Spoiler alert: this recap is for people watching Succession season four. Don’t read on unless you’ve watched episode nine.
As if their father’s funeral would stop the sibs fighting for supremacy. Here’s your order of service for the penultimate episode, titled Church and State …
‘Discord make my dick hard’
It was Election Boxing Day and aftershocks were spreading from ATN anointing “alt-right” Jeryd Mencken (Justin Kirk) as president-elect. Protesters had taken to the streets nationwide. There were violent demonstrations outside ATN HQ. Inside, Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) pored over newspaper reports going “behind the controversial call”. Poor Decision Desk Darwin’s career looked over.
“Jamming his head in the bosom of history,” Roman (Kieran Culkin) smirked with satisfaction at the ratings-boosting chaos he’d wreaked. Practising his eulogy, he stroked the stubbly goatee he’d grown especially (“Don’t I perhaps remind you of him, just a little?”) and gloated: “I selected the president. See his pecker in my pocket?” At least it was a good day to bury bad news. Pant-suited avenger Shiv (Sarah Snook) encouraged techbro Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård) to release a statement about GoJo’s inflated south Asian subscriber numbers. Like she’d predicted, it barely caused a ripple amid the riots.
As shops were boarded up and gilets jaunes went on the rampage, it hit doubly close to home for Kendall (Jeremy Strong). Despite his petulant threats, ex-wife Rava (Natalie Gold) took their children upstate for safety, missing their grandfather’s funeral. PA Jess (Juliana Canfield) resigned, which Kendall took equally well (“You’re being juvenile and dumb,” pot told kettle). His complicity in Mencken’s rise to power was biting him in the backside. No wonder he felt “Queasy Gonzales”.
Money changers in the temple
In the funeral limo, Shiv told her brothers she was pregnant. Kendall asked if it was Tom’s. Roman’s reaction was even less charming: “Is it mine? So you’re having a Wambsgland. I thought you’d just been eating your feelings.” With tensions between the trio still high, Kendall tried to call a truce for the day. No chance. At the opulent uptown church, cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) was put on “Ewan watch”, ensuring Logan’s embittered older brother (James Cromwell) didn’t cause a scene. Again, no chance.
What’s death if not a networking opportunity? Vibrating with nervous energy, Roman schmoozed board members to “rally around the orphans”. Keen to reposition herself in the new political landscape, Shiv was also on manoeuvres. When Matsson arrived, aiming to persuade “the handsome nazi” not to block the buyout, she pitched her idea: install an American CEO to placate concerns about foreign ownership. “Know who’d be good?” she twinkled. “Shiv Roy.” Determined not to let pregnancy obstruct her ambition, she half-joked that she’d be “one of those hard bitches who take 36 hours of maternity leave, emailing through her vanity caesarean, poor kid will never see her”. Pop would be proud, Pinkie.
Scottish widows
“Thought I could hear dalmatians howling,” said Shiv as her monstrous mother made a gloriously toxic return. Logan’s second wife Lady Caroline Collingwood (scene-stealer Harriet Walter) arrived with plus-one Peter Munion (Pip Torrens) in tow. Lady C sneered that her social-climbing husband had “brought his autograph book” and was “rolling around like a labrador in a lovely pile of senators”. She immediately rumbled Shiv’s pregnancy, feigning offence that she wasn’t forewarned rather than offering congratulations.
Unfailingly nicer to people outside her own family, Lady Caroline sweetly invited Logan’s mistress Kerry (Zoë Winters) to join her on the front row – alongside chic merry widow Marcia (Hiam Abbass) and the legendary Sally-Anne (Nicole Ansari Cox – yes, actor Brian’s real-life wife). “Sally-Anne was my Kerry, so to speak,” said Lady Caroline. “All water under the bridge now.” Logan’s women sitting shoulder-to-shoulder was a lovely touch, not least when they girl-bonded over Logan’s nocturnal teeth-grinding and when Marcia silently comforted tearful Kerry. Give this quartet their own spin-off.
Four paeans at a funeral
Fair to say it was a mixed bag of eulogies. Brushing off Greg, Ewan insisted on speaking. His five-minute valediction was less of a tribute than a takedown. Logan had “wrought the most terrible things” and “appealed to men’s worst instincts”. Ewan did provide answers to a tragedy that’s long been alluded to. Their younger sister Rose died of polio and schoolboy Logan blamed himself for bringing it home. No wonder Rose was such a touchy subject.
