‘Succession’ Season 3 Finale Shocker: Tom Wambsgans Gets the Last Laugh
You know your relationship with your mother is complicated when you give her a wedding toast that both calls her out for being an absentee parent and places her marriage in competition with your own. Shiv’s wedding speech for her icy mother in Succession’s Season 3 finale is one for the ages: “I’m jealous of the time you get to spend with her,” Shiv tells her new stepfather. “I hope your marriage is as rich and happy and rewarding and fulfilling as mine.”
Last week’s episode ended on a cliffhanger: Kendall Roy floating face-down in an infinity pool after finally throwing in the towel in his own competition with he and Shiv’s other problem parent. The finale opens with a reassurance that, no, that New Yorker profile was not a send-off for Jeremy Strong. While the family plays monopoly, Logan assures Kendall’s son, Iverson, that his father is OK. Now, it’s time to watch mommy get remarried—and as one might predict, none of the kids are really alright.
Kendall is doing his best to put on his most normal, moralistic front when he first meets his siblings before the wedding. He informs his siblings he’s ready to “get into it all” and share the family’s dirty secrets with the press. (“We have been talking to Vanity Fair,” Comfrey murmurs at one point, “but it’s mostly us calling them.”) Shiv, meanwhile, won’t stop pestering Roman with jokes about how much he wants to fuck their mother—just one more humiliation for him to try and shake off after last week’s dick pic fiasco.
‘Succession’s’ Brian Cox Reveals How He Really Feels About Jeremy Strong and Why Shiv Could Win
Roman seems pleased when Daddy decides to bring him along to hammer out a final deal between Waystar Royco and the eccentric tech mogul he’s been courting, Lukas Mattson. But then come the questions: “So, what is it, son? Are you scared of pussy? Is it all screens up the ass with you, or what? ... If you need to get straightened out, get straightened out, OK? I don’t want to know.” Prodding his sons about their sexualities is something of a hobby for Logan, who has asked not just Roman but Kendall if he’s “queer” before—usually as a bullying tactic.
This season has fixated on Roman’s “sex thing,” as Shiv calls it, but neither she nor anyone in the Roy orbit should really open their mouths on the subject. Shiv’s toxic relationships with her parents have rendered her incapable of trust; despite what her toast implies, the best flirting she’s done with Tom in years is making fun of Greg. In fact, it’s Shiv’s inability to see her husband for who he really is—and how he’s really feeling—that sends everything crashing down in the end.
But more on that later—first, down to business.
When Logan and Roman sit down with Alexander Skarsgård’s Swedish tech bro, things start to go south for the Roy Family Peewee League. Lukas doesn’t want to merge; he wants to take over, which jeopardizes the Roy kids’ plush positions. Logan sends Roman off to the wedding, and Roman is right to be pouty; it’s pretty clear Logan is thinking about Lukas’ proposal.
Roman arrives just in time for a kids’ table intervention with Kendall—who’s pretty sure he’s not the one with the problem, his siblings are. But then he says something fascinating: “Do you have any idea how it feels, as the eldest son, to be promised something and then just have it taken?”
Connor, the actual eldest son, just wishes someone had told him about last week’s merger of equals—or maybe ever considered him to take up his father’s mantle. “You’re hurt?” he asks. “I didn’t see Pop for three years, but your spoon wasn’t shiny enough, huh? This is not all about you.”
It’s become clear this season that Connor, Logan’s only child from his first marriage, became an emotional stand-in for his father with the other kids at some point—at least, he took his siblings fly-fishing when Logan couldn’t be bothered. But because this family has no sense of loyalty and because Connor is, to be fair, kind of a jackass, all Connor has ever gotten from his family is ridicule and bile.
On the bright side: To answer one of our burning questions ahead of the finale, Willa—clearly taking pity on Connor—decides to say “yes” to his marriage proposal from last week. “You know what? Fuck it... How bad can it be?” (Great story for the kids.)
But then things come tumbling down. Word gets to Roman, and then Shiv and Kendall, that Daddy is possibly, almost definitely working to sell the company out from under them.
