Anyway, with that, it’s time to say goodnight. Both to Succession, and to you. Thanks for reading. My god, what a show.
This will take some processing – certainly more processing than a liveblog is capable of – but luckily this is likely to be one of the most widely analysed episodes of television in all of history. My gut reaction is that it was perfect, and that I want more. Just one more episode, set five years from now, just so I can see where they all are. Will Tom last? Will Mencken become president? But, mostly, are the siblings OK?
Succession has always been keen to remind us of what a horrible bunch the Roys are. The patriarch was furious and abusive, and the kids were grasping, out of touch and incompetent. In a purely cold and logical world, they absolutely should not have been given the keys to Waystar Royco.
But Succession is also a human drama, and those three humans – as terrible and as messy as they were – needed each other. Forget the company. They could survive the loss of the company. But those last 20 minutes sliced a permanent schism between them, and I worry about how Kendall, Roman and Shiv will fare without one another. So, yes, one more episode in 2028 please, just for my peace of mind.
Well. Good lord. What an episode. What an ending.
Kendall, broken, stares out to sea. He might not survive this. This is as low as it could possibly get for him. But, for now, he just sits and stares. The credits roll. The end.
Tom gets into a car with Shiv. He’s newly powerful, and he makes her hold his hand. They both look utterly miserable.
Now the deal is done, let’s see where everybody is. Roman is at a bar, spinning through a million subtle emotions. Is he happy about losing the family business? Is he sad? Angry? We’ll never know.
Greg comes to Tom looking painfully contrite. And Tom, for whatever reason, promises to look after him. They just can’t quit each other, even though Greg’s life is going to be absolutely horrible from this point onwards.
It’s done. Waystar Royco now belongs to Gojo. Kendall Roy is out on his ear. The siblings have been fractured into a million pieces. Tom is the new CEO. Good LORD.
“We are bullshit. You are bullshit. I am bullshit. We’re nothing,” says Roman. Again, not entirely false. But, god, how excruciating.
Kendall just attacked Roman, trying to burst his skull with his hands. And now it’s over. He’s blown his shot, but he refuses to let it go. This is unbearable.
And now both siblings have turned against Kendall. Kendall screams “I AM THE ELDEST BOY” and this is rapidly becoming very messy.
Oh god, Kendall.
Shiv says “I don’t think you’d be good at this” to Kendall. And she’s right, and everyone knows that she’s right. Kendall says “If I don’t do this, I might die.” Shiv reminds Kendall that he killed someone. Kendall denies it.
Everything hinges on Shiv now. And she’s changed her mind. Kendall is now begging her to change it back, so he can control the company.
And here it is. We are going around the table. Roman hesitates before siding with Kendall. Shiv hesitates for even longer, and then leaves the room. Maximum drama currently occurring.
Updated
Kendall goes first, telling the board that the Gojo deal is bad. If the board wants it, they’ll have to fire him first. He suggests going straight to a vote.
It is finally time to enter the boardroom. Almost the entire Succession cast is there, bathed in white light like it’s the purgatory church from the end of Lost.
It is time for the final showdown. Stewy’s here, seemingly leaning towards backing the siblings. But then Roman sees Gerri, and freaks out. He’s teetering on the edge of a full breakdown, unable to understand why he can’t be the CEO. Kendall hugs him, putting pressure on Roman’s scar with his shoulder. The scar bursts and starts bleeding. Kendall says “I love you.” Roman says “I hate you.” There’s a metaphor here. If only I was smart enough to see it.
Tom grabs Greg, furious that he leaked the news to Kendall, and they have a fight. A full blown physical fight. In a bathroom. Greg has ruined it for Tom Wambsgans, and this is unforgivable.
Shiv tells Tom that Greg told her that she’s not in the running to be Matsson’s CEO any more. And then Tom tells Shiv that Matsson wants it to be him. Shiv responds by calling Tom ‘an empty fucking suit’. Less than half an hour left, and it’s SHIV v TOM. Ding ding.
