Succession season 4 delivered one of its biggest shockers as Logan Roy, the family patriarch and the diabolical old horse of capitalism, passes away amid a frenetic frenzy of emotions and responses from all corners of the corporate and media world.
Logan Roy is dead. Succession is on its last leg and before its inevitably momentous grand finale, the patriarch of the Roy family and CEO of Waystar has passed away in a manner most subtle.
Here are all the events that precede and follow the significant demise:
Banalities that precede it
Logan’s day starts like any other. It’s another flight and another course charted as he seeks to one-up the other party in another negotiation. He’s off to Sweden on his plane, to meet with Matsson.
Meanwhile, he has some people to take care of. Especially Gerri and Cyd, both of whom he wants to be fired. To deliver the news to Gerri, he tasks the perfect man with it.
Roman is terrified at the thought of firing Gerri, and he has to do it face-to-face, at a wedding no less. He has to do it, though, since Logan needs him to do it, and Roman has to prove himself. He reluctantly agrees and later breaks it to Gerri in the most Roman way.
He later sends a voice message asking Logan why he’s being cruel to him like this — “c*nt” is the precise word he uses — having no idea of what’s about to hit him.
The phone call
Connor’s wedding is ongoing at a fancy boat when Roman receives a phone call from Tom. He tells him that Logan has collapsed mid-flight and the staff is doing chest compressions on him.
Mumbling and stuttering, Roman gestures towards Kendall who takes note of what’s transpiring. They don’t know how to respond to this news. They can’t register the unremarkable significance of these updates about their father.
Tom puts the phone near Logan’s ear, telling the siblings they might as well share their last words because they might reach their father, even if the chances are slim to none. Roman says he loves him amid expressions of disbelief. Kendall is up next, and he struggles to slur out words as well.
The last is Shiv, who is more unsure if her words are even reaching Logan or not. She breaks down and utters more or less the same things, with similar delivery, with years and years of frustrations unable to be let out at this moment of chaos and confusion.
Hearts asunder, markets spiral
While Roman refuses to accept “death” as the word describing his father’s current state, others have mostly accepted the fact. Connor is the last of the siblings to be informed of the demise. He’s shattered, but the first thing he says is Logan liked him the least.
He shortly moves on to discussing with Willa what she feels about him and why she’s with him (he’s bang on with the reason being money, but in another moment of sympathy, she decides to stay). They contend with their wedding on a smaller scale while the other siblings contend with the growing concerns of their father’s death becoming the biggest news in the country.
Tom and others on the flight feel they must come up with a statement in light of the death, and the siblings have to reluctantly go along with it. Amid grief and pain, they decide they must be on top of things too, as any and everything they do and say will inform their image that runs along the news cycle.
They head off to the airport as the flight lands and the company stocks plummet in an unsurprisingly dramatic manner. Shiv and Roman go see the body after the former gives a prepared statement to the media. Kendall watches from a distance.
Also Read: Succession season 4 episode 3 recap & review: Connor’s Wedding