It's tough being a Roy. Photo / HBO
This is your first spoiler warning. If you haven’t seen Succession season four episode one, The Munsters, turn back now. This isn’t reality TV, Succession is not something you can skip and just read the recaps.
Welcome back, fellow travellers. As we embark on the final stretch of this journey, allow us to be your Virgil through the Roys’ nine circles of hell.
Hell for us or hell for them? Definitely not us. We will revel in the delicious delights of Jesse Armstrong’s writing as we watched the emotionally damaged Roys hurt each other in ever-more bruising ways.
Schadenfreude is so intoxicating.
Who needs Judas when you have four siblings, two parents, a lumbering cousin and a cowardly husband all vying for the title of betrayer-in-chief?
Now for your second spoiler warning – leave, leave now if you haven’t seen the season four opener
It’s been a hot minute since the finale of the previous season, so you’d be forgiven if you’ve forgotten where we left things in the sun-kissed fields of Tuscany.
All you need to remember is Logan agreed to sell Waystar Royco to Lukas Matsson, with a carve-out of ATN news so he can continue to run a media fiefdom without the distraction of those rapey cruises.
The kids – Shiv, Roman and Kendall – try to stop dad because they 100 per cent, absolutely, wholeheartedly believe they’re entitled to inherit Waystar, so they form an alliance to block the sale.
But the powers they’re relying on – some kind of super voting rights – have been secretly traded by their mother for 30 pieces of silver (ie. a townhouse) after Logan got the heads-up from Tom.
The kids are distraught, Logan is furious but victorious and Shiv knows what Tom did.
OK, this is your final spoiler warning – after this, you only have yourself to blame.
Daddy’s birthday
It’s Logan’s birthday, everyone! The old(er) man is wandering the many rooms of his Manhattan townhouse in a spiffy, double-breasted cardigan. His assistant/lover Kerry is shadowing him with intent.
It’s a sad state of affairs, and by sad, we mean pathetic. All the hangers-on have turned out to awkwardly sing “Happy birthday” – kaching to the rights owners of that song. Logan’s reaction to the salute? “Jesus, f**king christ. Munsters, meet the f**king munsters”. As usual, he’s not wrong.
Tom tries to shore up Logan’s support in the event of a permanent separation from Shiv, but his fumbling words are met with a non-committal “if we’re good, we’re good”. Thanks, daddy, that’s really comforting.
Cousin Greg has brought a random as his date – Bridget, a normie from the apps. Bridget the normie has even less game than Greg and immediately commits a series of faux pas including bringing a large handbag, posting to her socials and asking Logan for a selfie.
Tom relishes punching down on Greg for bringing this intruder into their rarefied air, channelling his own outsider insecurities from when he first joined the fam, hoping no one will notice that was once him.
Remember that whenever Tom is wounded, the first thing he does is take it out on Greg.
Also remember when Tom gave Logan an expensive watch in the first season? It was terribly gauche and not the done thing – and a plot point the writers borrowed from when Princess Diana gifted the Queen the same, not understanding the monarch who has everything preferred homemade jam or whoopee cushions. No joke.
What is a joke is Connor’s one per cent of support in the presidential race. Apparently, he’ll need to spend $100 million just to hold his one per cent. And what would be the point of one per cent? Well, it keeps you in the conversation. Why anyone would even want to be in the cesspool that is American public discourse baffles, befuddles and bewilders anyone outside of the US.
Still, credit to Connor for being the only child of Logan’s to even show up for daddy’s birthday, which only highlights how inconsequential he really is. But don’t worry, because if he spent the $100 million, he’d still be rich. No cost-of-living crisis here!
Logan refers to his guests as “piggies” – classy – and he’s restless, so he bails on his own party with bodyguard Colin.
At a diner, Logan tells Colin he’s his best pal and seemingly gets philosophical by asking him, “What are people?”. But in case you feared he was getting soft, Logan answers his own question – “They’re economic units”. And, apparently, we’re all just part of a market.
But he does get dark for a moment. He asks Colin if he thinks there’s anything after “all this”, being life, and, again answering his own question, says “I don’t think so, I think this is it”. The mark of a true capitalist.
The kids are fine, they’re fine, OK?!
In a stark contrast in architectural styles, Shiv, Kendall and Roman are plotting their next move in an open-plan and very lush California mansion. The sun may be streaming in, but their veins are still running with ice-cold neuroses.
They’re putting together their new media venture called The Hundred, described by Kendall as “Substack meets Masterclass meets The Economist meets The New Yorker”.
We’d read that but also probably not given that sounds like less a direction for a proper publication and more like buzzwords from someone whose experience in the area is a bunch of failed ventures. Daddy’s right – these guys are hopeless.
At least they kind of know, right? Because they have doubts, even if they’re not framing it as such. Roman generously wonders aloud if their ambition is too small scale, offering up this little nugget – “My only worry with The Hundred is, is it too good, why has no one done this before?”
This so-called “revolutionary new media brand that’s going to redefine news in the 21st century” sounds a lot like the corporate wankery that can come from execs but never from anyone who’s actually worked in a newsroom.
But before the kids are confronted with any real work, like taking investment money from human rights-challenged petrochem-oligarchs, a well-timed phone call from Tom to Shiv gives them a different idea.
Tom confesses to Shiv that he had a drink with Naomi Pierce the previous night and just wanted to warn her in case any pap pics comes out.
And after she spirals out at the prospect of her estranged husband moving on with another nepo baby – a superb piece of acting from Sarah Snook – the kids realise what’s really going on.
