Succession Delivers Its Biggest Curve Ball Yet in “Connor’s Wedding”: Recap
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The post Succession Delivers Its Biggest Curve Ball Yet in “Connor’s Wedding”: Recap appeared first on Consequence.
[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Succession, Season 4 Episode 3, “Connor’s Wedding.”]
No one wins the kiss from Daddy. Logan Roy is dead, and now it remains to be seen what happens with those he leaves behind.
From the first glimpse of Episode 3’s title, the kinda-cheeky-in-retrospect “Connor’s Wedding,” it was clear Succession was gearing up for something big, but said title also proved to be quite the misdirect. Yes, members of the Roy family are gathering for the definitely-not-depressing celebration of Connor and Willa’s love, but then, slowly at first but very fast, a different tragedy unveils itself.
The episode almost feels like it’s taking place in real-time as the Roy siblings learn that Logan has suffered a medical emergency on board his plane… one which ultimately leads to his passing. There’s a shocking quality to the immediacy of it — one moment he’s climbing the stairway, talking big about getting aggressive, manipulating Roman into being the one to fire Gerri, and the next, he’s getting chest compressions, and his children on the ground are trying to understand what exactly it means.
Kendall, Roman, and Shiv do get their chance to say something of a goodbye through Tom’s phone, but they’re one-sided conversations. “It’s very bad,” everyone keeps repeating. These characters can be some of the wittiest on TV, but those are the best words they have in this moment.
Once the news sets in, they start to touch each other constantly, but like they’re doing it for the first time, like they don’t know how any of this works. Greg gets the news far more bluntly and cruelly than others, with a warning from Tom: “If this leaks, it’s a stock price rodeo and a slit throat for the big mouth, okay?”
Succession (HBO)
While everyone’s in shock, the power struggles are already in full force. The people on board the plane are planning for how to reveal the news to the world, strategizing which the kids feel they should be involved with, while Tom elicits Greg’s help in preparing to protect his own ass in the upcoming chaos.
The kids end up drafting the statement, and Shiv delivers the news to reporters herself. The board will be convening to pick a new leader, and Shiv answers a reporter’s question about the siblings’ involvement by declaring that they intend to be involved… Which isn’t reassuring enough to prevent a massive drop in the stock price. But this is just the beginning of the consequences.
It’s one of the most audacious character deaths in HBO’s history, in part because of how fully it rejects the audience’s expectations of how such a moment might play out. It could have been the height of drama if Logan had collapsed in the middle of the wedding, but he wasn’t even there, or even on his way — instead, he was flying off to Sweden to discuss the pending deal with Matsson. The first news came second-hand. And the idea of killing a central character essentially off-screen would be considered insane by a more conventional writers’ room — why leave such a seismic event in the margins?
Yet that’s where the real impact of “Connor’s Wedding” can be found. This is a vision of death totally unlike what we see on television normally; this is, instead, the way death actually works all too often in our overly-connected-but-still-isolated world: The unexpected cell phone call, the caller stumbling for the right way to express just how huge a thing has happened. The helplessness that consumes everyone — whether you’re Shiv on the ground or Tom on the plane, you’re unable to stop death in its tracks. You know what it means to be too late.
That’s the element of the execution which also makes it so shocking: We’ve been trained by decades of television to never believe a character is dead until they show the body — what Succession shows us is pretty definitive, especially that sad lonely shot of the stretcher being loaded down to the tarmac. (Even if they die on a private plane surrounded by people, everyone still dies alone.) But it takes some time. Especially for his kids on the ground, it doesn’t feel real. Because it never feels quite real at first, when you get the news that someone who was here is now gone.
Succession (HBO)
Another aspect to consider is the timing: Sure, of all the events one might predict occurring in the final season of Succession, Logan dying would certainly be on the list, but on first reaction, killing off the patriarch now feels shockingly early. Then, on second thought, it’s shockingly clear why the decision was made — beyond announcing that Cox will be eligible for Best Guest Actor at this year’s Emmys, as opposed to Lead Actor, it ignites quite a powder keg for the remaining episodes.
With Logan now gone, there is a hole at the center of the world, and this means the remaining seven episodes of Succession are going to take the drama into a whole new sphere of chaos and deception. Throughout history, we’ve seen what happens to dictatorships when the central figure is removed from power, creating a vacuum. In some ways, the Roy family has been waiting for this day, and in other ways none of them seem prepared.
Looking forward, of all the characters involved, Roman is in the most precarious position emotionally, after the roller coaster of the last two episodes. While Roman managed to reconnect with Logan at the end of Episode 2 — even getting an unexpected “I need you” from his father — the last communication between Roman and Logan was Logan telling Roman to fire Gerri, a nasty piece of psychological manipulation.
Again, how it all unfurls is something we can’t know now, but it’s clear everything will be different going forward. Will this bring the family together? Will it drive them even further apart? The fact that the death has occurred with this much time to spare clearly means creator Jesse Armstrong feels this is rich material to explore. After all, Logan Roy was never an ordinary man in life. How this show tackles his death may end up being nothing short of extraordinary.
New episodes of Succession premiere Sundays on HBO and HBO Max.
Succession Delivers Its Biggest Curve Ball Yet in “Connor’s Wedding”: Recap
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