‘Succession’ Finale Recap: “With Open Eyes”

How nice for the Roy kids that between their father’s funeral and the board vote that will irrevocably alter the path of their lives, they have one day to take a breather. Ha ha, just kidding, this family doesn’t breathe! As we open Succession Season 4 Episode 10, Kendall’s peacocking around the office, trying to project strength despite there being no path to victory for him as of right now. Shiv is a lot more confident with Matsson, plotting next steps including “Me as new CEO, yes?” No spoilers but perhaps she should have paused in her monologue long enough to notice whether or not he agreed — but she doesn’t, charging ahead to the subject of Tom: he’s competent and well-liked and ATN is important, but if Matsson wants to fire him, that’s totally fine with her. Good to know she doesn’t expect Matsson to be loyal!

Then Caroline calls. Remember the air-clearing conversation she wanted to have with the kids? Today was the day she had set aside for it (sure, a couple of hours should be lots to get through it all), so she wants to know if Shiv is coming. Shiv clearly has no intention to until Caroline lets her know that Roman — whose whereabouts have been unknown since he left the reception the previous night — is there. While she’s waiting for the PJ to take off, Tom calls to ask what she knows about his prospects, and mention the amicable parting he hopes they can have. Trying not to be vulnerable by saying what she might actually want, Shiv hints around that it might just be easier logistically if they stayed together. “You don’t like to fail a test, do you, Siobhan,” Tom muses. But Shiv thinks that they’ve already said all the worst things they possibly could say to each other, which means now they’re free, and wouldn’t he be interested in a real relationship now? He sincerely doesn’t know, so, eyes wet, she ends the call before she accidentally expresses a real feeling.

At Caroline’s place, Shiv gets her first look at Roman’s facial lacerations: a large scrape, and a line of stitches above his left eyebrow. She’s being gentle with him — if she’s trying to work him against Kendall, she’s slow-playing it — when Kendall arrives, as full of bluster as he was back in New York, and bringing fresh intel from Stewy that Matsson’s been talking to Lawrence Yee from Vaulter (R.I.P.). Shiv’s telling Kendall he’s being very aggressive with Roman under the circumstances only seems to make him louder, even as Roman protests that he doesn’t need anyone to look after him. Kendall announces that he’ll leave as soon as Roman tells him how he’s planning to vote, driving Roman away from the conversation. Still (officially) hoping for a reconciliation, Caroline asks about dinner. Shiv airily says she can, but that Kendall’s probably very busy. So Kendall has to front that he’s totally relaxed too and would love to stay. There’s still time before dinner for one more testy conversation when Roman wanders back, calling himself “the human vote.” Shiv brings up The Hundred again, and not to acclaim, as Kendall snaps at her to quit gloating. Shiv denies that she is: she wants there to be room for all their great ideas under her regime, besides which the two of them were the ones who first grabbed at the crown and pushed her out, so she doesn’t know why she’s the c—t here. “C—t is as c—t does,” Kendall shrugs. (If that isn’t already embroidered on a pillow in the Interior Illusions Lounge on RuPaul’s Drag Race, it should be.) “I won and I’m sorry for winning but I did,” says Shiv, adding that actually she’s not sorry, and Kendall should just “take it like a man and just eat it.” They might as well, since Caroline apparently didn’t actually think any of them were coming and seems not to have done a grocery run before they did show up for this alleged dinner.

Back in New York, Matsson and Tom have just finished up some subpar seafood when Matsson invites Tom to “soft-pitch” him on Tom himself. Tom’s list of generic toadying qualities quickly gives way to the constant anxiety he thinks makes him effective, as well as a “high tolerance for pain.” Those are the magic words, as Matsson reveals the episode’s least surprising twist: he doesn’t plan to make Shiv his U.S. CEO, and not just because of a recent magazine story that caricatured her as a puppeteer and Matsson her goofy marionette; he probably never did intend to give her the job. The continuity she provides as a Roy isn’t as valuable as he formerly thought, and he doesn’t need her ideas; he has his own. He also thinks he might want to sleep with her at some point and that she would do it, under the right circumstances. He follows a pro forma apology for making this conversation weird for Tom, officially her husband at the moment, before asking rhetorically why he would hire “the baby lady” if he could have the guy who put the baby in her? Matsson wants the U.S. CEO to be Tom, because he’s looking for a frontman, not a partner — someone who can be his “pain sponge”: “Logan Mark II, only this time he’s fucking sexy!” When Matsson takes off for celebratory shots, Tom covers his emotion by telling Greg he’s about to get his salary absolutely slashed, but will at least keep his job. But Greg really learned Tom’s lesson about hoarding information, so as Matsson and Oskar chat in Swedish at the bar, Greg uses his phone to translate, and thus he’s the first to know Matsson’s planning to screw Shiv over.

