HBO
Succession is over, and so too are the CEO dreams of the Roy siblings, whose quest for power collapsed in a boardroom showdown of almost perfect (by which I mean, wholly inevitable) dysfunction. It was an ideal conclusion for Jesse Armstrong’s seismic HBO hit, which offered glimpses of its protagonists’ pitiable humanity and then stark reminders of their greedy, desperate, me-first ugliness.
To the end, it was a series that slyly sought to inspire sympathy for its devils. In doing so, it made its viewers complicit in its characters’ madness, as well as no different, really, than the Roy kids themselves with regards to their (pathetic, needy, misbegotten) love for their rancid paterfamilias, Logan (Brian Cox).
In many respects, the Succession finale resembled any other preceding episode, with Kendall (Jeremy Strong) striving to solidify support for his bid to block Waystar RoyCo’s sale to Lukas Matsson’s (Alexander Skarsgård) GoJo, Shiv (Sarah Snook) trying to secure her own spot at the head of the table, Roman (Kieran Culkin) acting like a sniveling, damaged creep, and Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) groveling at the feet of anyone who might throw him a crumb—all as his sycophantic minion Greg (Nicholas Braun) feigned fealty while angling to improve his own spot among this wretched lot.