Succession recap: Someone finally does some damn succeeding

“Underlined? Or crossed out?”

It’s the question that will rattle around in Kendall Roy’s brain for the rest of his life. That’s where Logan Roy lives now, after all: in the minds of the people who spent their lives dependent on him. On his money, his power, and, most of all, on his toxic, irresistible approval, which never came without a healthy dose of mind games attached. And while the old bastard is well and truly dead—having suffered a pulmonary embolism, we’re told (in one of several riotously funny scenes that lurk around the edges of the grief-strewn wreckage of “Honeymoon States”) while trying to fish a dropped cellphone out of an airplane toilet clogged with Karl’s abundant bullshit—the pencil marks he left on the world are still doing their evil work.

We start with a brief check-in with each of the Roy kids—Kendall’s busted, Roman’s coping, and Shiv is…well, we’ll get to what Shiv is in a minute—but after that, tonight’s Succession confines itself entirely to the wake of Logan Roy, situated in the New York apartment from which he committed so many acts of corporate skullduggery and emotional terror. And while the place will soon be Connor’s (and “bigger,” somehow, if Willa gets her way), tonight it serves as the setting for one last Logan-style brawl, as everyone tries to suss out—or just assert—the wishes of a man whose most notable talent was a total willingness to say anything to anyone, as long as it got him what he wanted.

Who better to preside over the proceedings, then, than Marcia, the one person who best understood and shared Logan’s transactional view of human nature? As always, the welcome return of Hiam Abbass to the show brings with it the perfect smiling coldness of a character who knows she has the ultimate trump card here: her name in ink, when almost everyone else has been sketched in with promises and pencil. Marcia doesn’t get any moments tonight quite as brutal as her takedown of Rhea back in season two, but she’s still perfectly comfortable exercising her power as The Resurgent Widow Roy: calmly lying about her and Logan’s regular “intimate” conversations, and cruelly kicking a still-hysterical Kerry out of her boss/lover’s funeral. (It’s a gut-wrenching scene: In an episode where almost everyone plays downward, Zoe Winters goes up as she falls apart, keening almost inaudibly as all of Logan’s sweet words of marriage and a future together turn to dust in front of her.)

The wake is, of course, mostly stage dressing, as all the usual suspects spend their time conspiring in various kitchens and upstairs rooms trying to figure out this Succession shit at last. (Hey, that’s the name of the show!) All the typical maneuverings get brutally skewed, though, when Frank, as one of the executors of Logan’s estate, is handed a piece of paper that asserts that at some point in the last four years, Logan really was ready to name Kendall as his heir. The timing of the document is ambiguous; it carries no legal weight; many of its addendums are unclear bordering on illegible. (It mentions “Greg?” for some Logan-only-knows reason.) But none of that matters. As soon as one of the Roy kids gets genuine proof that Daddy really did Love Him Most, it drives what is almost certainly a fatal stake straight into the heart of the already limping Kids Alliance.

The carving out happens fast: Kendall agrees, almost instantly, to take Roman on as co-CEO, citing their shared history with the company. But both brothers agree that Shiv is getting left out in the cold, hitting her with the same “not enough experience” ruler that she’s gotten her knuckles rapped with every time the idea of her taking the reins has ever been seriously brought up (and without acknowledging that Logan very deliberately set up that particular state of affairs as a way to undercut his daughter as needed). None of the guys’ arguments are automatically cruel, or even especially sexist—for all that Roman can’t stop fondling his father’s cigar as the two of them tear Shiv’s feet out from under her. But there’s a queasiness to the way the hard-fought bond between the three of them, solidified by being there for each other on the hardest day of their lives, is being traded on now. And none of those good feelings change the fact that the boys end tonight with their names in ink on the company—and Shiv gets to walk away with a big ol’ bag of promises.

And, y’know, a bun in the proverbial oven. Succession underplays the reveal of Shiv’s pregnancy in the usual fashion: If you missed the opening few minutes of tonight’s episode, or only half-listened to her conversations with her doctor, you could have missed it entirely. But it plays throughout in the subtext of Sarah Snook’s performance, as she ascends to new heights of Deeply Ambiguous Shiv Roy Looks. These reach their apex when her brothers are (very gently) stabbing her in the back, but the one she gives a spiraling Tom earlier, when he tries to bring the full Mr. Darcy to bear on her in a moment of weakness, could give it a run for its money.