He’s also playing a video of Logan at a dinner, reading a poem about presidents. And Connor doing an impersonation of Logan performing I’m a Little Teapot. Logan is different here. He’s still Logan, but he’s warmer and more human, singing Green Go the Rushes Oh. This is almost certainly the last we’ll ever see of him, and it’s a wonderful goodbye.
But before the big finish, Connor Roy has invited everyone to Logan’s house, where he is unveiling a woefully complicated sticker-based system for divvying up all their father’s possessions.
On the basis that everything might be about to go terribly wrong for all involved, I might retroactively choose to end the series there. Three kids making a mess in the kitchen. The end.
The kids are in Caroline’s kitchen, trying to make a meal. This is the sort of scene that Succession does better than anything. The three siblings, all together, expressing a bond that goes deeper than business. They’re just full-on dicking about. Roman keeps licking some cheese. Shiv just spat in a smoothie. This might be the most purely wonderful scene in the show’s entire history.
It’s Kendall. He has been anointed by the siblings as the next CEO of Waystar Royco. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here: this probably means absolutely nothing.
Shiv and Roman are talking about their dad, and underling one of the great unsaids of the whole series: Logan Roy didn’t really want anyone to succeed him.
Kendall is now swimming in the sea. Kendall and water. That really does always end badly.
And it looks like Kendall has won. He promises Shiv ATN and Roman ‘social media’, which sure sounds really cool.
Roman is easily talked out of it, possibly on the basis that he cried at a funeral. So now it’s Kendall vs Shiv.
Logan promised the job to Shiv in season two. He promised it to Roman in season four. But Kendall points out that he he was promised it at the age of seven.
Kendall wants it. Roman wants it. Shiv wants it. They all want a kiss from their dead daddy.
The siblings are back together, trying to take down the Matsson deal. But that will only work if they can present a singular leader to the board. And so here we are back at square one. Three siblings, squabbling over the top job.
Maybe they will go and start The Hundred together after all. Wouldn’t that be nice? What a lovely idea The Hundred was.
Shiv is not taking it particularly well.
Greg, the sly dog, immediately phones Kendall and tells him about Matsson’s plans for Shiv (in return for a gigantic ‘full quad’ promotion). And Kendall immediately grabs Shiv and Roman and tells them.
Here’s what I think is going to happen: the whole episode now hinges on Tom. Soon he’ll have to choose between Waystar or Shiv. Does he get the job of his dreams, or ditch it all for… love? Is that the word?
Greg, the sly dog, is using a translation app to eavesdrop on the Swedes. He now knows that Matsson plans to ditch Shiv. This might be the moment where everything goes wrong.
And this is a prelude for Matsson telling Tom that he wants him to be the CEO. “Logan mark too, although this time he’s fucking sexy,” Matsson says. Greg comes hurtling over. “We’re going to be OK,” says Tom in a moment of pure unbridled romance.
Tom is with Matsson now, desperately angling to keep his job. He’s selling himself as a simple manager. He’s vigilant, he says, and he has a high tolerance for pain and physical discomfort. Meanwhile, for his part, Matsson is expressing severe doubts about bringing Shiv onboard. She’s too much, he says. Also he wants to have sex with her. He tells this to Tom.
There is an hour left of this episode, and I still have no idea what’s going to happen. But I’ve just remembered that thing that Lucy Prebble tweeted, and how the writers planned for Kendall to kill himself on his 40th birthday. I wonder how completely that idea was rejected.
The siblings are together. Shiv, believing that she is headed for total victory, has just offered Kendall and Roman her share of The Hundred. Remember The Hundred? I miss The Hundred. I hope this is what happens.
It seems like Roman isn’t interested in crashing the Gojo deal any more, leaving Kendall right out on a limb. And Caroline has just done my favourite thing that can ever happen in a TV finale. She’s just mocked Kendall for saying how important the upcoming boardroom meeting is.
Roman’s here! He’s battered and bruised from crashing the protests last week, but it’s nothing too bad. And better yet, his mum has just expressed her profound disgust of human eyes. These kids never stood a chance, did they?