At the very light dinner, Caroline suggests that they’ve arrived at the perfect moment to say farewell to the company and move on, seeming not to remember her part in all the maneuvering they’ve been doing all season. They can’t hash it out now: some friend of Peter’s is there to pitch the kids a business opportunity, because of course he is. This is when Greg calls. His news is huge, but Kendall will have to promise “full quad” before Greg spills. Kendall tells him to go for it…

…and after another call to fact-check Greg, Kendall rescues his siblings from Jonathan’s incredible care home investment pitch to tell Shiv that Matsson is fucking her over. Even as he’s telling her she probably shouldn’t check that with Matsson himself, Shiv’s already calling him…and seeing that he’s not picking up, lying that it’s normal for him to ignore her calls. She should call Karolina, who’s already erased her name from the draft of the deal announcement. Shiv stomps off, Roman hopefully asking Kendall whether this means their united front with the board is back on. And the screaming they can hear from the other side of the property would suggest that if she hasn’t yet entirely changed sides, she’s at least off Matsson’s.

So now what? When Shiv returns, they have to figure out how to return to their original plan. First, they call Tellis the consultant, who confirms that Matsson doesn’t need a Roy; he needs chops and (no offense to Shiv, particularly once Kendall tells her she’s there), Shiv doesn’t have them. They will need to present the board with an alternative plan, including their leadership choice…and obviously Kendall is the first one to say that it should be him. Roman says that Logan actually said he wanted Roman to do it. Shiv says he told her the same thing. Kendall seems to think he’s won the argument when he says that Logan first told him he was next in line when Kendall was 7: “He said a lot of things and he said them to me first.” And to Roman last, Roman says. But does Roman even want it, Kendall wonders: “You’re not that guy.” Throwing his funeral breakdown in his face, Kendall says Roman shrank into himself; maybe it means Roman’s well-adjusted (lol) and Kendall’s just a “business psycho,” but CEO is an awful job that kills you and Roman’s not cut out for it. When Roman tearfully wanders off, Kendall mutters to Shiv, “He just can’t say it. He doesn’t want it but he can’t say.” As for whether it should be Shiv: no one’s going to take them seriously putting her forward when she was on Matsson’s side eight hours ago. “Anyone” would “objectively” say that Kendall is the play, if they want to keep the company for their kids.

And then they’re walking down to the beach, Kendall still pitching them on the fiefdoms they could each control under his leadership. Roman’s scared to swim at night, so Kendall has to explain marine habitats to him: “There’s no bad sharks in Bim, baby. They’re North Atlantic.” “Well, they could commute,” Roman suggests. “All the seas, in case you didn’t know this, are connected! It’s like a huge water subway of things that want to eat me.” Water-borne dangers may be coming for someone in this episode, but Roman should be safe. 

Kendall swims out to give them the chance to talk behind his back. Do they fuck the deal, let “a business school dry cleaner” run the company their father founded? Neither of them wants Kendall to be CEO, but they don’t see each other doing it either. When Roman asks whom Shiv thinks Logan really wanted to succeed him, Shiv says the truth that now seems extremely obvious: he only cared about “putting one foot in front of the other.” Roman doesn’t think he wanted to give it to any of them. They finally relent, agreeing that they probably should give it to Kendall…

…unless they kill him instead, as they joke when they join Kendall at the floating dock he’s swum to — they discussed it, but it seemed too hard. Instead, “we anoint you,” Shiv tells Kendall. “You get the bauble,” Roman adds. “It’s haunted and cursed and nothing will ever go right, but: enjoy your bauble!” When Kendall is too stunned to react, Shiv yells, “You can smile, bitch!”

Kendall’s smiles: rare; always unsettling!

There’s just one more thing to make Kendall’s accession official: a meal fit for a king. A seeming holdover from their childhood, this involves putting as many disgusting foods as they can find into a blender for Kendall to drink: skim milk, rancid relish, frozen bread heels Caroline supplies when their horsing around is loud enough to summon her. (When they giddily tell her they’re voting together to sink the deal the next deal, she tells them, “On your head be it!” Quite. She tried!) Going back to bed looking a little touched that her children have found something to agree about other than that she’s a bad mother — the air-cleaning trip was a success after all — she goes back to bed and Kendall is served his meal. Given how Jeremy Strong is, you know he made them serve him exactly the concoction that was scripted, and you know he really drank it. Here’s hoping they got it on the first take, because the rest gets dumped on Kendall’s head: “Wear your crown, sir.” 

