Season 4 Episode 3 of Succession features the show’s boldest, most daring, and most unforgettable storyline yet.
This review contains spoilers for Season 4 Episode 3 of Succession.
Just from the title of the show alone, Succession promises something that its audience has been waiting for since the very beginning – and Season 4 Episode 3 marks the first clear step towards that explosive endgame that’s on the horizon. The show just can’t end without somebody else succeeding leadership of Waystar Royco, and that fact has unfortunately prophesied Logan Roy’s (Brian Cox) death from the very beginning. And yet, when the news breaks in Season 4 Episode 3 that Logan has finally crumbled under the weight of his empire, it’s the most shocking and unexpected moment of the show yet – and that’s all thanks to the expert storytelling and genius misdirections that Season 4 has already established.
Succession’s Season 4 has been falsely laying the framework for another conflict between Logan and his children, but episode 3 completely dismisses everything that’s been established in the previous two episodes and shocks the audience with the unexpected death of Waystar Royco’s founding member. Everything that we thought we knew about the show’s long-awaited conclusion was wrong, proving once again that Succession’s writers are constantly one step ahead. Season 4 Episode 3, ironically titled “Connor’s Wedding”, opens with Logan and his team boarding an airplane and concisely setting up the parameters of the episode – “you push Cyd, Roman knives Geri, all in a day’s work”. And yet, these two plot points quickly become totally irrelevant when the news breaks that Logan has suddenly died on the plane.
When people look back on Succession in the years after it’s ended, Season 4 Episode 3 will be among the most notorious of the bunch. It will be the episode that many fans remember as the one that shocked, disturbed and affected them the most, which is a huge testament to both the way it’s written and the way the previous two episodes have purposefully misled the audience to make this reveal even more unexpected. Despite the show’s very premise assuring that Logan can’t feasibly survive to the end of the show, the writers still managed to make his death shocking and unforseen, which is incredibly impressive. The shock factor of Logan Roy’s death is the first thing that makes Season 4 Episode 3 so powerful, but it’s the fallout of this reveal that will cement the episode as an instant classic.
Succession is a show that’s always been praised for its performances, with the central actors consistently winning Emmys and Golden Globes for their portrayals of this dysfunctional family – but Season 4 Episode 3 sees the majority of the cast provide their best work in the show to date. When Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Roman (Kieran Culkin) and Shiv (Sarah Snook) learn about their father’s death, all three actors give flawless performances that really prove why they’ve become so acclaimed and beloved in the years since adopting these roles. Emotions are running high for the entire episode, and each actor tackles the situation in a way that’s perfectly fitting with their character’s journey over the past three seasons. In a way, Succession has been building towards this moment since the very start, and it’s clear that both the writers and the actors managed to handle the situation with the perfect amount of respect and integrity for this story.
Outside of Logan’s death, there’s not much more to Succession ’s Season 4 Episode 3. The entire story focuses around this single event, with countless one-shot takes and extended scenes that really build tension and ferocity throughout. There are definitely other aspects of the story that need to be addressed soon (such as Matsson’s response and the future of Waystar Royco), but that can surely follow in the next few episodes. The future doesn’t look bright for the Roy siblings, but things have permanently changed in a way that’s setting the stage for an unforgettable finale and several more betrayals and surprises to come.
Season 4 Episode 3 of Succession is now available to watch on HBO Max.
