Editor’s Observe: The next comprises main spoilers concerning the fourth episode of “Succession’s” fourth season, “Honeymoon States.”
CNN
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After the shock got here the aftershocks, the ability vacuum, and maybe most importantly and impressively, the laughs, as “Succession” pivoted to face life after Logan Roy, in an episode that lastly put the HBO present’s title into full flower.
Logan Roy’s abrupt demise left his grown kids and subordinates scrambling, with every seemingly humbly providing themselves as much as fill the void, whereas fretting about how the varied candidates would play with the corporate’s board.
On the similar time, they mourned the larger-than-life determine they’d misplaced, taking into consideration that he had handled lots of them abysmally. And the fourth hour additionally marked the return of Logan’s spouse, Marcia (Hiam Abbass), in what felt like “Marcia Strikes Again,” whereas his present and far youthful girlfriend, Kerri (Zoe Winter), was bluntly proven the door. (The latter evoked reminiscences of the musical “Evita,” when the title character boots Peron’s mistress, who sings about one other suitcase in one other corridor.)
Greater than something, the episode underscored simply how brutally humorous “Succession” might be, with Shiv (Sarah Snook) studying her father’s obituary and musing, “Dad sounds superb. I wish to have met dad,” whereas brothers Kendall (Jeremy Sturdy) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) hilariously translated the language, with references to Logan having been “a person of his time” equaling “racist.”
The episode additionally showcased the executives at Waystar Royco, who uncomfortably questioned what to do with a doc that included not solely Logan’s posthumous needs however hand-written notes that seemingly specified who he wished to succeed him. They joked, feebly, about tossing the paper in the bathroom, whereas making very clear how a lot they actually wished to toss the paper in the bathroom.
All of the knives got here out, with Carl (David Rasche) brutally insulting Tom (Matthew Macfadyen), scarcely hiding behind the truth that he was presenting the doubts about Tom’s future as a hypothetical.
Amid that, although, there have been additionally human moments, with the tortured Kendall articulating his conflicted emotions to Waystar government Frank (Peter Friedman) by saying, “He made me hate him, and he died. I really feel like he didn’t like me. I dissatisfied him.”
“Succession” additionally underscored the fragility of not simply life, however a company legacy, with the public-relations folks discussing spin and diminish Logan’s involvement in his later years as a method of bucking up the corporate and its inventory value – a maneuver that Kendall in the end and surreptitiously accepted, concluding that it was the type of good and ruthless transfer that his father would have executed.
Questions of succession additionally seem like threatening the concord achieved by Kendall, Shiv and Roman previous to Logan’s exit, with Shiv being left because the odd girl out in a plan to fill the CEO seat simply lengthy sufficient to shut the sale to GoJo. Belief doesn’t come simply in collection creator Jesse Armstrong’s world, and when Shiv stated, “I have to moist my beak,” the assurances from her brothers clearly left the impression how simply that beak might wind up bent out of joint.
Finally, after the working highs of the earlier episode, the collection efficiently turned the web page from grieving to the subsequent order of enterprise. And that too, as Kendall put it relating to Logan and the “unhealthy dad” PR leaks, is “what he would do.”
