Tom Wambsgans is the only dog in the Succession fight
The king is dead. The kids are ‘not serious people’. Tom and Cousin Greg should rise up and ‘The Disgusting Brothers’ should be crowned over the next seven episodes. Here’s why.
Not since J.R. Ewing on Dallas, Bobby from Home & Away and A Country Practice’s Molly has a TV death captivated the world.
And yet, here we are in the year 2023, saturated with 24/7 media, shocked, that despite the show doing what it says in the title, succession is now happening in Succession.
It’s been days since the episode aired here in Australia, so apologies, but Logan Roy is dead. The episode has achieved a 10.0 rating on IMBD, matching a review rating held by Breaking Bad for 10 years and making it the highest-rated episode of any TV show ever on the site.
I’m sorry if I’ve ruined the surprise but, to quote the fictitious media mogul from his last war cry, I’m a “f..king pirate” and the show must go on.
They have killed off Logan – undoubtedly the most loveable of the series of reprobates – with seven episodes left to run.
“You rarely look at a solar system and say ‘You know what this could use less of? The sun’, but the show’s and creator’s intense appetite for drama and possibility for conflict demanded that they do this,” The Ringer’s Watch podcast hosts Andy Greenwald and Chris Ryan said.
So seismic was episode three of season four of the award-winning, critically-acclaimed series the LA Times published an obituary.
“Logan Roy, conservative media mogul who shaped contemporary politics, dies at 84,” the headline stated. “Roy died Sunday while travelling to Sweden aboard a company jet. He was 84, we think.”
This week’s episode was titled “Connor’s Wedding”.
Roman raised the omen.
Arriving and greeting his siblings, brother Kendall and little sister Shiv, Roman called the nuptials of his older half-brother the “death of romance”.
Shiv’s outfit also gave it away. She attended the wedding dressed for a funeral with an all black $7000 Tom Ford blazer complete with gold padlock, chain link halter top and a ponytail that was last seen at the gym.
The wedding was to take place on a boat. Logan died on a plane en route to Sweden to finalise the merger with GoJo.
The kids are then stuck at sea, Logan was suspended in the air.
Welcome to limbo. We’re now in TV purgatory.
Despite his shadow looming large, the foil for the whole show is now gone. The inmates are about to take over the asylum. Well, the board of Frank, Hugo and Karl, the kids or “The Disgusting Brothers” of Tom and Cousin Greg, are set for battle.
My bet is on the latter.
They are dogs to each other and every other human they interact with, but they are the only two characters with enough mongrel in them to fight in the tussle over the future of Waystar Royco.
Tom, played to perfection by British actor Matthew Macfadyen who previously starred in a Pride & Prejudice remake, has grown and morphed like the indoor plant he is.
He’s the personification of Devil’s Ivy - no matter how badly he’s treated, he comes back, stronger: with an uncanny ability to climb and thrive. The Roy children think ordering a house red in an “everyday bar” is brave and would rather run for president instead of booking in for some therapy. Tom knows what it’s like to have nothing - well, nothing compared to his soon-to-be ex. He’s one false move away from also needing to start carrying “ludicrously capacious” bags again.
Logan’s alter ego — Brian Cox — agrees.
“My suspicion is that it won’t be the kids. I think that they will get locked out. Ultimately, they’ll get locked out. Ultimately, they will be, you know, the whole Pierce thing was such a stupid fucking idea anyway, and not well handled on their part. It was the last big mistake and I could see them walking into a sh--storm,” Cox told Deadline this week.
“And I think they’re going to be walking into more shitstorms. So, I’m not sure if they’re going to be coming out running it. So, the only other alternative is to, I suppose is Matsson, you know, if that works. Or, the other alternative is, where does Tom and Greg go to, you know? Where do they go to? What does Tom go to, with, in his extremely dysfunctional relationship with his wife?”
At the end of Season One the bloke from Mid West of the US who “didn’t come from money” is forced into an open marriage by Shiv — on his wedding night — now he’s conflicted out every “good” divorce lawyer in New York.
Tom is also with Logan when he dies.
The body isn’t even cold when he calls Greg to swing into action to secure his future.
“You delete my folder marked logistics and then you delete that from the trash. And I might need you calling around with my narrative, you sing my song… I’m not OK, I’m sad. But I’m sorry. F..k. It’s grim. I’ve lost my protector. But this is total lock down. If this leaks it’s a stock price rodeo and a slit throat to the big mouth. But people should know I was with him. Ok? Ok. Ok man,” Tom barks while blinking back tears.
He then returns to be the conduit between the heirs, holding the phone to the dead guy’s ear while the children are grappling with the news which they should have seen coming.
Succession started with Logan in medical distress so his demise has always been foreshadowed.
The strongest hint the end was near was the first episode of this last season where he asked his “only pal” - Colin the security guard - for his thoughts about the after life and what it means to be human over artery clogging burgers in a nondescript diner.
Commentators, including The Watch podcast, have long said this show isn’t an American drama or a British comedy, it showcases the “existential hollowness of capitalism”.
Succession mirrors certain dynasties, offers cleverly written observations and side-eyes about events like uncanny presidential bids and the conservative media space, but perhaps it’s most successful troupe is the way it so aptly shows that generational wealth is actually the worst and rich kids, like the Roys, are even worse.
You can have all the money, staff and private jets in the world, love is the most important stock, an illusive commodity for the Wall Street obsessed Roy clan. It’s no surprise Logan’s heart gave out, the autopsy may struggle to find he even had one.
The gaping hole in this family’s collective aorta was exposed inside a dingy karaoke bar, Shiv calls the “shame palace”, on the eve of Connor’s nuptials to Willa (who was last spotted fleeing her own rehearsal dinner).
The tipple of choice for the pampered Roy siblings, inside their private room, was a $75 bottle of Champagne Jacquart, a family-run house which is now headed up by the fifth-generation granddaughter, Marie Doyard.
The emotional cancer became terminal with Connor’s tune of choice - Leonard Cohen’s Famous Blue Raincoat with the lyrics “my brother, my killer”. Then a speech which drove a Shakespearean dagger through the heart of his siblings (and viewers) while the father “who ignored him his whole life” stormed out whinging about beggars and fat rats on the street.
“The good thing about having a family that doesn’t love you is you learn to live without it. You’re all chasing after dad saying ‘Love me. Please love me. I need love. I need attention.’ You’re needy love sponges and I’m a plant that grows on rocks and lives off insects that die inside of me,” Connor - the unlikely, and ultimate figure of pathos - says while fixing his cufflinks.
Logan then went full King Lear. Sacked his most loyal lieutenants, ditched his son’s wedding for work before muttering his final words: “Clean out the stalls. Strategic refocus. A bit more f…ing aggressive”.
What we’re left with now is an ensemble of broken, horrible, “not serious people” who now have seven more episodes to figure it all out. It’s not going to be the same now the big dog is gone. Now it’s not about the size of the Roy in the fight, but the size of the fight in the Roy.
Succession airs on Binge. Episode four drops at 11am on Monday, April 17.
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