This article contains Succession seasons one to three spoilers, and contains discussion of suicide and drug dependency
After nearly a year and a half of waiting, it’s now just a matter of days until Succession season four lands on our screens.
And, ever since creator Jesse Armstrong’s mic drop announcement in February, revealing this would be the show’s last season, fans have been on tenterhooks. Because now the ante has well and truly been upped: all of the show’s storylines need to be tied up, and one of the younger Roys – we assume – will finally succeed Logan Roy.
So with just one week left to wait, we break down the burning questions we really hope get answered.
Will Logan die?
Yes, surely, but only because there’s absolutely no way that Logan is stepping down from running the business without shuffling off this mortal coil. And now that this is the last season, things have to be wrapped up somehow.
Episode three ended with the three youngest Roys – Kendall, Shiv and Roman – ganging up against their father, and judging from the trailer that’s been released, it looks like this is exactly where everything picks up again in season four.
So we foresee the following: a major and hilarious showdown between team Logan and team Kendall (once again), Logan nearly selling the business to billionaire Lukas Matsson, and then, at the absolute most crucial moment, dying. We think Kendall will then go a bit potty, perhaps pushing to complete his father’s deal out of some misguided loyalty, breaking away from his siblings.
Meanwhile Shiv and Roman will, naturally, push back (if Roman hasn’t already turned and ended up supporting Logan, which the trailer suggests). At which point the fate of Waystar Royco will be up for grabs.
Will Connor become president?
Our gut is saying no – he’s just not bright enough, nor charismatic enough – but then again, this hasn’t stopped people sitting in the Oval Office before.
If Logan does die, and his children inherit the business, the eldest Roy child will certainly have a lot more financing to plough into his upcoming presidential campaign. As things currently stand, he constantly has to ask his father for money and Logan has been reluctant to waste too much capital on Connor’s political project. A hefty cash injection might just be enough to turn Connor’s luck around.
We also have to remember that Shiv has a brilliant political mind and worked for a democratic candidate before returning to work for her dad. Although Connor is a Republican and Shiv is a Democrat, if Connor did somehow manage to persuade Shiv to join his team, he might actually have a chance at winning.
Will Greg become Tom’s boss?
This is by far our favourite theory, so we’re going to enjoy it and run with it. In season one, Greg Hirsch, Logan’s great-nephew, was an anxious and pathetic interloper, trying to get his foot in the door of the family business while seeming to be competent at very little and having close to no business acumen or people skills. He became the lackey of Shiv’s husband, Tom Wambsgans, who heads up one of Waystar Royco’s departments. Over the seasons, as Tom has risen through the ranks, so has Greg. Now Greg has a swanky apartment, his own office, a massive paycheck and a fancy title.
But Greg has also been becoming smarter and more cunning with every episode. He knows not to trust Tom, at one point hiding papers Tom asked him to destroy, and later using them to actually blackmail his boss (Tom’s proud of Greg for making such a wily move).
There would be something thrilling about Greg making a power play that means that somehow (and we don’t know how this would happen, but it would be brilliant fun to watch) he becomes Tom’s boss. This would be made all the more dramatic because of the duo’s unique relationship. They’re somewhat co-dependent: Greg is scared of Tom; Tom hates and loves Greg in equal measure. Both characters are as selfish and pathetic as each other, both love being rich, and Greg is slowly becoming as power-hungry as Tom.
Can we take it even further and suggest that Greg could end up running Waystar Royco? Sure, Greg isn’t currently anywhere near tough enough to make a long-term success of the job. But is he much less capable than Connor? Or Tom? No. And what if Shiv and Tom start to seriously feud now that their marriage is breaking down? Could that leave a job vacuum for Greg to slither into?
Will Waystar Royco remain intact?
The fate of media conglomerate Waystar Royco has been unstable from the very beginning. In the show’s three seasons, it has withstood threats from acquisitions, votes of no confidence, corporate mergers, downsizing and a bear hug – and has been constantly scrambling for corporate funding and capital investment too, all while trying to keep up with an ever-evolving media landscape.
So will Waystar Royco remain intact? We think so. A company like Waystar Royco doesn’t topple easily, and people like Kendall, Shiv and Roman, don’t just bow out. And if we make a real-life comparison, such as with Rupert Murdoch’s mass-media corporations, while it’s true that the business was split and reorganised in 2013, Murdoch’s Fox Corporation, News Corp and 21st Century Fox, continues on, nearly as powerful and as influential as ever.
Will Roman and Gerri get married?
No they won’t, but since half the internet has actually been enjoying the seasons-long flirtation that’s been going on between the youngest Roy and the general counsel to Waystar RoyCo (who is also Shiv’s godmother) we thought we’d face this question head-on. Yes, there is a kind of electricity between the duo, but that’s really where we think the romantic side of the relationship ends.
Gerri is too smart to let things get into marriage – or even a relationship – territory. She’s been allowing the push and pull between the two to tick along for so long because Roman is a useful ally to have, and that’s all. Things may very well be different in Roman’s head – when are they not? – but that doesn’t mean that there will be any great romantic conclusion. Far from it: it’s much more likely that Gerri will betray Roman if she needs to save her skin.
