We Need to Talk About That Succession Finale
More like "All the Bells Slay"
Succession Ep. 309: “All the Bells Say”
God damn, what a finale. This season of Succession has seemed a little scattershot and aimless in terms of plotting at points, but Sunday night’s finale tied pretty much everything together beautifully (and left a couple intriguing loose ends dangling) and now, looking back at the season knowing how it ends, I really appreciate everything it was building to.
The title of the episode, “All the Bells Say,” comes from the John Berryman poem “Dream Song 29” (“All the bells say: too late”). That poem also happens to be where the titles of the season 1 finale, “Nobody Is Ever Missing,” and the season 2 finale, “This Is Not for Tears,” come from. Do I have any idea what the poem means? Not really. It seems to be about a man, Henry, who’s feeling guilty about maybe killing someone (it’s giving Kendall) but then he didn’t actually kill someone? Well whatever it means, I’m predicting that the season 4 finale will be called “The Little Cough” or “A Grave Sienese Face,” and if I’m right then I would like $100,000 from HBO.
Anyway, the episode takes place at the wedding of the Roy children’s mom, Caroline (a joyfully chaotic Harriet Walter), in Italy. She’s getting married to a man named Peter Munion (Pip Torrens), which is fun little reference to a previous show that Jesse Armstrong worked on, The Thick of It, which featured an MP named Peter Mannion. Roman is worried that Peter’s just a gold digger and thinks that his mom shouldn’t be marrying him, but since she is he’s worried that she hasn’t made a prenup, which Caroline derides as “unromantic.”
The wedding happens anyway, but before the ceremony, Roman and Logan meet with Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård), a tech CEO whose company, GoJo, the Roys are eager to acquire. However, he asks if he can buy Waystar Royco instead. Roman tells him to fuck off, but, concerningly, Logan doesn’t seem like he hates the idea. He sends Roman away so that he can talk to Matsson one-on-one, and that’s when Roman really gets concerned.
After the actual ceremony, the Roy children come to two shocking conclusions: 1) Kerry is giving Logan maca root smoothies because they’re trying to increase his fertility so that he can have another child with her, and 2) Logan fully intends to sell to Matsson. But before anything can happen, Kendall breaks down and confesses to Shiv and Roman about the waiter he killed at Shiv’s wedding in season 1 (this family does weddings worse than the Game of Thrones people). In a scene that’s weirdly sweet, Roman and Shiv are able to cheer Kendall up by being absolutely awful (“So that’s why it took so long to get my drink”), and it’s actually a pretty accurate depiction, at least in my experience, of how siblings can cheer each other up while also still teasing each other. Once they realize they have the voting power to stop the buyout from happening, which they received in the divorce of Logan and Caroline, Kendall rallies, and he, Shiv, and Roman finally, after 9 episodes, form a united front and go off to stop Logan, and it’s honestly thrilling.
However, Shiv told Tom everything, and that turns out to be her fatal mistake.
After Shiv tells Tom their plan, he has a meeting with Greg and tells him that big things are happening, and he asks him to join him and “make a deal with the devil” so that he can escape from “the infinite middle”. The viewer assumes he’s asking Greg to join him in taking Logan down, but…
The three Roy children get to their dad, but he’s somehow aware of the plan, and he and Caroline have already agreed to get rid of the kids’ voting power. The kids plead with Logan to stop because they know that if Matsson buys them out, none of them will ever be CEO, and Roman even tries to appeal to love, which Logan laughs at. Roman also appeals to Gerri, but she just says that it’s in their best interest financially. They don’t know who alerted Logan to their plan, but suddenly Tom appears, at which point everyone I was watching it with screamed. In the last shot of the season (see screenshot above) Tom comforts Shiv, who is devastated, and she is clearly just realizing Tom’s betrayal.
I assumed the season was going to be building to Kendall’s suicide (as a lot of other people did) but it turns out that this is actually what the whole season was laying groundwork for. Tom offering to go to jail for the family and be the sacrificial lamb (which Logan says he won’t forget, and clearly he didn’t) and Shiv treating Tom like absolute shit was all building to this. This has been in the works for a while, even since the season 2 finale, when the two of them have that excellent scene where Tom calls out Shiv for treating him terribly. In Survivor parlance, Tom played a great game, and now he’s going to be the one to win the kiss from daddy.
So that’s the season! I am beyond pumped to see what season 4 holds, and having Tom (and Greg!) be in villainous cahoots with Logan is going to be so fun, and I can’t wait to see what Macfadyen, Braun, and Armstrong and co. do with it. I’m also intrigued by what Marcia is up to. She was skulking around at the wedding and reception, but she never actually had any scenes, and I have no doubt she’s plotting something. Hiam Abbass is great and I want to see more of Marcia next season. I’m also curious to see if Shiv, Roman, and Kendall’s alliance will hold, or if they’ll turn on each other again. If we have to wait for season 4 as long as we had to wait for this season (which we might, if Ms. Omicron has anything to say about it) then I’m literally going to go feral.
Next week: Okay, I know that I said this newsletter was going to be weekly, and after two weeks I’d already failed (lol) but this time I mean it when I say this is going to be weekly. Next week, in honor of Christmas Eve, I’ll be writing about my favorite Christmas episodes of TV, and I’ll also be writing about the absolutely unhinged first five episodes of Riverdale season 6. In two weeks, on the 31st, I’ll be dropping my top 10 favorite movies, TV shows, and albums of the year. So join me then! I promise I’ll actually write these this time!