Our Sunday drama, Succession, has just ended, and as we all predicted, it had an ending that left us in shock, especially reminding us how miserable people can be despite having EVERYTHING. LITERALLY EVERYTHING!
This Sunday, May 28, HBO finally released the final episode of the series created by the genius Jesse Armstrong. In case you missed something or you’re still processing what the hell happened, here are all the details of Succession’s sadistic finale. SPOILER ALERT!
The Ultimate Winner of the Empire
Although even artificial intelligence had its candidates to take over the Waystar Royco empire, and there was a chance that it would not be sold, the last episode gave us a relentless lesson: “Work hard in silence and let your success make the noise,” because although they fought tooth and nail, none of Logan’s three sons kept the crown of the empire.
The Succession 1 hr 24-minute tenth episode, titled ‘With Eyes Wide Open,’ was an eye-opener and made us recognize that Tom had done much more by working and striving for his position (and even offering his wife Shiv as tribute) to keep the big crown. Thus, Lukas Mattson chooses Tom as the new CEO of Waystar Royco’s American division instead of Shiv, whom he decided to discard after Mattson’s new political friends. He even makes it clear when he said “I needed Shiv to have her political connections, but I realized that with so much power, that turns out to be very easy.” Moreover, he realized this after Shiv authorized the publication of a cartoon of Lukas in which she appears controlling him like a puppet.
After hinting that Shiv is “a little intense,” Mattson realizes that he prefers someone malleable and adaptable like Tom Wambsgans. He even gives us a clue when Matt confesses to Tom that he wants to sleep with his wife, and Tom simply replies: “It’s okay, we’re men.” With this simple sentence, Mattson realizes that Tom will make an ideal subordinate. This is just a little bit of what Tom did to get to where he got to. Let’s remember that in previous chapters, Tom betrayed his wife to gain Logan’s trust and also confessed that he would do anything not to lose his place because it was “horrible” to have it all and go back to eat at the “California Pizza Kitchen.”
Kendall: When Water Takes Everything Away from You
After Shiv learns that Mattson would betray her by taking away her CEO position (thanks to Greg’s gossiping), her main idea of accepting GoJo’s proposal and becoming CEO with Matsson collapses. That’s when in a “romantic evening” the siblings, Kendall, Shiv, and Roman, decide to unite to NOT sell their father’s company to Mattson.
So, with Shiv on his side, Kendall has everything in place to follow in his father’s footsteps. But, at the last minute, when it’s her sister’s turn to vote, another plot twist causes Logan’s daughter to go against what she had promised her brother Kenny, and vote to sell the company. This drives Kendall crazy, and the three brothers go to fight in a room; a fight in which Shiv pulls out an ace up his sleeve by telling Kenny, “I don’t trust you because you killed a person,” leaving him speechless.
When he loses the company, Kendall takes a walk down to the river, but this is not to say that he dies, but rather it is a turning point in his life and reminds us that everything bad or good in Kendall’s life carries a metaphor with water. Therefore, going to see the river is a synonym for how the current took everything she had and, despite knowing how to swim for so many years, she was left with nothing.
Roman: This Is What Decadence Looks Like
From the beginning, we knew that Succession is not a story of happy endings or of achieving what one sets out to achieve. It is the story of a group of people who are addicted to power and who in essence, as Roman himself says, are “shit.”
Roman was one of the clear examples of how power, greed, and little attention to emotions are a mixture that destroys. In the last chapter, we can see Rommy destroyed and from the previous chapter, we see how he is consumed by his emotions during his father’s funeral. He is the only one who “lets himself live” a little more in the face of the sensitivity of everything he has lived through in the last chapters and, despite showing what hurts him and his feelings, his brothers consider him the weakest, thus showing that in his family there is no room for emotions.
It is incredible that for the closing of the series Roman offers an answer: he does not want to be seen with the head wound he got for getting into the citizen protests for the elections, but more than that, he does not want to be seen in a position of weakness.
In the end, we can see that, even though it was a betrayal for Kendall, Roman allies with Shiv to avoid the painful and decadent future in Kendall’s life. As he signs off on the sale of his father’s company, it’s only fitting that we see Roman upset at the outcome of the vote, as it seemingly ruins his position at Waystar Royco. No doubt, with Kieran Culkin’s performance, he is predicted to win several awards because he made us feel the misery behind the power.
Is Shiv the Winner?
Shiv made herself known throughout the series as a calculating, manipulative, and intelligent woman who goes after what’s in her best interest, even if at times she doesn’t come off as a “strong, feminist woman” as she liked to shout from the rooftops. Logan’s daughter taught us that sometimes the best we can do is to go by what happens in the flow.
Shiv’s first twist is justified as she learns of the Swede’s plans and the betrayal he would do to her by not leaving her as CEO of the company her father founded. The second twist, where he metaphorically stabs Kendall, is a bit more complex by combining pragmatic arguments as well as feelings. Too many changes in a single episode that nevertheless work well because of the unpredictable dynamics of human relationships that this series has wielded from day one.
Her relationship with Tom also plays a huge role because, for her it is misery in her life, not being able to find a love partner who is on her level, so she stays with Tom because she knows he is so weak that she can manipulate him in her way. Therefore, Shiv’s decision to stay with Tom seems more like a business arrangement, and she is only doing it to secure a position at Waystar Royco. The two hold hands as they drive away, but very coolly.
In the end, Waystar Royco’s future ends up staying within the family, because, if that wasn’t enough, let’s remember that she’s pregnant by Tom, so the CEO position at Waystar will still have the Roy bloodline in it, fulfilling Logan’s wishes. On the other hand, if Tom is the CEO, it fulfills Lukas and President Mencken’s wishes to have a male CEO, even though Shiv is the one who is running things. A win-win.
There Is a Fate Worse Than Death: Misery in Life
As we mentioned and the creator of Succession himself said, this was not a series in which we would see a happy ending. In the end, it gives us a great lesson: there is no worse fate than misery in life. The Roy family shows us that, despite having it all, none of them find happiness.
- Kendall fought against everything, abandoned her family, betrayed her father and siblings, and still managed to get the job she wanted and realized that without it she was nothing.
- Roman realizes that he is surrounded by “bullshit” and that his emotions are just a sign of weakness to those around him. In the end, he is left alone in a bar happy and unburdened by the decision that would change his life.
- Shiv always knew that as a woman she had all the disadvantages of being in a macho environment. Although she knew how to pull the strings in her favor, she will have to stay in a marriage that did not make her happy and with a child that (apparently) she did not want.
- Tom achieved what everyone wanted, but the cost was to literally be a boot-licker and realize that “love” doesn’t exist at those levels.
- Greg ended up looking like the backstabbing gossip he is, and even Mattson yells it out in front of all the shareholders of the empire.
Story written in Spanish by Daniela Bosch in Cultura Colectiva
Read more:
‘Succession’: The Real Millionaire Families That Inspired The HBO Series
Greg Would Keep It All in ‘Succession’… According to Shakespeare
