In the third episode of its fourth season, Succession does the unthinkable — and we’re not just talking about Connor (Alan Ruck) finally tying the knot with Willa (Justine Lupe). This pivotal episode may be titled “Connor’s Wedding,” but it’s really going to go down in TV history as “The One Where Logan Dies.”
That’s right: Logan Roy (Brian Cox), patriarch of the Roy family, founder and CEO of Waystar Royco, L to the OG himself, is dead and gone.
Logan’s death is Succession‘s biggest narrative swing yet, bigger than any business deal or betrayal. If Succession is a game of chess, this twist is the equivalent of removing the king from the board. Scratch that; it’s the equivalent of throwing the board on the floor and leaving the other pieces to flounder in emotional (and likely financial) distress.
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While the ramifications of Logan’s passing will be major — who will succeed him as CEO? — the most fascinating aspect of his death remains Succession‘s daring handling of it. There is no grand finale for Logan. In fact, Succession separates the audience from Logan’s death as much as possible. We never see him collapse on his flight to meet with Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård), nor do we get a clear shot of his body. Instead, we experience Logan’s death as his children do: from far, far away. It’s Succession‘s way of telling us that the moment of Logan’s death doesn’t matter. What really matters is his children’s reactions.
When it comes to Logan’s death, distance is everything.
Credit: Macall B. Polay/HBO
None of Logan’s children are with him when he dies: They’re all at Connor’s wedding, something Logan skipped to speak to Matsson. Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook), and Roman (Kieran Culkin) get a call from Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) onboard Logan’s plane. He informs them of Logan’s collapse and lets them speak their last words to him through his phone. The sequence is eerily reminiscent of Season 4’s very first episode, which saw Tom act as a proxy between the Roy children and their own father as they entered a bidding war over Pierce Media.
Tom’s role as go-between is just one of several ways in which Succession distances the Roy children, and by extension the audience, from Logan’s death. Just like we never see Logan fall, we also never get a clear glimpse of his body. We spend most of our time watching Kendall, Shiv, and Roman worry through the phone, unable to do anything for their father except react in the moment.
Succession heightens these reactions further by emphasizing the physical space between Logan and his children. Emotionally, these characters are far apart even when they’re in the same room, but after the Roy kids’ sound rejection of Logan’s attempted karaoke apology, that emotional distance has never been greater. Succession reflects that in its location choices. The kids are at sea, on a boat to Connor’s wedding, while a dying Logan is thousands of feet in the air.
Logan’s death is Succession at its most stressful.
Credit: Macall B. Polay/HBO
The fact that both parties are in transit only adds to the tension of the episode. “Connor’s Wedding” is an excruciatingly stressful hour that sees uncertainty gradually morph into shocked acceptance. From their place on a boat — to a wedding, no less — Kendall, Shiv, and Roman have absolutely no control over the situation. All they can do is sit, and talk, and try to keep the news of Logan’s death from leaking to the press. Since we spend most of the episode squarely in their point of view, we feel just as powerless as they do.
Distance isn’t the only trick Succession has in its playbook to make us feel the enormity of this moment. As the Roys speak to their father and process the possibility of his death, the show strips back Nicholas Britell’s score — barely any music accompanies these key scenes. On top of that, continuous shots trained on the Roy siblings keep us firmly in their point of view, while the juxtaposition of the wedding celebration and Logan’s death only serves to heighten the horror of the situation. It also calls to mind a pivotal moment from Season 1, when Kendall returns to Shiv and Tom’s wedding after leaving a waiter for dead and has to act like his world isn’t completely falling apart.
One major difference between Kendall’s wedding manslaughter and Logan’s wedding death? The former is a finale event, while the latter occurs in the third episode of a season. Those kinds of major character turning points, especially a death, are the kinds of moments we’ve come to expect from late-in-the-season episodes and finales. That Logan’s death comes so early and that it comes before the deal with Matsson goes through are no doubt shocking. “Surely they can’t kill him now,” I kept telling myself throughout the episode. Yet kill him they did — and when you watch back through Season 4, you see just how inevitable it was.
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Logan’s death is a total surprise — and also completely inevitable.
Credit: David Russell/HBO
On the one hand, Logan’s death is a wild shock to Succession‘s system. Just last episode he delivered a bloodthirsty speech to his ATN staff from atop a stack of printer paper in a Rupert Murdoch-inspired moment. In the speech, he waxed poetic about cutting his opposition’s throats before proclaiming, “This is not the end.” One episode later, we’re hit with the opposite. Even after all of Logan’s big talk while boarding his plane, it is, in fact, the end.
Succession has certainly hinted at this throughout the season, especially in its first episode. In a parallel to Season 1, Season 4 opens with Logan’s birthday — a reminder of his deteriorated relationship with his family and, naturally, his own aging. He even contemplates mortality with his bodyguard Colin (Paul Nielsen), wondering about what comes after life. In true Logan Roy fashion, he thinks the answer is nothing.
The parallel to Succession‘s first-ever episode also recalls the near-fatal stroke Logan has at his 80th birthday party in Season 1 — something he survives, along with countless attempts to wrest Waystar Royco from his control. After all, Succession has always made the point that Logan is an unkillable man. Yet the reminder of that first stroke is enough to make you realize that Logan is a goner as soon as Tom reveals Logan’s critical situation. Succession wouldn’t pull the same near-death storyline with Logan twice, especially not as the show approaches its endgame. Of course, the Roy siblings wouldn’t be thinking like that, so we’re left to sit with them in limbo as they wait for confirmation of their father’s passing.
To show Logan’s death or not to show Logan’s death, that is the question…
Credit: Macall B. Polay/HBO
The only move more daring than killing Logan so early in the season is killing him offscreen. It’s a choice that is sure to be polarizing. People who hate Logan might wish they’d seen him flounder in his final moments, while people who love him might have wanted a chance to say one last farewell. In keeping with the episode’s throughline of distance, Succession gives neither party the satisfaction. Logan haters and fans may have different interpretations of the exclusion of Logan’s death. Is it a slight or a sign of respect to this character whom the show has built up as a tyrannical titan of media? A more likely answer: This is simply how Succession operates.
Throughout its run, Succession has made a pattern of not showing key events to the audience. We don’t see Shiv’s initial confrontation with Tom about his actions in the Season 3 finale, nor do we see the Roy siblings coming up with The Hundred. These omissions are a sign of Succession‘s confidence in itself — it knows the audience can infer characters’ shared histories given a few well-placed lines. However, it’s also proof that Succession knows when to show exactly what matters. We don’t need to see Logan die, we just need to know it occurred in order to understand the behavior of everyone caught in his orbit. The aftermath of Logan’s passing is what Succession is truly interested in, which is why we still have most of Season 4 to go. How it happened is secondary.
Succession is now streaming on HBO Max, with new episodes airing at 9 p.m. ET Sundays on HBO and HBO Max.