Connor’s not involved in the board meeting, but he does get a moment on the day: before he and Willa properly move in, he’s giving everyone who knew Logan the chance to go through the house and mark anything they want, using assigned colored stickers. Willa seems to be looking forward to Connor’s appointment, not only so she can move in the cow-print couch she bought, but because she’s going to have a play reading in six to eight months, so they’ve decided she’s just going to stay in the city and prepare for that, while Connor goes on his diplomatic posting to Slovenia. It’s news to Willa, when Shiv brings it up, that there’s still litigation underway in Wisconsin and that Mencken may not be president and, thus, that Connor may not be an ambassador at all. And if you were hoping this episode would supply a definitive answer on this election, too bad, that’s all you get!

When the kids cross into another room, a video is playing on TV: Logan, Kerry, the top team, and Connor goofing around after dinner a few months ago. Logan recites a long, humorous poem; Gerri a filthy limerick; Connor “I’m A Little Teapot” in character as Logan, who’s a good sport about it. Then Karl sings a sentimental ballad that eventually everyone, including Logan, joins in on. 

In an echo of the way the three younger Roy kids gripped each other in the Season 3 finale, all are moved by this documentary evidence of Logan having fun and being fun. If Willa is the one holding the camera, maybe she is an artist after all.

Nice moment over, Tom and Shiv check in with each other. Shiv bitterly tells him about hearing from Greg that she’s not going to be CEO, so Tom decides he has to tell her he will. She curses him out and grabs her brothers to strategize (some more). Tom drags Greg into a bathroom to scold him for snitching, and Greg actually slaps Tom back. Tom calls Matsson to warn him. Matsson rallies his troops.

At the office, the maneuvering continues right to the last possible moment. Karolina, happy that Shiv will usher in a new era and change the culture, urges her to fire Hugo. Stewy pledges to vote with the kids, waving off a vague offer of a more important role on the board.

And then Gerri is there. Roman was caught off-guard earlier by the sight of her on the dinner video, but pleased to see her in such a relaxed and happy setting. Now she’s here to get a gigantic payoff due to Roman’s impetuous firing, and he loses all his nerve for the day, telling Kendall he’s going to phone in his vote. Kendall, thinking of the optics, reminds Roman that people already know he’s there. But then we see Roman leaning over to examine his wounds in a mirrored tray. They look a lot better than he thought: “It’s fucking stupid but like, why isn’t it me?” As Roman gets emotional again, Kendall folds him into a hug — a very, very tight hug that, as it goes on Roman seems to be trying to escape from…

…and when they part, we see that Kendall was jerking Roman back and forth on his shoulder in order to rip out his stitches. “It could have been you,” he says. Not with this business psycho around.

Time for the meeting! The less well-known board members do a more convincing job of looking like they aren’t extremely curious about what the messy Roys are going to do than I would in their place. Frank gives Kendall the floor to offer his alternative to the GoJo deal, and unfortunately, Kendall spent so much time last night swimming and drinking a horrible smoothie that he forgot to come up with an alternative to the GoJo deal — if he were ever going to, which I guess I wouldn’t assume. “The deal is a bad deal,” Kendall says. If the voters want it to go through, they’ll have to fire him. …Compelling? It seems not to change anyone’s mind. Frank, Sandy, and Sandi are among the “Yes” votes; Kendall, Ewan, Stewy, and (after a long pause) Roman are among the “No”s. It comes to Shiv to break the tie…

…but she steps out before saying anything, her brothers giving chase. At Kendall’s hectoring, she finally says she may have changed her mind. Panicking, Kendall tells her he’s a cog built to fit one machine; running this company is the only thing he knows how to do. If the performance we just saw in the boardroom is proof of that: yikes? “I can do this,” Kendall intones. “I don’t think you’d be good at it,” Shiv tells him. We briefly cut to the POV of the board members as the siblings are perfectly audible screaming at each other down the hall, Kendall telling Shiv that if he doesn’t get to do this, he might die. Presumably at this point some of these members are wondering if there’s a way they could vote “Yes” twice, or at least harder?

