Succession Season 4 Episode 9 Sets Up A Roy Sibling Showdown Coming In The Finale
This post contains spoilers for the latest episode of "Succession."
The final season of "Succession" has been plugging along at an alarming pace, delivering episodes that typically take place across the course of one day. In the show's timeline, that means that it's likely been just roughly a week since Logan Roy (Brian Cox) died, despite the fact that audiences watching at home witnessed that shocking twist nearly six weeks ago. There's something unsettling about the show's new, breakneck pace, a sense that anything could happen at any time — and not just because the show's about to end.
All of the change makes it tough to speculate about what might happen in the "Succession" finale, even as it now looms near. This week's episode took place during Logan's funeral, the day after the national election that controversially crowned right-wing extremist Jeryd Mencken (Justin Kirk) president-elect. With just one episode to go, it's unclear whether or not Mencken's place on the throne will be certified, or exactly how much political unrest we'll get to witness before "Succession" has its curtain call. There is one plot point that seems almost certain to make an appearance in the final hour, though: a major board meeting in which Kendall (Jeremy Strong) is set to butt heads with Shiv (Sarah Snook) as the Gojo deal comes to a head.
Back to the boardroom
It's fitting for "Succession" to end with a board meeting, as the scene that solidified the show as one of the best dramas on prime time also focused on a Waystar Royco vote. In that case, the vote in question was Kendall's first attempt to usurp Logan as CEO, a move that played out in excruciatingly slow motion during the season 1 episode "Which Side Are You On?" The hour is classic "Succession," full of mythic, patricidal intentions, cruel twists of fate, and corporate jargon that somehow sounds exciting coming from the mouths of these characters. In the end, Kendall lost, as Logan bullied the board through the vote of no confidence and fired his son as soon as it ended.
"Which Side Are You On?" is when "Succession" hits its stride, and it's only fitting that the end of the show might mirror a key moment from its beginning. The fact remains, though, that we pretty much have no idea what will happen at this board meeting. Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård) wants to employ Shiv as CEO to gain favor with Mencken, or at least he says he does. Mencken seems a lot more hesitant to get in bed with Matsson than he is with Kendall and Roman (Kieran Culkin), although the latter may have lost favor by crying at Logan's funeral. Kendall, meanwhile, seems to have caught wind of Matsson's plan by the episode's end and hopes to cut things off with a board meeting. He's upset with Shiv for going behind his back, and if he's angry enough to commit election fraud about it, who knows what he'll do next?
Which side are you on?
The wild card here, then, may be Roman. The character who has always treated the world as a joke has been faced with some harsh realities in recent episodes, as his zealous support of Mencken has led the masses to hate him and his funeral breakdown seems to have left him on shaky footing even among the elites.
When Kendall approaches Roman with the idea of facing off against Shiv, he sighs and whines his way through the conversation, having apparently lost his thirst for chaos mid-eulogy. "We don't have a lot of leverage at this point so we might need to make some moves and I might need your help," Kendall says, revealing that he has a plan without clueing viewers into the details. "If we don't wanna say bye-bye to Waystar, we need to get f***ing real and fight Shiv at the board," Kendall tells Roman, and his brother's ambivalence doesn't seem to be assuaged by Kendall's tough love.
Even if we know that the final episode of "Succession" will probably feature a board meeting in some capacity, the show has left so many tantalizing plot threads dangling that it's impossible to guess how the board meeting will go. Will the group's overly-optimistic handshake deal with Pierce come back to bite them? What about Kendall's manslaughter confession, which Shiv and Roman waved away last season? Will bitter supporting characters like Gerri (J. Smith-Cameron) make a comeback, and will the timeline accelerate enough for some closure — or more chaos — around the issue of the Mencken nomination? The only sure bet headed into the "Succession" series finale is that the Roys will do the one thing they do best: scramble for power.
"Succession" airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and Max.