Succession just delivered the best series episode of the year. The drama about the legacy of a nefarious media moguls is in its final season, which means heads are rolling now. As surprising as the announcement of the end of the series came, we are rushing towards the finale without mercy. With the 8th episode of the 4th season, the series has reached its preliminary climax and created a masterpiece.
The premise of Succession is easy to explain: Logan Roy (Brian Cox) owns one of the most influential media conglomerates in the USA. Since he will not live forever, the advancing age pushes the question of succession on. Who is leading Waystar RoyCo into the future? Claims are raised from a wide variety of sides. Everyone fights for the crown, but the king doesn’t even think about abdicating.
Succession no longer takes prisoners in Season 4
I have seldom seen 60 minutes of television told in such a dense way. But that’s exactly the attraction of this final season: Where many other series come to the point where they play for time and thereby dilute even explosive conflicts, Succession has been doing for eight weeks no prisoners more. Everything that has accumulated in the first three seasons is being discharged with full force. Being there is phenomenal.
You can watch the trailer for Succession here:
Succession – S04 Trailer (English) HD
The pieces on the Succession chessboard have been positioned and are ready for the big moves. Above all, the Roy siblings Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook) and Roman (Kieran Culkin), who have been fighting over their father’s media empire since the beginning of the series. Do they stick together in the end or are they cheating? Succession finds the most inscrutable answer to this question.
The 8th episode catapults us into the middle of election night in the USA. However, it is not the ballots that decide the next president, but the narratives that are built around them as stories. Kendall, Shiv and Roman sit in the glass rooms of their TV station and have to get together decide on a versionwith which they continue the history of America, their family and their own lives.
Monsters await at the end of Succession
For four seasons, the Roys fought for power and influence. However, most of the time it is just theory. There is always a new deal in the air, an implied agreement or a vague promise. Things are rarely called by their proper name. Instead, everyone uses one vocabulary of possibilitiesso as not to reveal his true intentions, although it is crystal clear to him that everyone wants the same thing.
All of the assets and numbers the characters throw at each other rarely find an actual equivalent in the episodes. Most of the time we find ourselves moving back and forth in the same interchangeable spaces, wondering what the characters are actually haggling over. Is this all real? In the new episode, Succession finally shows us what this power empire looks like when it’s in full swing.
As the characters tear each other apart on a micro level, their actions (initially tactical, later impulsive) affect America’s future. For a lifetime, power was a pawn and everything was in motion. For the first time they learn what it means to commit. Now nobody can take the five minutes that were otherwise always required to reorganize themselves.
Succession is a painful reminder of the people we really watch. The picture that emerges is an extremely ugly one. Since the beginning of the series, I’ve wondered if the Roy siblings ever anything sincere exchanged with each other. By the end of the new episode, the only thing I’m afraid of is the monsters, because every scene in the series has a forked tongue.
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