Succession recap: Season 4, episode 3, ‘Connor’s Wedding’

No, seriously, I mean it. As we have already noted elsewhere, this is among the finest hours of television ever made, and you should experience it by watching it, not by reading some latte-sipping douchebag’s thoughts on the plot. Go watch it. Then come back here and read some latte-sipping douchebag’s thoughts on the plot.

A wise man once said you can’t make a Tomelette without breaking some Greggs. Well, you can’t write a recap without spoiling every last detail.

So be explicitly and unambiguously warned: once you scroll past these images of Logan Roy telling you to f*** off, the spoilers commence, and any complaints you may have are no longer justiciable in TV spoiler court.

Thank you Logan.

So, the episode is called “Connor’s Wedding”, and that little irony is the funniest thing about it, because out of nowhere this jokey dramedy about obscenely wealthy people insulting each other gut punches us with an astonishingly real depiction of grief.

That word, real, is the one that kept buzzing to the surface as I sought the right adjective. Logan’s death unfolds as death so often does in the real world. There’s no warning, no build-up, no dramatic deathbed speech, no goodbyes. No closure.

It’s a modern death as well, playing out remotely, over the phone. His children can do nothing. Riches and privilege have little utility when your parent lies dying. In this moment, the Roys feel the same agonising impotence as the rest of us.

This show did the impossible: it made me feel almost sad that this awful human was gone.

Sadistic until the end

In a universe where Logan was a less appalling father, he may have died at his son’s wedding, surrounded by his family, instead of en route to a business meeting surrounded by toadies who meant nothing to him.

Alas, he was so very, very appalling. As the episode opens we witness his final interaction with any of his children: an attempt to torture Roman, perhaps as a test of loyalty, or merely for sadistic amusement.

Roman is on his way to Connor and Willa’s wedding when Logan, who clearly has no intention of attending, calls him. The patriarch is flying off to meet with Lukas Matsson, and says he’ll phone Connor when he “has a minute”.

He wants Roman to tell the interim CEO of Waystar Royco and object of his lustful fascination, Gerri, that she’s fired.

Logan’s precise motive is unclear – perhaps Gerri’s fate has been inevitable since Roman accidentally sent a dick pic intended for her to his father, or maybe Logan’s pissy because he caught her laughing at his girlfriend’s terrible audition tape in the previous episode.

Whatever his reason, the point here is he wants Roman to give her the news.

“I think it would be nicer coming from you. You know, you two … you were close,” he says. Hearing a hint of queasiness from Roman in response, Logan flicks the intimidation switch: “I mean, you are with me? You weren’t just f***ing me around?”

As usual, the parental bullying works, and Roman agrees to be the executioner.

At the wedding, Greg is on the phone to Tom, asking about his exclusion from Logan’s entourage. Tom reveals the boss now finds Greg “visually aggravating” (a descriptor I have filed away for use in any future marital squabbles).

Greg is also miffed to hear that Tom has a bunch of “Greglets” helping him – “Why do you have all these little guys, these little Greggies running around? Who are these little Gregs?” – though it appears to be a lie. Like a guy claiming to have slept around in an attempt to make a woman jealous (a tactic I have filed away for use in any future marital squabbles).

Across the room, Connor’s soon-to-be mother-in-law is admiring his money. In a quiet but illuminating moment, she tells Willa: “He’ll take care of you.”

Over at the airport, Logan boards his private plane, shares his plan to fire Gerri, and speaks his final words: “Clean out the stalls. Strategic refocus. A bit more f***ing aggressive.”

Important missed calls

A visibly tormented Roman, having been further pressured into action by Tom (aka “you inflatable dicky dick”), blunders into a conversation with Gerri, who immediately perceives something is wrong and extracts the truth from him.

“I danced us through a f***ing thunderstorm without us getting wet,” she says when Roman tries to blame the firing on her handling of the company’s settlement with the Department of Justice. What a line. Goodness me, the writing on this show.

He continues to babble anxiously. She responds with a glare that could freeze the sun.

The trauma of this experience spurs Roman to leave his father a pained voicemail: “I’m not totally OK with – are you kind of just being s****y with me? Because your son is getting married, and you can’t keep expecting me to bend over for you being c***y. So I’m just asking – yeah, that’s the question, are you a c***?”

