With a title that could not be more appropriate -"The Coronation"-, the last episode of Succession delivered, Monday on Amazon Prime, an end worthy of Game Of Thrones. The one who has finally taken the reins of the empire founded by Logan Roy turns out, like Bran Stark, a second-rate contender. However, unlike the power struggles in Westeros, this cynical, cruel, Machiavellian epilogue has completed in beauty and with intransigence the HBO saga imagined in 2018 by the British playwright Jesse Armstrong. The reversals of jackets, the childish settling of scores, the repetition of abuse and vicious family circles, the emptiness, the hubris of the protagonists are brought to the firmament. No redemption for the cursed.
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Claiming to be inspired by the trajectory of both the Murdochs and Shakespeare, Jesse Armstrong will have remained faithful to this DNA. As in King Lear, often quoted by the screenwriter, the successor of the feared and perverse patriarch Logan Roy is not of his blood. Against all odds, the servile son-in-law Tom Wamsgans ascends to the "iron throne" of the media and entertainment conglomerate Waystar RoyCo, after its acquisition by the Swedish new technology firm GoJo.
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'A pain sponge'
A vertiginous wheel of fortune for spectators and Roy offspring. Kendall, Roman and Shiv believed until the last moment that they could get their hands on "their inheritance that was rightfully theirs". "The Coronation" begins with the announced triumph of Shiv (Sarah Snook). Lukas Matsson, the CEO of GoJo, promised him the leadership of Waystar RoyCo in exchange for his vote for the takeover. The youngest exults: the one that her brothers had dismissed at the announcement of their father's death takes over. Determined to capitalize on this victory, she hands an olive branch to her husband Tom. Rather than agreeing to an amicable separation and co-education of their unborn child, why not try a true romantic reconciliation? Tom doesn't take the bait, lucidly diagnosing that this offer is motivated less by feelings than fear of failure.
Matsson sweetens the servile Tom and makes him his straw man. HBO
Tom has a brighter future ahead of him. During a dinner, Lukas Matsson confides that he has changed sides. No more naming Shiv as CEO. On the one hand, the Scandinavian entrepreneur does not appreciate his assertive ideas about his management of GoJo. On the other hand, Matsson whispers to be very attracted to Shiv. "In other circumstances, I would fuck her," he tells Tom who cashes in and nods "We are only men". To the question "What kind of leader would you be?", Tom passes the test brilliantly, promising to be "a straw man and cost cutter. I'm a pain sponge." The position of CEO of Waystar RoyCo was promised to him by Matsson.
"A feast fit for a king"
Unaware that she had been cheated, Shiv made her way to the Caribbean island of Barbados. In their mother's villa Caroline hides Roman (Kieran Culkin), who dresses his stitches after the beatings received at Logan's funeral. Shiv wants to ensure his loyalty. Kendall, who is seeking a majority of the board's votes against GoJo, finds them there. Despite the admonitions of their (unworthy and absent) mother who enjoins them to free themselves from this family inheritance that conditions them and makes them suffer, neither Shiv nor Kendall want to give up. Until Kendall learns from a mole (cousin Greg, Tom's damned soul) that Shiv is no longer in the running.
True to his reputation as a methodical actor, comedian Jeremy Strong actually drank the dirty beverage over HBO takes.
Armed with this sensational information, Kendall sets out to rally Roman and Shiv to his candidacy for the head of Waystar RoyCo during a midnight swim on the beach. The cadets bow reluctantly, not without fantasizing a thousand and one ways to murder their annoying and authoritarian elder. This childish banter, as often in Succession, reveals the ancestral dysfunctional dynamics of the siblings. The trio, in the midst of a manic crisis, find themselves looting their mother's fridge to respect their game of yesteryear and concoct for the future CEO "a feast fit for a king". Everything goes there: expired milk, bread croutons, raw eggs and tabasco and a few drops of Shiv's saliva. An unappetizing concoction that Kendall tries to drink (true to his reputation as an authentic actor, comedian Jeremy Strong actually drank the dirty beverage over the takes).
