Succession Season 3 Ending Explained: Who Died? Who Betrayed Kendall? Is Season 4 Coming?
In the finale of the third season of ‘Succession‘, Saturn has eaten his children with potatoes. The new episodes of the HBO series have been a constant battle between the old and the new, between parents and children, between the past and the future. In the end, the victory has been the strongest, who could not be other than Logan Roy (Brian Cox), who with the strength of a ‘Shakespearean’ patriarch manages to subdue his unfortunate heirs with the help of a traitor we did not see coming.
Succession Season 3 Ending Explained
First of all, the previous episode had left us a mystery: has Kendall drowned in the pool? No. The answer was not long in coming apparently, in the middle of a drunkenness, he fell from the mat he was floating on and almost drowned, but he was rescued by his Public Relations and taken to the hospital. It’s a new day and we see Logan taking care of his grandchildren, reading them stories that he considers too childish for them. “Bring me something with more action,” he tells his secretary, offering a small taste of the parenting that has resulted in his dysfunctional heirs. On the other side of the garden, the entire family is playing Monopoly, a game that seems too much like real life to them. Of course,Tom (Matthew MacFadyen) gets the letter to get out of jail (“another one,” he says) and Shiv (Sarah Snook) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) try to cheat without anyone noticing.
The calm is broken by a phone call informing them that Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård), the GoJo tech genius with whom they are negotiating a business merger, could back down. Actually, what you have is a new offer: to take control of the board of directors of the new company that is formed with Waystar Royco and to facilitate positions (unspecified) for the Roy heirs in its organization chart. We can see the panic on Roman’s face when his father seems to be seriously considering the proposal, even though he rejected it at first. This move could mean a large sum of money for Logan Roy, but it would mean the loss of his sons’ power over the family business. Who assures them that when Mattson takes power, he will not kick them out? And, without the possibility of inheriting his father’s empire, what will become of their lives?
Who Betrayed Kendall?
With this threat on the horizon, a reunification process begins in the Roy family: Roman, Shiv and Kendall are finally ready to team up and something like this is possible after everything that has happened in the season (the insults, the fights, the fights of interests …) because the three begin to see themselves as human beings for the first time in a long time. It is not surprising that their ties are strengthened when Kendall suffers a tremendous emotional breakdown, he confesses that he was responsible for the death of that waiter at Shiv’s wedding (in the end of the first season) and that he does not feel connected to anything in his life, neither with his children nor with his goals. Now, He just needs a little support from his very siblings and the intention of “killing the father” (metaphorically) to lift his spirits.
All three understand that their interests lie with Waystar Royco, and that they cannot lose that inheritance. In this game of poker, they have a very powerful hand: in the divorce of Logan and Caroline (Harriet Walter), who by the way is married in the background of all this family conflict, a privilege was agreed for their children by which they had the power to stop the sale of the company if they had a majority. And they go with that hand to the death when they enter their father’s offices and confront him. But, ah, how could they imagine that their father had already warned and had his back covered.
This is what happens. Shiv had warned Tom of what was happening, but her husband seems to be up to the hat of being the jester of marriage (we have witnessed a whole season of humiliation to poor Tom, who almost went to prison to save the rest) and decides to take a decision flavored with revenge. In fact, he had already told us with the story of Nero and Sporo:
And Esporo? He is cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun), to whom he proposes without offering details the possibility of being on his team, of making a pact with the Devil, as he says. “Why do I want a soul anyway? Souls are boring,” he answers. Then Tom comes in contact with Logan to tell what their offspring are about to do, giving you time to find a solution . And it is that that divorce clause, for which Caroline fought so that her children were safe, can be revoked. And Caroline, who now has a brand new husband with business interests with Logan, is more than willing to hand over the heads of those she hasn’t even considered family in a long time.
However, before revealing these maneuvers to them, Logan gives them a chance to rally. They do not do it. Not even Roman, who stands up to his father for the first time all season to defend the joint interests of the brothers. All without knowing that Logan already had the winning hand before they entered the room. Perhaps he has always had it and, as Tom pointed out in one of the previous episodes against Kendall, he has never been scalded even once. It’s not going to start now!
These last twenty minutes of the episode are extraordinary. Also the last scene: from a final tragedy that seems to be taken from William Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’ to a kind of distorted reflection of the end of ‘The Godfather, Shiv watches through the door as her husband arrives at the place of the facts and gets a pat from Logan on the shoulder. It’s the same pat he gave him when it was learned that no one would have to go to jail for the Waystar scandals to make it clear that he would not forget the sacrifice he had been willing to make. Tom has turned out to be the one who knew best how to play his cards, and this was the coup de grace to gain the absolute trust of the patriarch. And surely a very succulent place in the hierarchy of the new company. What about your marriage? Something tells us that he and Shiv will still be together, although we will have to wait until the next season to find out. Also to know if the Roys will have to make a living (finally) under Matsson’s orders or will they follow other paths. Whatever it is, we’ll be here to see it. And, if something has made this third season clear, it is that ‘Succession’ is one of the best series in the history of television.