That moment—simultaneously deeply romantic and horrifically mercenary, as Tom quietly pitches an unholy blend of romantic reconciliation and tactical alliance—is emblematic of “Honeymoon States,” which contains several moments of real emotion that are inextricably linked to the Waystar Royco of it all. The purest might be the one between Kendall and Frank, alone in Logan’s library after the storm kicked up by that solitary piece of paper has briefly passed. The godfather genuinely gives the godson some of the reassurance Kendall so desperately needs, while carefully dodging the continual Roy kid question of whether their dad “liked” him with an assertion that he loved him, instead. But we also know Frank has been extremely hesitant to push Kendall forward as CEO, so when he tries to dissuade him from getting back on this particular horse, how much is avuncular concern, and how much is self interest? Similarly, Stewy (who shows up with a nigh-catatonic, but perpetually smiling, Sandy) lets the business sociopath mask drop for like a whole minute, holding Kendall earnestly before getting back to “What’s in it for me?” (It’s a question we don’t see answered, although, obviously: something.)

Tellingly, we don’t see these kinds of scenes between Kendall, Roman, and Shiv this week, at least not once Logan’s last little head-fuck gets dropped on them all. The piece of paper—which gets scoffs from the two younger sibs every time Kendall invokes it like a totem of fatherly approval—is too effective at eroding the solidarity between them. The very first crack comes almost instantly, when Shiv points out that the pencil line “underlining” Kendall’s name in the document could just as easily be a crossing out; when we see it ourselves later, it could clearly go either way. Shiv presumably didn’t mean to murder her brother with this observation, but the look of hurt he gives her immediately after makes it clear that that’s exactly what she’s done: taken something that could have been the pleasant lie he floated on for the rest of his life and torn it out from under him. Later, when Kendall takes his first major stab at seizing power for himself—blackmailing a flop-sweating Hugo into trashing Logan in the press behind “co-CEO” Roman’s back—it’s after long minutes of contemplating that little line in pencil. From one angle, it looks like self-determination. From another, it’s “Because my dad told me to,” Pt. 2.

Which raises a question: Are we falling back into bad habits a bit here? After all, part of what’s made season four of the show feel fresh so far is that it’s been blessedly free of Roy kids squabbling over who gets Logan’s M&Ms; the Kids Alliance has been a winner at least in part because a healthy emotional dynamic between our leads is such a novelty at this point. It was never going to last, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t suddenly confronted tonight with the fact that I genuinely don’t care who runs Waystar at this point. The conflict is still an effective enough way to get Snook, Jeremy Strong, and Kieran Culkin in a room together, spitting wounded venom, and so I can’t be too harsh on it. But there is a vague sense of narrative backsliding at play.

Where “Honeymoon States”—the title a reference to Connor’s apparent attempts to merge his and Willa’s nuptials with a whistle-stop tour ahead of the election—unambiguously works, though, is as a comedy piece, the harrowing tragedy of Logan Roy’s death last week now revisited as farce. David Rasche continues a killer run of episodes as Karl, calmly eviscerating his old Boar On The Floor competitor Tom when he puts himself forward as a potential successor, and “joking”—repeatedly—that Frank could just flush that troublesome piece of paper down the toilet. Meanwhile, the celebrated comedy duo of Wambsgans and Hirsch make a strong showing, too, with Tom and Greg reconnecting for some quiet riffing and shit-talking after individual efforts to find someone (anyone) who might rescue them from their sudden total irrelevancies fall apart. Putting a viscerally affecting depiction of sudden grief on the screen last week hasn’t erased the fact that this is one of the funniest shows on TV; the fact that the jokes come amidst the growing storm clouds is just a testament to what a Tom-esque tightrope Succession typically walks.

Even so: If “Connor’s Wedding” demonstrated that this series was willing to knock over the board in its final season, “Honeymoon States” is a reminder that it’s still, well, Succession. Coming off of one of the most intense hours of TV in recent memory, it can’t help but feel like a drop in momentum. I have faith in this team to stick the landing, but still: Lukas Matsson can’t come crashing back into this universe soon enough, blowing up its safer, more comfortable rhythms as he goes.

