‘Succession’ Season 4, Episode 1 Review: Rummage Sale

Succession is back for its fourth and final season and that makes me both tremendously happy and a little bit sad. Happy to get one more delicious season of family drama, backstabbing and plotting that makes House Of The Dragon almost look tame by comparison; sad that it’s almost over, of course. I could handle a couple more seasons of Succession.

I have a confession before we begin: I started watching Succession about a month ago. It’s been on my bucket list for ages but there’s always so much to watch, so many shows to catch up, so little time. But when I realized how close we were to Season 4 I thought, “Erik, old chap, it’s time to remedy this gaping void in your portfolio” and so I began Season 1 and watched an episode or two or three every day. I finished Season 3 this past weekend, and dove headlong into the Season 4 premiere.

Speaking of which . . . .

The Revenge Of The Kids

When we left off at the end of Season 3, Logan Roy (Brian Cox) had just made a surprise play. After meeting with GoJo creator Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgard) the Roy patriarch decided that now was the time to sell rather than acquire. Matsson would take over both companies—instead of one of Roy’s idiot children—and Logan would walk away wealthy and content.

When they heard of the news, Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Roman (Kieran Culkin) and Shiv (Sarah Snook) rushed to stop their father, perhaps irrationally worried that the sale would leave them mere billionaires rather than powerbrokers at a major media company. When they tried to force their father’s hand, thinking a clause in the divorce settlement with their mother gave them veto power, the elder Roy played his trump card, getting his ex-wife to change the divorce terms in the 11th hour. And hwo did he discover that they were on their way to stop him?

Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) betrayed his wife and brothers-in-law, possibly to gain status and job security in the company’s future; but more likely just to get back at Shiv for all of her betrayals and the pain she’s caused him since the dawn of their marriage.

The kids were screwed, traitors in their father’s eyes, and cast out of the fold once and for all.

Fast forward to the even of the final sale of Waystar RoyCo in the Season 4 premiere. The kids have been busy. While normal people might take the billions of dollars they’re about to earn from a massive sale of their father’s company and just . . . live on a beach somewhere enjoying their fabulous wealth and earning tidy returns on the stock market, these three are malcontents. They’re in the process of starting up a new media company called The Hundred which is, according to Kendall, “Substack meets masterclass meets the Economist meets The New Yorker.” It’s a “private members club but for everyone” and “an indispensable bespoke information hub” that offers “high-calorie info-snacks” with the “ethos of a nonprofit but the path to crazy margins.”

I’m dying. Like so much of Succession’s absurdity, it all feels too real sometimes.

The Hundred is something all three kids love and are enormously enthusiastic about right up until they discover that dad is trying, once again, to get his grubby little paws on Pierce Global Media. They quickly realize that with the company’s value more than halved since the last time Logan tried—and failed—to buy it, that with money from the Waystar Royco sale, they could actually buy Pierce out from under him, especially since Pierce matriarch Nan Pierce (Cherry Jones) hates Logan with a fiery passion.

And so The Hundred is dropped like one of Kendall’s girlfriends and off they rush to buy a dying legacy media brand. Partly this is animus, a desire to screw over Logan; partly it’s cowardice, because none of the Roy children are at all confident that they can build anything remotely as grand and profitable as their father’s business. When it all comes down, you can’t really blame them for either.

They meet with Nan who is every bit as conniving and money-and-status-obsessed as the Roy family, but too concerned with her image to just admit it. She constantly refers to a bidding war as “disgusting” and pretends that she hates the entire business and all this gross money talk—while doing her damndest to get the very best price possible.

In the end, she chooses the kids over Logan, once they make her an offer she can’t refuse (of a cool, even $10 billion). When Logan tries to go higher, he’s shut down. Nan is content. She’s walking away with a ridiculous amount of money and a punch to Logan’s kidney.

Both Kendall and Shiv are thrilled. Roman . . . not so much. The smartest of the Roy children, and the most loyal to their father, Roman might be remembering all the many ways his siblings have been beaten by dad. Logan doesn’t lose. And even though he tells ‘the rats’ “Congratulations on saying the biggest number” it’s far from a concession speech. Logan always has another card up his sleeve. He beat Kendall while still recovering from a massive stroke. He’ll find some way to screw over his children in the end.

The Monsters & The Birthday Party

While the kids plot their revenge, Logan suffers a birthday once again. The show opened up on Logan’s 80th birthday, so it’s only fitting that now—three seasons and nearly five years later—we get to watch him grit his teeth at “Happy Birthday To You” being sung by “the monsters” as he calls his too-happy guests. (Breaking Bad opened on Walter White’s birthday and began its final season with his birthday as well, interestingly enough).

The real star of the birthday party, however, is hapless cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) who brings an unannounced date, something that Logan is clearly unhappy about, immediately sending his assistant and probably-lover Carrie (Zoe Winters) to grill poor Greg about her credentials. Later, Tom approaches Greg to tell him he’s the laughing stock of the entire party for bringing such a grotesque plebe to the private affair. She’s stuffing her face at the buffet table, taking pictures of everyone, and carrying around a “ludicrously capacious bag” as Tom puts it, that would be better-suited to a bank robbery than a fancy party.