Who among us has not asked such a question of our parents, even silently, rhetorically, inside our heads? Though for most of us it happens when we’re grumpy, idiotic, self-obsessed teenagers. When we, in other words, are the real c***.

Connor is enduring his own form of distress a short distance away: the “inadequate” wedding cake is made from the same variety of sponge Logan fed Connor in a poor attempt to mollify him after getting his mother institutionalised. Another reminder of Logan’s inadequate parenting style.

Kendall, Shiv and Roman retreat to a private room, fending off Greg on the way. Roman’s phone rings, it’s Tom again. Roman presumably thinks he’s calling for an update on the Gerri situation, and ignores it. Shiv’s phone rings, also Tom. She ignores it.

While this is happening, the siblings decide Connor should be told that his father is en route to Sweden and will not be making an appearance. Shiv leaves the room to do it. And it is at this point that Roman finally answers his phone.

Tom reveals that Logan is in “very, very bad” shape, having been discovered unresponsive in the plane’s bathroom. Staff are doing chest compressions.

A flurry of panic and confusion follows, as Kendall and Roman huddle over the phone and impotently seek a clearer picture of the situation. It’s Frank, of all people, who suggests Tom’s phone be held next to the unconscious Logan’s ear so his children can speak to him, probably for the last time.

Kieran Culkin, Jeremy Strong and Sarah Snook all deliver staggering performances for the remainder of the episode (if I could award just one of them an Emmy it would go to Culkin, or maybe Snook, although Strong is also … OK never mind), and each child’s final words to Logan are jaw-dropping.

Roman: “Hey dad. I hope you’re OK? You’re OK. You’re going to be OK. Because you’re a monster. And you’re going to win, because you just win. And you’re a good man, you’re a good dad. You’re a very good dad. And you did a good job.”

Kendall: “Yeah, hang in there. It’ll be OK. You know, we love you dad. OK, we love you. I love you dad. I do, I love you, OK? And it’s OK. Even though you f*** it – I don’t know. I can’t forgive you. But, yeah. But I, I, it’s OK. And I love you.”

Shiv: “Dad. Dad. Daddy? I love you. Don’t go, please, not now. I love you – you f***ing, god. There’s no excuses for – but I. F***. I do love you. And it’s OK. It’s OK daddy.”

Transcribing the quotes captures so little of their power, which comes from the performances, not the script. These are scenes you could watch a hundred times, and somehow each viewing would enrich them more.

Logan was a monstrous father in many ways, and his kids know it, but he was still their father, and that love is unconditional. Their shattered reactions to his death make all the scheming and scrambling and infighting we’ve witnessed throughout the series seem even more petty, and hollow, and wasteful.

It’s worth noting that the brothers do not alert Shiv to the situation until after they have spoken into Logan’s ear (note: estranged husband Tom repeatedly urges them to get her), so by the time she enters the room he’s already dead. He likely didn’t hear any of the kids’ goodbyes, but still, I imagine this might come up again.

Denial and acceptance

Kendall briefly flies into a frenzy of activity, ordering his assistant to get elite doctors on the phone and demanding to speak to the pilot of Logan’s plane, but he and Shiv soon accept that their father is indeed dead. Roman remains in denial for longer.

At one point he wonders whether Logan checked his voicemails, thinking back to the confrontational one he (quite justifiably) left earlier.

The trio forget to even tell Connor his father is dead until they catch a glimpse of him through the doorway, still ranting about the cake. The eldest Roy child takes the news more calmly than the others.

“Oh man. He never even liked me. Sorry, you know what I mean. He did. I just never got the chance to make him proud of me.”

Meanwhile, back on the plane, Tom, Frank, Karl and Karolina begin to formulate a public response, quickly palming off a weirdly grinning Kerry.

“I think she’s freaking out,” Karolina says, with sympathy.

“Oh yeah? Judging by her grin it seems like she caught a foul ball at Yankee Stadium,” Tom quips, without sympathy. Always lightening the mood, is Tom Wambsgans.

He ducks into a bedroom (yes, there is a bedroom, it’s a nice plane, this is how rich people live) and calls Greg with the news of Logan’s death. Tom is plotting his next move.