Stray observations

• We’re picking up fast after last week—Logan’s only been dead for a day at this point.
• Snook really is the Dramatic MVP this episode, with so many different feelings warring on her face at so many different moments.
• Funny in hindsight: the reveal that Hugo’s “fucked me in the ass with a strap-on” comments are being directed at his daughter.
• Roman theorizes that he’s spent so long dreading his dad’s death that he’s “pre-grieved”; he’s not even up for a Marcia-Logan phone sex gag.
• Gerri, politely destroying Karl during the “Which drone should be CEO?” talks: “I think you’re a corporate legend. What you did, in the ’90s, with cable? Huge.”
• Karl, “framing the question” of Tom taking over, “as a friend”: “You’re a clumsy interloper and no one trusts you, the only guy pulling for you is dead, and now, you’re just married to the ex-boss’ daughter. And she doesn’t even like you. And you are fair, and squarely, fucked.”
• Matsson’s people just absolutely brutalize the kids, demanding that they fly out to Sweden 48 hours after their dad dies. As far as condolences: “Yeah, we really feel for you. Bad one!”
• “I’m kidding, of course.”
  “Oh, sure, you’re speculating in a comic mode.”
  “In a humorous vein.” I could watch the Karl And Frank Comedy Hour, actually.
• Shiv, contemplating Logan’s obits: “Honestly, Dad sounds amazing. I’d like to have met Dad.”
• Later, the kids take umbrage at one paper calling Logan “well-connected.”
  Roman: “That’s not fair. I feel like ‘well-connected’ is generally accepted to be a euphemism for ‘pedophile.’ And no one ever suggested he would…”
  Kendall: “Fuck a child? He wouldn’t even hug his grandkids.”
• Is there a more brutal insult in this world than “I like you”? It’s such a succinct way to tell someone they don’t even matter enough for a “fuck off.”
• “Kendall, man, I get it. But this thing is old, and you’ve tried to put him in jail like 12 times since then.”
• “Well, it sure as fucking shit doesn’t say ‘Shiv.’”
• Frank, to Greg: “You’re an addendum of miscellaneous matters in pencil…with a question mark.”
  “Nevertheless!”
• Peter Friedman, once again earning his “Only Human Being In The Room” Award for an episode: “No, come on. We think these grand horror things at times like these, these ice shelves are going to come at us in the night and take our heads off. It’s not true. He was an old bastard, and he loved you. He loved you.”
• “That was a while ago, wasn’t it?” Seriously: Snook’s episode, not really a contest.
• “Colin does jeans?”
• I’ll never turn down a Stephen Root guest spot.
• Tom, on the lethal toilet: “Karl blocked it. Man lives on Wonderbread and steak frites, he hadn’t had a shit in 20 years.”
• Connor, our secret oracle, lays out the whole thesis of the episode: “They’re trying to bodysnatch him. History’s being written. The next 48 hours are crucial.”
• Roman, true to type—but also influenced by his position as Logan’s last favorite—is the only person who seems genuinely concerned about Logan’s last wishes (including sympathy for Kerry, who he otherwise hates).
• “Lip balm TomWam, lubing up his lips to kiss myyyy butt.”
• Stewy and Kendall: “What was it?”
  “Embolism…pulmonary.”
  “Because I heard he saw your Pierce business plan and choked laughing.”
• Kendall, forever the cringiest when he tries to make business-speak cool: “Same old, but with a vibe-y new banner.”
• Okay, so, on the one hand: If you’re crossing out or underlining, you start on the left and go to the right, right? And the line clearly starts under “Kendall.” But both “Logan”—reminder that Kendall’s middle name is Logan, because of course it is—and “Roy” are crossed through along their bottom letters (and all the way through, say, the g). If I’m underlining, and I get that result, I erase: a failed “underline” like this is exactly why pencils have erasers. All I’m sayin’.
• Great final bit of acting from Fisher Stevens tonight, the weary, slightly nostalgic recognition that he’s getting Logan Roy’d by his new boss.