Let’s talk about that shocking ‘Succession’ Season 4 plot twist

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains major spoilers for the fourth season of “Succession.”

The king is dead. Long live the king — or queen.

“Succession” fans were shocked, confused, excited, saddened and more when lead character Logan Roy, played by Brian Cox, was killed off in the show’s Easter Sunday episode in a stunningly anticlimactic way.

That Logan, head of a right-wing media conglomerate, was going to die this season, the acclaimed series’ last, was a no-brainer. The character had already cheated death in the first season and what else would you expect from a show called “Succession”? That it happened in the third of 10 episodes was the shocking part.

It was yet more evidence of the brilliance of series creator Jesse Armstrong and his writers.

Up until Sunday, it seemed safe to assume the season would feature more of what we had seen in the first two episodes: Logan in a power struggle with his three youngest children, Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook) and Roman (Kieran Culkin), that would put the Roy family’s jaw-droppingly dysfunctional dynamics on full display.

Killing off Logan this early seems to guarantee an even wilder ride to the finish than we could have hoped for.

Logan was the kids’ adversary but also their compass. As much as they claimed to be charting their own paths, their complicated feelings about Logan informed every decision they made. Witness the speed with which they abandoned plans for an independent digital media brand in the first episode to bid $10 billion for a legacy media company mainly so they could undermine their father.

Now, with a power vacuum at the top, we seem to be in for some of the most vicious competition yet, with the heirs pitted not just against each other but the top employees of Waystar Royco, the people who were with Logan when he expired.

Kendall, Shiv and Roman still seemed to be functioning as a unit as Sunday’s episode, “Connor’s Wedding,” began.

They were attending the nuptials of older brother Connor (Alan Ruck) and in reasonably good spirits, although Logan had saddled Roman with the awful task of telling long-time employee Gerri she was about to be fired.

Logan himself was giving the wedding a miss, on his way to Sweden to try to save the sale of his media empire to a tech entrepreneur there, a sale that would cut his children out of the company.

Just before he boarded a private plane, Logan discussed plans with current right-hand man Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) to eliminate both Gerri and Syd, the head of his cable news network. His last words, as far as viewers were concerned, were: “Clean out the stalls. Strategic refocus. A bit more f–kin’ aggressive.”

And then, 14 minutes and 43 seconds into the episode, Tom broke the news by phone to Roman that Logan was “very sick.”

He had experienced shortness of breath and was found “non-responsive” in a bathroom. A flight attendant was doing chest compressions.

For the next 35 minutes, viewers were on a roller-coaster along with Logan’s children — he might be breathing; he might not be breathing; he might be dead; he might still be alive — until the chest compressions finally stopped.

“Succession” is a show in which voice is rarely given to genuine emotions, but the kids — granted a chance to “speak” to their father, a cellphone held up to his doubtless already unhearing ear — seemed genuinely devastated.

“You’re a monster and you’re gonna win,” said Roman, the most reluctant to believe his father had actually died.

“I can’t forgive you,” Kendall told him, but “I love you.”

“Daddy, I love you so don’t please, not now,” said an inconsolable Shiv.

Part of the genius of the episode was the way in which Logan left the world. There were no on-camera death throes, no dramatic collapse, no final farewells. We got a 10-second view of the top of Logan’s head, his face unseen, as the flight attendant methodically and steadily continued CPR.

Later, after the plane turned back to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, Logan’s body was carried to a waiting ambulance in a nondescript blue body bag. Roman followed it down the airplane steps; Shiv had already left with estranged husband Tom; Kendall stood apart, watching from a distance.

Oh, and Connor? He went ahead and got married.

The other kids shared a group hug after Shiv read a brief statement announcing Logan’s death to the assembled media, but with the governance of the corporation up for grabs it seems certain sibling unity will be replaced with sibling rivalry.

Viewers will surely miss Brian Cox, but his character’s death has left us the promise of even more intense drama to come.

Debra Yeo is a deputy editor and a contributor to the Star’s Entertainment section. She is based in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @realityeo

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