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Again united (which never lasts very long especially when we are only in the middle of the episode), the trio goes back to New York to participate in the sharing of their father's furniture. During this reunion with their older half-brother, the jester and aspiring politician Connor, Logan's ghost appears to them in the form of a video of a dinner, where the late patriarch amuses the gallery by reciting the losers of presidential elections since the independence of the United States. This moment of emotion, which allows to see the brilliant Brain Cox again and to associate him symbolically with this finale, is broken when Tom approaches Shiv and entrusts him with his good fortune.
Shiv's Ultimate Betrayal
Shiv does not appreciate being overtaken by this upstart and submissive spouse over whom she has long had the ascendancy. This news seems to cement the Roys' determination to defeat GoJo's takeover. Except that arrived in the headquarters of Waystar RoyCo, the entente cordiale cracks quite quickly. Victim of a panic attack, Roman, who confirms that he does not have shoulders, laments to Kendall "why can't I be the CEO?". In a moment of masochism that Logan would not have denied, Kendall holds her younger brother so hard that he blows out his stitches and reopens his wounds on his forehead. A gesture of comfort and intimidation, Succession leaves the door open to both interpretations as in all the scenes that follow. The mark of a sublime writing.
In the board room, where the vote takes place, it is the turn of Shiv, who has a determined voice, to hesitate. She slips away for a few moments but her retreat is quickly interrupted by Kendall who teases her and Roman. The cleaver falls. "You won't be a good CEO, you killed someone," says the youngest who pulls out the final corpse in the closet: the waiter Kendall inadvertently killed at her wedding years before. Is it really Shiv's consciousness that is speaking, of a last petty desire for revenge or a gesture of loyalty to Tom to save his skin?
WaystarRoyCo changes hands David M. Russell/HBO
In a flash of lucidity, Roman points out that "each of them are puppets, absolutely unfit" to lead their father's group who has mostly pitted them against each other for his personal pleasure, rather than soften them. The dispute comes to blows. Shiv is jostled. Roman, in an astonishing fit of solidarity, defends his pregnant sister, before mocking the legitimacy of Kendall's children who asserts her "elder right". Waystar RoyCo is "his due".
Tom's total victory
The board of directors is at the forefront of this childishness. Shiv takes advantage of the confusion to cast his vote. Kendall can't believe it. His dream and reason for living collapse before his eyes. On this total victory of Tom and Matsson, Succession abandons its heroes, now empty shells crushed even from beyond the grave by a carnivorous patriarch. Spoiled children with no talent or sense of reality. Disappointing heirs who will not leave a trace in the seraglio of the richest 1%.
Roman is leaning on a bar, a mysterious smile on his lips. Perhaps finally freed from the all-consuming shadow of his father Logan. The only one anyway.
Shiv is waiting for Tom in his company car. The latter, like a magnanimous Roman emperor, offers him his hand to embrace. HBO
Shiv is waiting for Tom in his company car. The latter, like a magnanimous Roman emperor, offers him his hand to embrace. She slips hers in but does not embrace it. Distant, defeated, in a daze. The one who dreamed of being queen is reduced to the status of "wife of". Doomed, like her mother, to be an unhappy progenitor incapable of affection for her offspring. No guarantee one day to be able to play Lady Macbeth with her husband's puppet. A feminist mirage that shatters.
Kendall faces the infinity of the HBO sea
Fond of symmetry effects, Succession concludes with Kendall. Like his father, he wanders in a New York park followed by the faithful bodyguard Colin. He leans on the sea and loses his gaze in the water. He who so often loved to dive into it to be reborn and absolve his sins. Will he step over the railing or not to throw himself into it? It is on this suspended moment that the series ends. A black screen that is reminiscent of The Sopranos and that brings Succession into the same pantheon of dazzling and elusive endings.