And now Kendall is going to fetch Roman. Maybe this isn’t going to end in a boardroom after all. Maybe it’ll be all the siblings together somewhere nice and sunny. A Mad Men ending.
On the plane to fetch Roman, Shiv phones Tom. They discuss their final separation, and Shiv is quietly and desperately trying to scrape together some sort of reunion. It looks an awful lot like Tom isn’t having it, which is quite the journey since episode one. Wambsgans has a backbone after all. Who knew?
We have successfully located Roman Roy. He is with his mother. Not to overdo the theme, but this is always a bad sign.
Shiv just called Tom ‘a highly interchangeable modular part’, which I think might qualify as the single most romantic thing she’s ever said about him.
Shiv is with Matsson, laying out exactly how Gojo will win. This is also a bad sign.
The episode starts with Kendall strolling into Waystar HQ looking confident, which is always a bad sign. And so it immediately becomes evident. He doesn’t have the board support to stop the Gojo deal. And Roman is missing. God, this is going to be a tense hour and a half of television.
Previously on Succession: literally all of Succession.
OK, buckle up. The Succession finale is finally here. Let’s go.
Five minutes before the episode starts. Again, let me apologise in advance if this all goes wrong. Succession is a show that best rewards close watching. It tends to moves fast and obliquely, a combination that doesn’t lend itself particularly well to liveblogging. But, hey, I’m here now, so I’ll do my best.
By the way, if you still want something to read – rather than, say, watching Der Pass on Sky Atlantic as I am currently trying to do – then Lucy Prebble just tweeted a lovely thing about Succession’s writers’ room.
Succession ends tonight. This from my introduction to Season 3 script book. #supporttheWGA pic.twitter.com/FpJVpTlmKN
— Lucy Prebble (@lucyprebblish) May 28, 2023
Since going to sleep like a normal person doesn’t seem to be your thing, it might be worth pointing out that Sky is also simulcasting the Barry finale at 3:40am. Like Succession, Barry is one of the best shows of the last decade. Unlike Succession, it was hurtling towards an identifiably traditional conclusion at the end of the previous episode. Should you stay up and watch it? Yes. Should I stay up and liveblog it? Absolutely not.
One quick thing before we start: would you like to read some of The Guardian’s extensive recent Succession coverage? Oh good.
We have a Succession quiz!
We have some Succession predictions!
We have a piece on the clothes of Succession!
We have a piece on why Succession is the ultimate Trump-era show!
We have an extract from Jesse Armstrong’s book of Succession scripts!
And many many (many, many) more. Dig in while you still can.
Hello Americans and/or British people with exceptionally poor impulse control. Welcome to The Guardian’s liveblog of the Succession series finale. Since the first episode aired in June 2018, the world has been gripped by the toxic machinations of the Roy family, and today we’re finally going to see how the journey ends.
One of two things is likely to happen during tonight’s extra-long 90-minute finale. First, we will be given a beautiful, shocking, definitive ending to the show. One of the Roy siblings – or maybe none of them! Or maybe Greg! – will emerge as Logan Roy’s true successor. There will be tears. There will be anguish. There might be a major character death. Who knows?
The other thing that might happen is, well, nothing. During the course of its four seasons, Succession has made it clear that, despite what these characters might think, this has never been a show about grasping power. It’s about how power corrupts, about how hereditary dynasties are doomed to be finite, about the extent to which a life can be ruined by abusive and negligent parents, about how lemon La Croix makes for an especially poor eye bath. These characters were wildly messed up long before we met them, and they’ll remain wildly messed up after we leave. There is a chance that this episode of Succession will simply be our end, not the end.
Nevertheless, here we are, at 1am on a Sunday night, more tired than Tom Wambsgans preparing for a general election, getting ready to split our attention while watching a show that usually demands all of it. A word of warning: this liveblog could go horribly, horribly wrong. If it does, I apologise in advance. Either way, I’ll be here from 2am BST to liveblog the episode as it happens. And, to paraphrase a great man: thanks for sticking around, you nosy pedestrians.