“I lost my protector. And this is total lockdown. OK Greg? If this leaks, it’s a stock price rodeo, and f***ing slit throat for the bigmouth. But people should know I was with him. OK? OK,” Tom says.

As it happens, Greg has been flirting with a journalist. And before long, a journalist calls the company to inquire about Logan’s health. I’m sure these facts are unrelated.

Kendall, Shiv and Roman are jolted into action, somewhat, when they learn the group on the plane is drafting a statement.

“We just thought that, since you were estranged -” Karl tells them on the phone.

“We’re not estranged. We weren’t estranged. We all had communications with him. We had a family function last night, in fact. ‘Estranged’ is a strong word, and not accurate,” Kendall fires back. The “family function”, you will recall, involved Logan telling his children they were not “serious people” and then storming out.

Gerri enters the room, spouting some awkward platitudes, but she appears to be there mostly to observe the children. Before she leaves to field a call from Karolina – which feels like an important detail – Shiv floats the mad idea of making Logan’s plane circle before landing to buy them more time.

“Every single thing we do today is going in the memoirs,” Kendall warns the others when they’re alone again.

“If we tell them to circle for half an hour so we can get our heads straight, and some f***ing rumour starts, we get crucified for being cold-hearted.

“We are highly liable to misinterpretation.”

Of the trio, then, Ken is the first to start thinking strategically.

‘I’m scared you’ll walk away’

Where is Connor while this is happening? With his fiancee. Having one of the more honest and straightforward conversations in the history of this show.

“I’m scared you’ll walk away. I’m always scared you’ll walk away,” Connor tells Willa.

“I’m so much older than you, Willa. You’re young, and you’re full of life, and I’m – I don’t know. My father’s dead, and I feel old. I’m sorry that I stole you away from the world. Are you just with me for money, Willa? Basically?”

A lot of microexpressions play out on Willa’s face in the moment before she responds, as she seemingly considers whether or not to lie.

She settles on the truth: “Well, there is something about money and safety here. Yeah. Yeah, there is. But I’m happy. I am. I’m not going to walk.”

The pair go through with the wedding, albeit without the anticipated audience.

‘We need to be in control’

Gerri returns to the other kids, with a subtly self-serving suggestion: obviously you three are going through a lot right now. You can leave the statement to us. Heck, we can even arrange for you to skip the super important board meeting that will decide the fate of the company.

You get the distinct sense that Gerri and Karolina and Hugo and possibly all the others in the plane posse (minus Tom) are in cahoots, and making a play to wrestle control away from the pesky Roy children.

Kendall and Shiv immediately recognise what is happening, and shepherd Roman outside to educate him.

“The subtext has to be: (not just) Logan Roy, but Roman Roy, and Kendall Roy, and Shiv Roy. We’re all here,” says Shiv.

“We need to be in control. Us,” says Kendall. The trio all agree. They will draft the statement. (We learn, later, that Karolina, Karl and Frank have made edits to it for totally not self-serving reasons.)

Roman returns to the room to find Gerri, surprise surprise, hurriedly hanging up on someone. Who could it be? Roman tells her how sad he is about his dad’s death (though he does it far more awkwardly than that makes it sound). She does not offer even a shred of sympathy.

The kids meet their father’s plane at the airport, and it is Shiv who speaks to the media, saying her father, a “passionate champion”, built a “great American company”. Standard famous dead guy stuff.

The more important moment comes when she’s done reading the pre-prepared statement. A reporter asks about the children’s intentions at the company.

“We intend to shepherd it through whatever its future may be. But we’ll be there. We intend to be there,” Shiv responds.

When she’s done, Tom is waiting to comfort her. They leave the airport together.

Roman, having noted the sharp death-related dive in Waystar’s share price, goes to Logan’s plane to see his body. Kendall watches from the tarmac as evening falls, and the corpse of his father is taken away.

It says something about Logan Roy as a character that I spent a good chunk of this episode, probably the majority of it, wondering whether he was playing a cruel, elaborate trick on his children. Should you have the time and inclination, I recommend watching it a second time, with full knowledge of what’s happening. Somehow, on a repeat viewing, this already iconic hour of television grows even more astonishing.

Succession is available to stream on Binge

Twitter: @SamClench