an terrible tyrant whose opinion wasn’t value dust. Now, abruptly, it issues that the following Waystar CEO ought to have the late founder’s blessing. The board appears to agree, even when the Waystar executives look fearful; they vote him and Roman via as co-CEOs. The simmering battle between the previous guard and the Roy siblings is surprisingly averted, at the very least for now.
When influential Republican megadonor Ron Petkus (Stephen Root) takes a second to eulogize Logan, Connor complains that his description of Logan as a neo-conservative is inaccurate: He was clearly a “paleo-libertarian.” “They’re trying to body-snatch him,” he says.
But nobody is body-snatching Logan the way in which Kendall is. When Shiv and Roman preserve joking round with out seeming to grasp the urgency of getting a plan earlier than the board vote, Kendall loses his mood in a really Logan-esque means. You can virtually see him pondering that they aren’t severe folks.
After the vote is finished, Karolina and Hugo corral the brand new CEOs to debate a technique for promoting their new roles to the general public. There are two potential tacks, they clarify, one in every of which might painting them as intently following in Logan’s footsteps. The different would rewrite who Logan was within the public eye, portray him as a nasty father who was dropping his contact by the tip, which might make Kendall and Roman appear like much-needed contemporary blood. Roman nixes the latter concept, clearly discovering it vile.
But Kendall, after mulling it over — and searching on the doc once more — privately tells Hugo to start the posthumous Logan smear marketing campaign, with out revealing to anybody that he ordered it. “It’s what he would do,” Kendall tells Hugo. “He’d want this for the firm.” Which is perhaps true — Logan did far worse issues in his life — nevertheless it’s unclear that he would have wished to sacrifice his popularity. Kendall coolly threatens Hugo into following orders in a means Logan would undoubtedly admire. The Roy household is mourning the demise of their patriarch, and abruptly Logan’s inheritor appears decided to maintain his legacy alive.
