We could not believe what was happening. Chapter 3 of season 4 presented us with a death that no one was expecting or prepared for. If you don’t know what we’re talking about, better go away and come back when you’ve caught up on Succession.
If you know what we’re talking about, take a look at an obituary like you’ve never seen before. Because no one in this media can beat us for originality. The question is: what is going to happen now with Waystar Royco and the Roy family?
Logan Roy’s death from natural causes is something we did not see coming. Even critics in the United States have begun to say – presumptuously – that this is the best episode of a television series in history. It seems they didn’t see the final episode of Los Serrano (just kidding).
But the reality is that the series, the plot, is going to change in a big way after the death of the family patriarch. The Roy family name has a lot of power in the United States and the children will have to adapt to this change in the game.
A story that can only end badly
We have to keep in mind that this is the last season of the series, so the screenwriters have surely thought of an ending that will satisfy the fans, while leaving the plot well settled.
Throughout the four seasons, Logan Roy’s three youngest children (Kendall, Shiv and Roman) have constantly allied and clashed. Always motivated by their father, the target of all the anger and envy among the children.
Only Connor, the eldest, has stayed out of the picture. He is the son of Logan Roy’s first marriage and therefore has never been part of the family’s business structure. Besides, he has other goals in life: to become President of the United States.
This lineup leaves us with three brothers, who have always been driven to kill each other, united by the same cause: to beat their father on his turf and take over a great progressive media outlet like Pierce.
But… now Logan Roy is dead, Waystar Royco has not been sold and ATN media is without leadership. The shareholder board still doesn’t know what to do and the Roy’s have a majority of the stock… if they work together.
Backstabbing for the Throne
One thing is clear here: the brothers have only worked together because they had a common enemy, their father. The leader, president and patriarch of the family and the business conglomerate has just died and someone has to take his place.
I believe, and this is on a personal note because it is an opinion piece, that the series can only be headed for fratricide. The brothers have never gotten along. Shiv and Kendall have always lusted for power and Roman just wanted to please, first his father and then his brothers.
This will cause the two middle brothers to start a battle (which has already begun) to take their father’s job, negotiate a better price for the sale of Waystar Royco (or keep it for themselves, I’m not sure) and transform ATN into a new media outlet.
And along the way, I believe, they will lose everything. I see no other end for the Roy family than to lose the company and the media. To lose everything, to realize that they were only something because of the charisma and lack of humanity of their father, the communications magnate.
Of course, once they lose it all (other people buy them out) and their voices are no longer heard at the Shareholders’ Meeting, they will no longer be relevant in the business world… but they will still be billionaires.
Because when you are tremendously rich and have power, you never stop being a millionaire, no matter how bad things get.
And that, dear reader, I believe will be the true ending and the true moral of Succession: in the end, it was all a child’s game with money.
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