Logan is trying to buy Pierce Global Media again. You’ll remember Logan made this play in season two, but matriarch Nan, who oversees a New York Times-esque print media business, really hates Logan and decided to not sell.
The prospect of buying Pierce out from under daddy is too enticing for Shiv and Kendall, who immediately smell blood. Roman is arguing against it and when Kendall asks him if he’s scared of fighting the old man, Roman protests.
But he’s obviously scared. Roman has always been the one whose thumping need for daddy’s approval is the least complicated, unlike Shiv and Kendall who want the same but is made murky by their defiant streaks.
Kendall tries to convince Roman that buying Pierce would have nothing to do with daddy and Roman correctly hits back, “Don’t believe you”.
Of course, it has everything to do with Logan, and just like Prince Harry “striking out on his own”, what the Roy kids really want is to be back in the family firm in one way or the other. They don’t actually see a problem with all the structural and systemic rot, they just had their feelings hurt. Boo hoo.
A piercing play
Nan Pierce is open to hearing an offer from the kids and coyly summons them to her estate – it looks to be Napa – but not before a series of pretences that she is somehow above it all.
Cherry Jones plays it beautifully, fully leaning into Nan’s need to make out as if she finds the whole bidding war unseemly but also very obviously not. Let’s not kid ourselves, Nan cares nothing for the deal she already agreed to if there’s more money on the table. And she knows exactly how to play this game.
Her supposed hesitancy is also less about keeping up appearances and more a sneaky negotiating tactic.
One of the great things about Succession is as much as it judges the Roys and their right-wing media empire, it makes clear that their progressive counterparts are no different.
The Pierces – a veiled nod to the Schultzbergers – hold a different position on the ideological spectrum but just because they’re not waging war on decency doesn’t mean they’re not just as ruthless and morally bankrupt. If there’s anyone with a skerrick of virtue in this world, they’re on a different show.
Back in Manhattan, Logan and his team catches wind of a rival bid for Pierce and Logan ends the party.
The lackeys – Gerri, Karl and Frank – figure out the kids are the rival bidders but, in true coward form, none want to tell Logan, engaging in their usual round buck-passing.
Logan is incensed and tells Tom to call his wife – note he doesn’t say “call my daughter” – and tell her that she’s never had a “f**king idea her entire life”. Daddy’s mad.
In the middle of all this, Greg boasts to Tom that he, one of the self-appointed “disgusting brothers”, got it on with Bridget the normie in one of the guest bedrooms. There was some hands-in-pants in rummaging, which may or may not have come to fruition.
Tom roasts Greg by convincing his punching bag that Greg accidentally made Logan a sex tape and that the boss watches all the surveillance cameras every night. Tom the saboteur convinces Greg to confess to Logan, and not surprisingly, Bridget the normie is ejected from the party by Colin.
Back to the bidding war and master negotiator Nan, despite saying it’s not about numbers, extracts from the kids’ bills upon bills – that’s billions to us regular folk. And Shiv lets on that she and Tom are headed for divorce so there won’t be a conflict between running Pierce and being married to the head of ATN.
Just as an aside, the production designers did a beautiful job this episode with the contrast between Logan’s old-money Manhattan townhouse with its dark tones and heavy furniture and the Pierce’s light-filled, plush opulent mansion. They may be two different spaces in style, but the moral turpitude is still the same.
Logan lowballs it at 6 bill and the kids are pushed to 10 after essentially bidding against themselves. When Roman asks if it’s worth 10 bill, their acquisition consultant parrots what every real estate agent says, “it’s worth what the top bidder will pay”. That phrase is never not frustrating.
The shemozzle ends with a very pleased brood of Pierces and daddy shouting down the phone to his kids, “Congratulations on saying the biggest number, you f**king morons”. He is, again, correct.
Is it just us or is that supposed self-satisfied laugh that comes from Shiv and Kendall laced with some fear and hurt? As Gob Bluth would say, “I’ve made a huge mistake”.
Marriage story
The bidding war might’ve driven the plot for the episode, but the real thrust of this season opener is the final act between Shiv and Tom.
It is heartbreaking stuff and cements Snook and Matthew Macfadyen as a couple of the most skilled actors working today.
Shiv returns to their New York apartment, ostensibly to pick up clothes. It comes out that Shiv has been staying in a hotel since the start of their trial separation.
When Tom asks her if she wants to talk, she pauses, and then starts spoiling for a fight. She prods him, asking him if he’s sleeping with models. She repeats his name at the end of every sentence, a nice passive-aggressive touch.
It’s not a shouting match. Tom looks sad and Shiv is barely masking her pain with her petulance. No one is winning in this horrible schism.
Shiv pushes Tom to make their separation official. He wants to properly hash it out but she stops him, “I think it might be time for you and me to move on”. Too much has happened. They’ve both betrayed and hurt each other.
Shiv says, “I think we could talk things to death but I think we both made some mistakes and I think a whole lot of crying and bullshit is not going to help that, so if you’re good, we can just walk away with our heads held high and say good luck, yeah.”
He agrees and they both sit down on the bed, with their backs to each other. He leans over and offers to “make love” to her, his midwestern roots coming to the fore, and Shiv considers it for a moment and then declines.
But they both lie down on the bed, not quite next to each other but not not next to each other. And then hold hands.
“We gave it a go.”
Succession is available to watch on Neon.
The comedian and screen icon is set to make his NZ stand-up debut this July.