Dispatch: And The Tom Shall Inherit The Earth 🗝️
When you play the game of Succession, you win or you (might as well) die.
This is a Thirty, Flirty + Film overnight dispatch; deployed in times of pressing cultural need.
Succession’s season three finale was so explosive and unexpected that this review was powered entirely by the residual energy generated by that delicious third-act twist. After nine episodes spent seemingly going in circles, Jesse Armstrong and company landed the plane on this unwieldy season by knocking down all the carefully laid dominos they had been setting up for weeks. And as usual, the twisted Roy family psychology is never very far from the surface.
In the end, as always, it all came down to Logan. With his children practically on their knees begging him not to sell off their legacy to the ever-circling GoJo, Logan Roy scoffed, challenged them to build something of their own, and then told them all to fuck off. Because the thing about Logan is that he isn’t actually wrong. Waystar Royco is fundamentally his company. Everyone knows it. It’s at the very root of what this seasons-long sibling rivalry has been about. He built the company from scratch, and his children are no more morally entitled to control it than they are to wield the wealth they so often take for granted.
But on the other hand, Logan himself is the reason that none of his three ambitious children is component enough to take over. Yes, they have had every opportunity to build something of their own. But also no, they never really have. That’s the way Logan has made it. As Caroline told Shiv last week about her ex-husband, “He never saw anything he loved that he didn’t want to kick it, just to see if it would still come back.” And his children have not been exempted from this. He beats them down to prove to himself that he is needed and loved. After all, they never actually leave, no matter how poorly he treats them. And when they do make a sincere attempt to break free of his stranglehold — as Kendall did when he offered to be done with the company once and for all — he refuses to let them go. The Roy siblings are hampered in their ability to succeed Logan because he has actively stunted their growth.
In a twisted way, it’s also why it makes perfect sense that Tom has come out on top. Above all else, Logan respects power. His children have never had it because he has always refused to cede it, and so they are incidental to him. But Tom has always been a striver. And while his limited power also comes from proximity to the Roys, he has never lost sight of the fact that it is Logan and not Siobhan who has the true ability to bestow it upon him. Tom’s decision to align his fate with Logan and not his own wife, tethers him directly to the real root of the power — bypassing the woman who openly mocks him for thinking she loves him back. It’s a move Logan can respect because it’s the kind of killer instinct he’s long bemoaned that his own sons don’t possess. And Siobhan, the schemer that she is, will not punish him for the transgression. She will simply refuse to acknowledge (as usual) that she’s been outplayed.
Tom may have been the comedic cuckold in the Roys’ twisted family dynamic. But as an outsider, he’s still more attuned to the true nature of the relationships between his in-laws. His play has wisely been to get in where he fit in, keeping his eyes on the ball the whole way. As he tells Kendall in episode 6, “I don’t mean to be insulting, but having been around a bit, my hunch is that you’re going to get fucked. Because I’ve seen you get fucked a lot. And I’ve never seen Logan get fucked once.” It’s a lesson he clearly took to heart.
But that doesn’t make it any less gutwrenching to see Kendall, Shiv and Roman be slapped down in punishment for their one attempt at genuine sibling loyalty and solidarity. After nine episodes, they’ve come right back around to Kendall’s original proposal — force Logan out and divvy up the company between them. But with Tom playing Judas and Roman being iced out, they don’t have the airtight case they think they do. And because of Logan’s aforementioned withholding, none of them can make a solid appeal to take control on their own.
Logan has never meaningfully groomed any of them to take over, so much as he has given decrees from on high and expected them to be followed. Kendall is too emotionally damaged from Logan’s abuse to be much good to anyone. His conscience is too present to be the shark Logan demands of him. And Shiv, damningly, flat out admits she has no chance to succeed her father unless he decrees it. She is a strategist, but she’s slow to read a room. But it’s baby boy Romulus Roy who is truly heartbroken to realize that his elder siblings have always been right about their father. Roman, the youngest son who has no instinct other than to ape his father beat for beat. Logan cares for no one. He has no one’s interest at heart except his own. He will make no decisions based on love. He does not believe in the right of inherited rule. He cannot be trusted.
Despite being drawn closer into the inner circle the latter half of the season as the heir apparent, Roman is nearly reduced to tears when Logan mocks his quasi-declaration of love. He truly believed he’d been anointed with the kiss from Daddy, but more importantly, he believed that deep, deep down, his father was a good man who loved him and would put him before the company. In fact, he believed it so strongly, that when handed an out to betray his siblings and cement himself in his father’s esteem, he stands firm, choosing the budding alliance over the man who would make him king. But it’s a death knell, with Gerri there to twist the knife. It’s a move he should have seen coming.
Because when it’s all said and done, Ken, Shiv and Roman would have done well to remember the only lesson Logan has ever bothered to teach them about why he operates the way he does:
“Because it works. I fucking win.”
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