As for Roman’s fate in season four? While we don’t think he’ll end up running the business (he just doesn’t care enough), judging by the trailer it looks like he will be causing a lot of trouble for his siblings in the final series. His father is seen trying to persuade Roman to come and join his team, and Roman seems quite persuaded by Logan’s coaxing.
Will Marcia turn on Logan?
We’ve seen Marcia and Logan’s relationship hundreds of times before: a very powerful man who sleeps with who he wants, a fiercely loyal wife who looks the other way because she’s there at the important moments.
But perhaps their marriage is the weakest link in Logan’s life. Marcia became royally displeased when Logan started to be clumsily open about his affair with business go-between Rhea, and she disappeared for a couple of episodes. When she did reappear she was ice cold, resentful and asked for a divorce. Logan started dating his thirtysomething assistant Kerry, which was the final nail in the coffin.
If Marcia did decide to turn on Logan, and side with Kendall, Shiv and Roman, for example, she could cause serious problems for her husband. She’s been there behind closed doors at many of the meetings and events that Logan’s children were not invited to, and she surely knows a lot of Logan’s deepest darkest secrets.
Meanwhile, there is also a fan theory that Kerry will be fired by Logan when he tires of her, and then Kerry will take revenge by either joining team Kendall, or by accusing Logan of sexual misconduct. And Logan wouldn’t be the first powerful man to be brought down by lust.
What will happen to Kendall?
Kendall hasn’t been in a good state for a while. In fact, that’s an understatement and a half. There was first a failed coup which Kendall took quite hard, and then he fled a crime scene in which he was involved where a young man drowned. The jury is still out on whether Kendall could have saved the man. They had been driving together, swerved to miss a deer and ended up in a river. After getting free from the upturned car, Kendall didn’t call for help. He ran back to the country house he was staying at, got changed and pretended nothing had happened.
This event really set Kendall off – and we don’t blame him, it was awful. Ever since then, it’s been downhill. He fell back into a circle of drug and alcohol abuse (when season one began he was clean – or at least, that’s what he told Rava), had a breakdown, almost drowned in a pool because he was so intoxicated, and has been really emotionally knocked around by his father. At the end of season three, he was feeling stronger again. So strong, in fact, that he was prepared to join forces with his siblings to try and take down Logan.
Will he become the boss? Well, no (he’s his own worst enemy and would somehow mess it up). But we’d love to see it. We know it’s wrong but we seriously adore Kendall. Yes, he’s an intense egotistical megalomaniac, and yes he’s made some mistakes (*grimace*), but he’s also loving, passionate – and apart from the whole toppling the dad thing – pretty loyal too.
We don’t think Kendall will try and seriously harm himself, beyond the obviously devastating relapses. He has too many earthly ambitions for that. We think the show will end with him taking some time out, perhaps taking a sabbatical to a Greek island, where he can plot his next move to take back the company. We know, it’s a bit boring, but it would very much keep Greg (or whoever it is) on his toes, and keep the door slightly ajar for a spin-off series.
Will Shiv end up in The White House?
In season one Shiv was a political assistant to U.S. Senator Gil, a presidential candidate who hated Logan. Since then, Shiv herself has returned to work for her father’s business, gunning for the top spot. Logan even at one point promised her that she would be the one to succeed him.
But he was either lying (we think he said it to bring Shiv back into the fold to protect himself. After all, Gil could have done some real damage with Shiv – and all her knowledge of the inner workings of the family business – behind him) or he changed his mind. It became very obvious very quickly that Logan had no intention of announcing Shiv as his successor.
We don’t think it’s likely that Kendall, Shiv and Roman will triumph in toppling their father – no one has ever managed to take Logan down before – and even in his slightly decrepit current state, he’s still a formidable opponent.
Instead, we think Shiv will end up in The White House. She’s incredible at optics and playing the political game, and her talents would be much better spent in a slightly less chaotic organisation. Imagine, Greg helming Waystar Royco, and Shiv in The White House... we’d tune in for that spin-off series.
Will Stewy sleep with Rava?
OK, a slightly less burning question than the others on this list, but a fantastic denouement to the show would involve secondary characters, including Rava, Kendall’s ex-wife, and Stewy, Kendall’s old college pal, an obscenely wealthy blockhead who has a reputation for sleeping around.
Stewy has been a thorn in Kendall’s side since the first season. Every now and then he’s been an ally (in both business and life), but most of the time he’s either let down the second-eldest Roy brother, or even worked against him. And while Rava and Kendall have been separated for some time, they are still co-parenting and did have sex in the first season. We think it’s quite clear that Kendall, in his Kendall way, still loves her.
Stewy getting it on with Rava would infuriate Kendall. And it would be a great way for the writers to kick Kendall when he was down, if they do decide that he won’t get the triumphant, or at least somewhat happy, ending we think he should.
