On Succession, Those Roy Grandkids Are Probably Not All Right

The old Leo Tolstoy adage illuminates that "each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." In the span of its four seasons, "Succession" focused on a particular miserable American clan, the obscenely wealthy and influential Roys.

The show charted the schemes and (self-)sabotages of the Roy children as they warred over their potential inheritance: CEO control of the Waystar RoyCo media company, run by their (now-late) patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox). Across toxic intrigue and backstabbing, the three kids, Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Roman (Kieran Culkin), and Shiv (Sarah Snook), fought tooth and nail for the throne. (Connor wasn't too relevant to this sibling war, sorry.)

In the wake of Logan's death and the series finale, the Roy family tree is still not doing all right. There are tantalizing questions about the third-generation Roys, the grandkids, who are more vulnerable under their family dysfunction and the world order that their Roy forebearers enabled. While the finale does not grant us a time-skip epilogue nor a crystal-clear picture, their parents' misbehaviors allow us to glean their fates in the fogged crystal ball.

The finale gives little insight into whether Kendall would get the upper hand in his declared custody dispute for his two children against his ex-wife Rava (Natalie Gold). Though naturally, having been ejected for good from his prospective CEO throne, Kendall wouldn't be in high spirits during this dispute. And if Roman is telling the truth about Logan's speculation, the patriarch discounted Iverson (Quentin Morales) and Sophie (Swayam Bhatia) as part of the true Roy "bloodline." Is Iverson a product of Rava having an affair?

But more importantly, will Iverson be okay eventually? Poor boy didn't have breathing space under his grandfather, who ruled his implied neurodivergence as a weakness. Firstly, Iverson's Thanksgiving dinner breakdown provoked his grandpa's ire. Later, a word game of "I Went to the Market" went awry and his grandpa clocked him with a cranberry can. A lot can also be read into the season 3 dinner when his grandpa used him as his mozzarella taste-tester, despite Iverson's dislike of cheese. Here, Logan asserted his dominance over Kendall, as if to remind the latter that he'll always be on his leash, while snidely indicating that Iverson will inherit this subservience. This kid will keep processing his own thoughts about his grandpa.

It's hard not to picture Kendall dreaming that Iverson could have budded into the next Waystar CEO one day. Even without a CEO inheritance, Iverson has two paths: grow into a ruthless and insensitive businessperson like his father or live his life with compassion. Hopefully, he'll invest in the latter.

Kendall's adopted daughter, Sophie, faces a different host of issues. Firstly, her father enabled her to feed Megathump, her pet rabbit, a bagel that gets the critter killed by indigestion. Secondly, in an upbringing that could hit home for transracial adoptees, her father is so absorbed in his whiteness that he can't fathom the national torment his business dealings have unleashed.

While her father's conservative news outlet emboldens fascism in season 4, Sophie is assailed by a racist incident. Her most supportive people are not her father, but the anti-ATN students protesting her grandfather's and father's news empire. As her mother indicated, it's a very confusing era for her development. Sophie has learned that a loved one can betray you on a national and personal scale. Even when Kendall is wary of her terror, he still sees the fascist president-elect Mencken as a potential business partner.

If Shiv Roy shared that "it was hard to be [Logan's Roy] daughter" and grow up under Logan's conditional warmth, Sophie has extra dimensions to her paternal problems. While the finale is ambiguous about whether the Mencken has a legitimate victory (as the Wisconsin courts deal with burned ballots), the era of fear would leave an indelible mark. On the horizon, Sophie will face the lifelong cognitive dissonance of loving a father who acted against her welfare. If she chooses to keep her father in her adulthood, they may dance around serious conversations.

Remember that straw-haired girl with Roman and his then-girlfriend Grace (Molly Griggs) in the pilot? Isla (Noelle Hogan) quasi-counted for her brief stint as a Roy step-grandkid. It's confusing (you can tell by the Redditors asking questions). The pilot suggested that Roman and Grace were married with a daughter, proven by Culkin wearing his own wedding band that has since then been removed. You have to squint to catch Isla at the corner of the frame or Roman holding her shoulder in a fatherly manner. By the final script, Isla was implied to be a product of Grace's previous relationship, since Kendall referred to her as a "friend" of his kids, not a cousin.

"Succession" season 1 later phased out Grace and Isla. Notably, Grace and Roman never discuss her, so Isla vanished without sticking in the narrative consciousness (which is more dignified than the "Family Matters" Judy Winslow sister outright disappearing). "Succession" proceeded to explore Roman's impotence when it came to failed intercourse with his girlfriends. So the writers likely ruled that Roman siring a biological child could deflate the mystique of Roman's sexuality.

For Isla, Roman Roy may be a weird temporary stepdad just as the Roy gatherings were a source of intense memories. When you see her playing "I Went to the Market" with Grace, she also probably took home an odd recollection of Logan Roy clocking her friend, Iverson, with a cranberry can. Her time with the Roys might supply an adult Isla with some interesting bar conversations. ("Yeah, so my mom dated that guy, and his billionaire family was a hot mess.")

A child conceived out of spite does not forecast a healthy foundation. Although Shiv wanted to prove herself better than her "onion" of a mother, she's not cheerful about being "mom-ed," be it her ladder-climbing husband Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) cornering her into perpetual wifehood, her father rejecting her as his CEO heir-apparent, or her surprise pregnancy possibly deflating her ambitions. From the way Shiv spoke about her pregnancy in the penultimate episode, she would have defaulted to raising her child "the family way" of constant physical and emotional absence if she successfully attained the CEO crown. The kid-to-be represented less a reminder of love than more of a bargaining chip for Shiv to keep her husband in toxic proximity. Shiv will definitely be her child's "onion."

The finale changed the game when Shiv's vote against Kendall ends up anointing her husband with the CEO crown. If she can't have power, her cold hand-holding with Tom suggests that she has resigned to proximity-to-power. She can't have that CEO power, but at least she'll be married to it — just as her mother and stepmother Marcia once were to Logan Roy. Showrunner Jesse Armstrong concurs with this pessimistic read of Shiv's resignation while noting that she's still in the game, albeit in a lowly and liminal position: "Shiv is still in play in a rather terrifying, frozen, emotionally barren place... non-victory, non-defeat. There's still a lot of that game to play out."

That kid might possibly be a witness to the psychological and career tug-o-wars between a father and mother incapable of an equitable relationship. Much like a younger Shiv who preferred her father over her mother, the offspring will come into this world torn by divided loyalties. Hopefully, that child wouldn't covet inheriting their father's CEO position. It has been nothing but a poisoned chalice for the Roy family.