bear with me, man, i lost my train of thought

crazy to me that a decent chunk of people hated the finale because it just makes so much sense to me dramaturgically. like especially the later half. kendall inflicting pain and comfort to roman at the same time, pressing romans fresh wound into him as he hugs him. roman falling into place because thats the only form of comfort he can stomach. shiv seeing, once again, roman fold under the command of violent older family member, seeing kendall say "thats fucking right" after roman votes against the gojo deal in the same way logan would when roman complied to his demands. shiv being confronted with seeing her older brother turn into her father, and reconsidering everything. and kendall only digs his hole deeper, turning vile and mean. when you grow up with a mean man in your house there's always one there even if hes gone. shiv confronting kendall about the waiter and he denies it even happened. says it wasnt real. no real person involved. kendall again using violence towarda roman as a motivator but this time its different and he fights back because nothing fucking matters. shiv votes for the deal and kendall is once again too late to do anything. its already been done. tom sucking the biggest dick in every room.

Oh there is something so deeply and horrendously ironic about the fact that Shiv couldn’t be CEO. She couldn’t inherit her father’s kingdom. Her husband had to. The only way she can have it is by being a wife and a mother. Because that’s the only way a woman can have any power in the world her father created.

This season has had a lot of fucked scenes, but Kendall pressing Roman's face into his shoulder hard enough to tear open his stitches as a visualization of how the Roys weaponize familial affection was genuinely diabolical

SUCCESSION (2018 – 2023) season finales + final shots

SUCCESSION (2018 – 2023) season finales + final shots

it could have been you.

#a meal fit for a king

kendall saw it as his birthright. roman saw it as affection. shiv saw it as validation. tom was the only one who saw it as a game, truly. logan literally told all of them before in austerlitz: what you kids do not understand, it's all part of the game.

roman, tom, shiv, and kendall final scenes

SUCCESSION — 4.10 “WITH OPEN EYES”

SUCCESSION (2018 – 2023) — 4.03: Connor's Wedding.

SUCCESSION (S4) "CONNOR'S WEDDING" // BOJACK HORSEMAN (S5) "FREE CHURRO".

succession has always been genre-defying and convention breaking, but killing the main character 15 minutes into only the 3rd episode of the season throws all television convention out the window

which is not only a bold choice, but it’s what makes the episode so effective. almost everyone watching has said they experienced a prolonged disbelief. there’s no way. no way. and it’s not just the denial that comes with loss and death, but denial because this isn’t when you kill a character, this isn’t how you kill a character. it flies in the face of everything we know about storytelling convention. we don’t believe it. is tom joking. is logan manipulating them. where’s the body, we need to see the body. is he going to make a miraculous recovery at the end of the episode? 

and like the denial and the slow-dawning horror of realization that the kids are experiencing, we the audience experience it too. not as spectators, but as participants. because we had the rug pulled out from our Audience Expectations, just as the kids had the rug pulled out from them by The Random Suddenness of Tragedy. 

if this had been the cliffhanger at the end of an episode or a season finale—the times when you’re Allowed to kill a main character—we would have only been spectators. but by tipping storytelling convention on its head and breaking all the rules, they brought us along on that same journey of denial and disbelief. the same impossibility of it. the same confused “wait, like this?” 

it took logan’s death outside the bounds of storytelling and the safety of well-known plot beats. instead, it made us sit with the uncertainty and denial and confusion and raw grief of the random mundanity of death. 

Roy siblings in Connor's Wedding + Physical touch.

The shitshow at the fuck factory parallels. Roman's denial and refusal to acknowledge that his dad might be dead. Kendall's coping by throwing around his authority and trying to summon "better doctors" like that will solve the problem. Shiv getting mad at the people focusing on the business end, then trying to game the system and hide Logan's status. Kendall being the sibling that knows they have to focus on the business end. Connor marrying Willa like him calling her to the hospital to the disgust of the family. The close associate (Frank and now Gerri) fired but only in words for the sake of Roman. The attack up in the private jet just like up in the helicopter.

All this time later and they're still the exact same fucking family they've always been.

I am physically unwell.

If I may add something, there's also something there about how their dynamic is to move in circles.

They spent 2.5 seasons fighting for Logan's attention, eating each other up for crumbs of affection. Then they unite and swear they will never let him poison them again, only to have one (1) encounter with him at Connor's rehearsal where you can see him pulling them back in.

This is the only way this vicious cycle could stop for them. If Logan were to stay alive until he was 100, he would still be pulling the strings of his children because that's just how deeply toxic their dynamic is.

This fucking show, man