So Shiv busts out a trump card: “You can’t be CEO, you can’t, because you killed someone.” “W— Which?” Kendall asks. Later, Shiv and Roman may realize that his other victim is their father, and that despite the many times this season that one or another Roy kid has accused Matsson of having killed Logan, this is a guilt they also bear. But right now, Roman sputters, “Like, you’ve killed so many people you forgot which one?” Trying to “dad it” by just saying whatever will get him through this moment, Kendall babbles that it’s not a problem; it didn’t happen. He wanted them all to bond, at a difficult moment, but while “there was a kid,” Kendall never even got into the car. Horrified, Shiv and Roman try to decipher what he’s saying: did it happen? Was he working them by falsely confessing to it? “FUCKING VOTE FOR ME,” Kendall pleads. Shiv won’t, and now neither will Roman. “I’m the ELDEST BOY!” Kendall screams. Roman piles on: actually, as far as Logan was concerned, Shiv is the bloodline because Kendall’s children are not his biological offspring and therefore are not, in Logan’s parlance, “real.”

Hey Kendall, this violent defense of your children’s legitimacy is certainly a choice, but there are more concrete was that SOPHIE, at least, might have liked you to defend her, any time over the past week. 

After Shiv has left, Kendall desperately tells Roman they can still hit Frank and change the vote.  But Roman is done, yelling at Kendall, “We are bullshit!…It’s all fucking nothing. I’m telling you this because I know it.”

And he’s right, of course: when Kendall returns to the boardroom, he can’t even get “re-vote” out of his mouth before Frank shuts him down: Waystar Royco, this thing everyone’s been fighting over for 39 episodes, was officially sold, offscreen, while Kendall and his siblings were trying to tear each other’s faces off. They’re not serious people.

The Tom era starts immediately, and while he tries to stay cold with Greg, he can’t keep it up. Greg is a piece of shit. He “fucked it.” Matsson hates him.

But Tom’s got him.

Nothing left but the dénouement. Roman tries to get out of a paper-signing photo op with Matsson, but caves. He then takes himself for a solo cocktail, smiling inscrutably under his still-weeping brow cut.

Shiv’s already in Tom’s car when he gets in. She congratulates him. He opens his hand. She rests hers on it.

Their schedules may continue to be compatible after all.

And Kendall, like a zombie, walks through a park, trailed by his new body man, Colin. When he finds his way to the waterfront, he sits on a bench and gazes out. Did people who said they loved him also fuck him? Or was keeping Kendall out of Logan’s seat the best way to honor their dear, dear world of a father, one last time? As usual with this show, it’s impossible to pull them apart, and we’re all going to miss its ambiguities.   

Margin Calls

• “With Open Eyes”: Primarily, the episode title refers to various characters seeing things clearly, maybe for the first time in their lives. But it is also literal, as we learn that Peter had to administer Roman’s eye drops because eyes “provoke” Caroline; she also calls them “face eggs,” much as I will be from now on. 
• We can’t miss you if you don’t leave: Caroline had multiple ulterior motives in getting her children to her house, and she seems gratified to have gotten through them all as their car pulls out after less than 24 hours and she snits “Go away” at it. “Fucking waste of time,” Peter agrees. Nice to know all Roy and Roy-adjacent family members have roughly the same level of contempt for each other.
• Robert’s Rules Of Stickering: As anyone with a downsizing older relative knows, Connor did not invent the idea of having descendants and loved ones mark things they want before the ancestors pass on, but he did invent overly complicated verbiage to describe it. “Stickering Perambulating Circuits,” indeed. 
• The non-iron non-throne: Before the board meeting, the kids all find themselves in Logan’s former office for final strategy talk. Kendall hesitates before sitting in the chair at Logan’s desk, non-verbally seeking his siblings’ permission, but neither of them wants to make it a bigger deal than it is: “It’s not a magic chair.” I don’t know, man. Curses are magic, too.

Television Without Pity, Fametracker, and Previously.TV co-founder Tara Ariano has had bylines in The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Vulture, Slate, Salon, Mel Magazine, Collider, and The Awl, among others. She co-hosts the podcasts Extra Hot Great, Again With This (a compulsively detailed episode-by-episode breakdown of Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place), Listen To Sassy, and The Sweet Smell Of Succession. She’s also the co-author, with Sarah D. Bunting, of A Very Special 90210 Book: 93 Absolutely Essential Episodes From TV’s Most Notorious Zip Code (Abrams 2020). She lives in Austin.