Time for Roman to redress the balance, except he hadn’t “pre-grieved” at all. He stumbled up the steps. He fiddled nervously with his mic and cue cards. Shaken by the proximity of his father’s coffin, his bravado fell away to reveal a little boy lost. As he beckoned his siblings and broke down, keening with grief, it was a heartbreaking moment. Kendall filled in and went freestyle (why didn’t he rap it?). Like his Living+ presentation, it began shakily but grew in confidence. Yes, his father was a brute but he had vim and vitality. He built things, making money and jobs with his “magnificent, awful force”. Never more Michael Corleone, Kendall received rapturous applause.
Last up, Shiv said her piece. Sure, her father shut people out but “when he let you in, the sun shone and it was warm in the light”. It was hard being Logan’s daughter (“he couldn’t fit a whole woman in his head”) but she bade farewell to her “dear world of a father”. Roman had faux-joked about who’d “win the funeral”. As Kendall accepted handshakes and backslaps, the result was clear. Godspeed and God bless.
Cat food Ozymandias
At the internment, Connor (Alan Ruck) proudly showed off the mausoleum Logan bought from “a dotcom pet supplies guy” for a bargain “five mil”. There was room for them all. Con fancied “a top bunk”. Ken balked at spending eternity with his father, since he “had trouble finishing a Scotch with him”. Roman couldn’t even cross the threshold (“he made me breathe funny”) or watch the casket get carried in. Seeking reassurance, Shiv asked the greybeards: “How bad was Dad?” “He was a salty dog but a good egg,” said Frank (Peter Friedman). “What you saw was what you got,” added Karl (David Rasche). Well played, Statler and Waldorf.
after newsletter promotion
Comms chief Hugo (Fisher Stevens) told Kendall that GoJo were touting Shiv as US CEO. Galvanised, Kendall rallied supporters to his side. He instructed Hugo to brief the media that Matsson’s acquisition undervalued the firm and didn’t have board support. He even offered Logan’s hangdog former bodyguard Colin (Scott Nicholson) a job. Well, he knows where the waiter’s bodies are buried.
A wake is a long time in politics
At the aftershow, power-hungry hyenas descended on Mencken. Kendall offered “congratulations, pending a gruelling constitutional knife fight”. Alarm bells rang when “Hocus Potus” only said he’d “try” to help halt the GoJo sale. While Con and Greg interrupted the grownups infuriatingly, Shiv spirited Mencken away to meet Matsson. The Odin of Coding offered him a choice: “Two tiny men in your pocket” or social media’s “gateway to broad and growing cultural influence”? Afterwards, Matsson jubilantly phoned Shiv to say, “It’s a yes!” and “I think they’re interested”. Shiv’s jubilant response? “Let’s make a meatball burger.”
Tom finally arrived, exhausted and apologetic. “You’d never have dared not come to his funeral when he was alive,” said Shiv. When Tom wept about saying goodbye to Logan on the plane, she softened and sent him to their apartment to sleep. They couldn’t salvage their marriage, could they?
The “CEO-bros” huddled. Roman had “tried to dad it” but a naive lack of leverage meant Mencken had welched on their deal. Kendall admitted he was also to blame but he had a plan. They’d fight the sale at board level. However, visibly shrunken Romulus had become a laughing stock. Mencken called him “the grim weeper” and “Tiny Tears”. A clip of his crying was circulating. “He sounds like a sow that’s about to get the stun gun and knows it,” said Karl. Too soon. Roman strode out into the night and masochistically goaded the marauding protesters into punching him. Top dog to rock bottom in a day.
The heir apparent
Neck-and-neck between Shiv and Kendall going into the home stretch. Roman looks out of the running. Much now depends on the board (Stewy, this is your moment) and the two mercurial Ms, Matsson and Mencken.
Line of the week
I enjoyed Roman imagining the reactions to his eulogy: “See Shivvy cry, see Kenny die, see Roman the showman light up the sky.” Yet Shiv’s summation of Logan steals the prize: “My dad had deep ocean currents swirling in his gut but on specifics, he was about money, winning and gossip.” Amen.
Notes and observations
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HBO filmed fake scenes of Brian Cox arriving at the funeral as a decoy, so rubberneckers wouldn’t twig it was Logan who’d died.
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This episode and the next reunite the Succession A-team of writer Jesse Armstrong and director Mark Mylod, responsible for 13 of the show’s 39 episodes overall.
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I’d love to know the contents of Connor’s unread eulogy, which was “formally inventive” and would leave the family “open to legal action”.
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Only one episode to go. Next week’s finale is a feature-length 90 minutes. Buckle up, fuckleheads.
A less frantic, fittingly meditative episode left us agonisingly poised. “Roy Boys versus Shiv the Shiv”, anyone? Rejoin us next Monday for one last time. Until then, sadfaces, please leave your thoughts below.