But Greg insists that his date Bridget (Francesca Root-Dodson) is “a firecracker” and “crunchy peanut butter” and another rung on his dating ladder. He brags later to Tom that they snuck into a guest room and the two of them had “a bit of a rummage” around in one another’s pants. Tom, always looking out for a chance to prank his best buddy, tells the ever-gullible Greg that Logan has cameras in every room and will surely watch the footage later (as though he has the time) and that Greg must confess before that happens. So, in the midst of Logan’s furious dealings with his children, in the middle of a high-stakes acquisition bid, Greg fails to read the room once again and asks his uncle for a private chat.

The result? Logan ousts poor Bridget from the party (something he should have done when she asked for a selfie). Logan’s top security guy / bodyguard Colin (Scott Nicholson) informs Greg that he’ll need to search her on the way out and Greg decides he’ll just hang back rather than break the news to his date. “I don’t want to see what happens in Guantanamo,” he says nervously, backing up the stairs, before uttering the Greggiest of lines: “Do your ways and god be willing.”

Greg and Tom really do get the very best lines in the show, don’t they?

Speaking of Tom, the ATN chief approaches his father-in-law at the party with both good news and a tough question that he dances painfully around. He wants to know, basically, if he and Logan will be good if he and Shiv don’t make it. Their marriage has only ever been on the rocks and it’s reached full trial separation now that Tom stabbed her in the back over the GoJo deal. “What would happen were a marriage such as mine, and even, in fact, mine, were to falter to the point of failure?” Tom asks.

Logan, exasperated more by the length of time it took Tom to ask it than by the question itself, replies vaguely: “If we’re good, we’re good.”

Logan bails from the party at one point, heading out with Colin to a diner where he tells his bodyguard that he’s a good man, a pal, Logan’s best pal in fact. “Thank you, sir,” Colin replies. I suppose it’s easy to have a best pal that just works for you, does everything you say without talking back, is fiercely loyal and isn’t trying to get your job or your company. But it doesn’t make him a friend in any true sense of the word. But then, Logan doesn’t really think of people that way. He tells Colin that people are just “economic units” and when they die they simply cease to exist within the markets that make up everything. Like tears in the rain.

As for the afterlife: “I think this is it. Realistically.” Nothing awaits him and you can’t take it with you, but Logan will be damned if he gives up one red cent.

This Is The End, Beautiful Friend

Back in Tom and Shiv’s spacious apartment, Shiv shows up to collect some of her things. She’s been staying in hotels, jetting around the globe and so forth. When Tom says he thought she had all her favorite things, she replies “I don’t like to be restricted to my favorites.” Ah, indeed you don’t, Shiv. Heaven forbid.

Tom, it seems, has been “dating models”—a fact that Shiv finds enormously distasteful despite their open relationship being her idea from day one. Shiv has always been fine cheating, just not being cheated on even during a separation. She tells Tom she hears he and Greg are referring to themselves as the “Disgusting Brothers” and he replies that they go out for drinks from time to time.

When Shiv says it’s time to move on from the marriage, all Tom can say is “uh huh.” He tried to talk to her about his feelings but she shut him down, as usual. He offers to have “try to make love” with her, but she shoots that down, too, but she doesn’t want to leave and she doesn’t want him to leave, and they fall back on the bed, exhausted and hold hands.

It’s a surprisingly moving moment, but then every time Tom lets his hokey façade fall away, and reveals the vulnerable man underneath—eager to be loved and to give love, in pain over the lack of love he’s being shown—Macfadyen’s acting chops shine through. His performance as Tom has been a true masterclass. Some of the finest acting I’ve ever seen, and this in a show filled with brilliant, powerful performances.

The 1%

Finally, we come to the last of the Roy children. Connor Roy (Alan Ruck) rubs shoulders with birthday guests, his fiancé Willa (Justine Lupe) at his side. We learn that he is polling at 1% (a fitting number for a member of the 1%) and that his advisors say he needs to spend $100 million more just to stay at 1%, which even he realizes is absurd. Willa says sure, but if he spent that he’d still be wealthy, and he nods and laughs.

Later, he comes up with a brilliant idea to save money: A wedding under the Statue of Liberty, with a brass band and bum fights and, “You know, hoopla and rassmatazz!” to which Willa responds that she always her wedding being nice. She’s already not living her storybook life as an escort marrying her best client and a failed playwright. It’s insult to injury imagining a wedding designed to court voters and media buzz. Reminder: This is still the healthiest and most functional romantic relationship of the entire show.

Verdict

There’s nothing really new here but that’s just fine. More plotting and intrigue. More revenge. In many ways, this feels very much like a cyclical moment, a turning of the wheel back to the beginning. We have the birthday, we have the kids plotting against their father, we have Logan preparing to fight back. Tom and Shiv were just getting engaged back in Season 1, now their marriage is (apparently) coming to an end. Greg has risen up in the ranks of the Roy family and Waystar RoyCo but he’s learned nothing. Everything is different and nothing is.

Like my other favorite show at the moment—Yellowjackets—one of the enduring themes of Succession is that people really don’t change. Shiv is still a self-centered know-it-all who thinks she’s a good person. Kendall is still a cocky leader who nobody wants to follow. Logan is still an old battle-axe who lives for the fight and nothing else. Roman, perhaps more than anyone, has grown and evolved, but he still lives under the shadow of his family and still suffers from all the weird hang-ups that constantly hold him back. Tom remains a fish out of water despite all his success.

And I am still enjoying the hell out of this show. What about you? What did you think? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.

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