Succession Season 4 Episode 1 Review: A First Chapter That Prepares Everything For Its End
Cast: Nicholas Braun, Brian Cox, Kieran Culkin, Peter Friedman, Matthew Macfadyen, Alan Ruck, Sarah Snook, Jeremy Strong
Director: Mark Mylod
Streaming Platform: HBO Max
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4.5/5 (four and a half stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
The Emmy- winning series, Succession, returns for a fourth season as tensions rise at Waystar Royco and sparks are promised. The media conglomerate takeover battle thickens after the devastating twist of the season 3 finale that puts Tom (Matthew Macfayden) and Greg (Nicholas Braun) in the upper hand over Logan’s sons Roy (Brian Cox), starring Jeremy Strong, Kieran Culkin, Sarah Snook, and Alan Ruck. Succession Season 4 Episode 1 carries with it the heavy emotional baggage of the previous season’s finale. It is no longer a war between Logan and Kendall, but the latter has found new allies in Shiv and Roman.
At least Succession will have an ending as it deserves. After HBO Max confirmed that the fourth season of Westworld would be it’s last, he feared that sooner or later the same thing would happen with Succession: that it would be left wide open and without the outcome it deserves. However, the streaming platform has listened to its creators and the viewers themselves and will premiere the first episode of the fourth and final season of Succession on March 27, 2023. I have had the pleasure of enjoying this ‘prologue’ before you and I have prepared a spoiler-FREE review in which I will also reflect on the important role Succession has played as an HBO Max series.
Succession Season 4 Episode 1 Review: The Story Plot
After years of constant power struggles between members of the Roy family, the time has come to decide the fate of Waystar Royco. This latest season of Succession begins where we left off. Logan’s children are forced to join forces to try to surpass their father. The family drama that unfolded in the season 3 finale had its consequences. There is no going back, and the losses are above all the relationships: between Logan and his children and between Shiv and Tom. The Roy brothers, played by Kieran Culkin, Jeremy Strong and Sarah Snook, join their respective corporate forces to take over the Waystar Royco conglomerate. The rebel alliance initially foresees the creation of a new product on the market, The Hundred, a competitor that could give it a hard time. “Something new: a mix between The Economist, The Independent”. Roman in this Succession Season 4 Episode 1 seems to be the most down-to-earth. For once the younger brother of Roy tries to demonstrate his true value of him, keeping his strong black humor of him.
At the same time, a very armored birthday of Logan Roy is being celebrated in an apartment in New York. The only son present at the party is Connor who has not turned his back on his father – at least for the moment – but who uses him as the main source of money, a sort of ATM to carry on his electoral campaign – at the moment disastrous. But it is evident that the mere presence of Connor as well as of all the guests at the party annoys Logan himself who in Succession 4×01 comes out defeated. The third season finale showed us a victorious Logan, as always one step ahead of everyone, especially his sons who were trying to unseat him. Logan’s position in this Succession Season 4 Episode 1 changes radically. Brian Cox’s character almost seems to claim the absence of his children by asking his minions to make a few jokes about him, to criticize him, to get angry, to simulate the “roast comedy” of the previous season. Instead, Logan has before him people who are afraid of him, who are terrified as Cousin Greg himself says.
The only ones able to make a few jokes about him, who kept him alive in this sense, are his children who in this episode manage to stand up to him, proving they can fight the white whale. The first move is made by the Roy brothers who, by combining their finances, manage to snatch an agreement with PGM to the detriment of their father. Naomi Pierce, a PGM board member, Pierce family member and Kendall’s ex will liaise with Nan Pierce who owns the company. Back in time, before the events of Succession 4 Episode 1, the Pierce family was about to sign a deal with Logan on the previous season’s finale when allegations of sexual assault on the cruise were leaked. At that juncture, the deal falls through, driving Logan to the brink of burnout.
Succession Season 4 Episode 1 Review and Analysis
Parallel to these corporate dynamics involving the movement of insane sums of money – impossible to quantify even for Roman – the Roy brothers also have to deal with their respective private lives. In this Succession Season 4 Episode 1 Shiv’s life suffers the consequences of the events of the past season, thanks to the fact that her husband has turned his back on her and plotted against her to favor her father. Shiv has natural leadership instincts but in the season 3 finale, she makes a rookie mistake. She trusts Tom to reveal to him the possibility of an important change of course in the company and Tom himself, her husband, will be the first to betray her by revealing the rebel alliance of her children to Logan.
This lack of trust on the part of Shiv which adds to the previous marital problems between the two will evolve in Succession Season 4 Episode 1 with the beginning of a separation, apparently without consequences. The concrete affirmation of a divorce, however, will help Shiv to tighten even more an alliance with the Pierces – who don’t look kindly on Shiv’s marriage with a competitor member – and close the deal with Nan Pierce. Overtaken by his children, and excluded from the negotiating table, Logan takes the first fake step to get closer to Shiv, Kendall, and Roman: he calls them to congratulate them on the closing of the contract. We’ll see how this fourth season of Succession evolves, not a bad start. The slow and marked rhythm helps the viewer to immerse themselves in the complicated business dynamics. Everything will also happen with the confirmed return of Alexander Skarsgård ‘s character, the Norwegian Matsson with whom Logan is in business. Part of this fourth and final season was filmed in Western Norway, including the Atlantic Ocean Road, the Romsdalen Gondola, and the Juvet Landscape Hotel.
The most important thing for any series that premieres its fourth season is that the soul remains intact. And above all, its creators aspire to improve season after season. This being the last one, the great danger was that the outcome did not meet the expectations of his fans. I can’t talk about this, since I’ve only had access to the first episode. However, this ‘prologue’ has given me the hope I needed, because the script puts its cards on the table and moves resolutely towards an ending that does not show the wear and tear of time. If you’ve seen the previous three seasons of Succession, you know exactly what you’re going to find in the fourth: a narrative more typical of soap operas (odious characters, dramatic plot twists, romances and betrayals), but peppered with brutal satire that transforms the drama into black comedy. Now, the betrayal that we experience at the end of the third season will have unforeseeable consequences in the fourth, with a start that pays homage to the debut chapter, back in 2018.
There will also be business meetings, one of Succession‘s strengths. Never before would I have thought that a reunion would be as entertaining as the ones, we’ve been seeing in recent years in this series created by Jesse Armstrong. As I have opted not to talk about their plot at all, it is difficult to delve into the content of this episode, but I do anticipate that the brothers will have to put their differences aside to achieve their common goal. The decision to end Succession in its fourth season is controversial because, with this fourth season, the wear and tear are not only parked. It’s just that you don’t even see it coming. It is too early to say that this season is the best of all, but in the last minutes of the first chapter, some sequences have generated such expectations for the end of the series that I hope for the best of the best from now on.
Succession Season 4 Episode 1 Review: The Last Words
Succession returns to the small screen with the first episode of the fourth and final season. She does so by keeping alliances well-defined. Logan Roy, Tom, and Greg on one side and Shiv, Kendall, and Roman on the other. In this first episode, with a slow and marked rhythm, the viewer is faced with the complicated business dynamics and family dramas between Shiv and Tom. In the first round of this battle, however, the sons show their father that they have not been knocked out by the events of the third season. I’m still in the game. I love enjoying the miseries of the rich, rich people who are hateful and people who are only concerned with their interests and the money they can earn. And I also enjoy a series that has already made history on HBO Max, that knows how to end at its best and that gives us a first chapter in its round season 4.