Kendall sinks to the ground and laughs when Shiv asks if he has an “angle” on the deal. He insists he’s “not here.” Finally, his siblings give him the chance to tell them what he’s really feeling—and by some miracle, he takes it. He finally admits to killing the waiter at Shiv’s wedding. “It’s fucking lonely,” he says. “I’m all apart.” He sobs on the ground as Shiv says what we all knew was coming: Yes, this is a terrible time, but they need to talk about this merger. Now.
Another surprise: When Shiv asks where Kendall would like to wait, he asks to ride with his siblings instead. They say yes without hesitation. Roman throws his arm around his brother and rubs his freshly buzzed head, an echo of the playful warmth we saw during last year’s finale. In the car, however, Kendall reveals that thanks to their mother’s divorce settlement, the kids can now overrule their father.
The moment is electric, vulnerable, dangerous. Last season, we watched as Roman and Shiv each tried to suss out what the other was feeling on the yacht—and, you know, Shiv threw Kendall under the bus with Logan. This time, alone as they’ll ever be in the back of the car, the Roy kids tell one another what they’re really thinking—and they all agree it’s finally time to “kill” Dad.
Now we’re back to where Kendall was in the premiere: Cellphone theater. The kids call their allies on the ride over to confront their father. Roman calls Connor, Shiv calls Tom, and Kendall checks to make sure the loophole is legitimate. (It is.)
Unfortunately for the would-be mutineers on this old steamship, one glaring error sets their whole plan ablaze before they even walk in the door.
Shiv’s marriage has been crumbling before our eyes throughout Succession, but things have gotten dire ever since Shiv showed just how content she was to watch her husband go to jail. (Go figure.) It also didn’t help when Kendall condescendingly congratulated Tom on marrying his way to power.
When Shiv calls her husband to update him on her latest plan, he asks one very reasonable question: “Where do I fit in, Shiv?” Her answer? A very uninspiring “We’ll figure it out.”
Naturally, there’s only one person Tom wants to share this news with. When Greg gushes to Tom about his latest flirtations with a princess from Luxembourg, his curiously intent corporate confidante counters with a proposal of his own. (It’s all very Pride and Prejudice, isn’t it?)
“Things may be in motion,” Tom says, his voice dripping of conspiratorial intrigue. “You wanna come with me, Sporus?”
Savvy viewers likely know what’s coming next—but it’s the execution that makes Kendall, Shiv, and Roman’s confrontation with Logan so difficult to watch.
Logan’s not even remotely surprised when his kids storm the meeting room. His reasoning for selling the company, essentially giving himself yet another multi-billion dollar pile of money to throw on top of another while leaving his (still very rich) kids out in the cold? “Make your own fucking pile.”
And unfortunately for Team Succession, Daddy was one step ahead. Someone tipped him off, which gave him time to call the kids’ mother and talk her into taking away their supermajority share. The Roy kids’ parents—whose acrimony has forced them to act as go-betweens for all kinds of sordid messages—still teamed up to betray them.
Kieran Culkin has never been more perversely heartbreaking than he is here. As undeniably revolting as Roman is, Culkin’s pathetic delivery of the words, “Dad... Please?” as his character realizes they’ve lost hits the same nerve as a child flinching after a slap. But Logan’s having none of it.
“Please?” he asks. Roman will have to do better than that. What does he have to offer Logan in return for his mercy, his support?
“What have I got?” the consummate failson asks. “I don’t know—fucking... love?” As Logan is quick to point out, the claim is a bit tenuous given the circumstances. “You talk about love?” he asks. “You should have trusted me.”
But that’s not the moment that seems to crush Roman the most—that comes when Gerri returns his pleas for help with a cool, “How does it serve my interests?” These kids need so much therapy.
In the end, Shiv faces perhaps the worst betrayal of all—the realization that her husband, the one she thought she’d pinned under her thumb, is almost certainly the one who sold her out. Her breath shakes as Tom murmurs, in that innocent and gentle voice: “Hey, Shiv, you OK?” One safe prediction for Season 4? Things can only get more sinister from here.
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