{"id":576514,"date":"2023-05-29T17:40:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-29T14:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/succession-creator-and-stars-unpack-series-finales-ceo-choice\/"},"modified":"2023-05-29T17:40:00","modified_gmt":"2023-05-29T14:40:00","slug":"succession-creator-and-stars-unpack-series-finales-ceo-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/succession-creator-and-stars-unpack-series-finales-ceo-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"#\u2018Succession\u2019 Creator and Stars Unpack Series Finale\u2019s CEO Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n [This story contains major spoilers for the\u00a0Succession<\/em>\u00a0series<\/a> finale, \u201cWith Open Eyes.\u201d]\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n Succession<\/em> finally crowned Logan Roy\u2019s successor with a breathtaking blindside in its series finale.<\/p>\n

\n The Roy trio of Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) were seemingly a united front when they showed up to the board meeting that would determine whether their late father\u2019s company, Waystar Royco, would sell to GoJo tech billionaire Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsg\u00e5rd). Prior to the meeting, the siblings decided they would back Kendall as CEO and keep the company in a 7-6 vote. But the series delivered an ending of tragic reverberations as Shiv breaks with her brothers to back her estranged husband, Tom (Matthew Macfadyen), who in his second moment of major betrayal in the series was plucked as the U.S. CEO by Matsson over Shiv. Shiv is the final vote to push the deal through and name Tom the successor, closing the series with a cold hand-holding with Tom as she assumes the role of CEO wife.<\/p>\n

\n \u201cTom so desperately wants this position. [Lukas] knows that he can really lean into that awkwardness and explore and have fun with it, and it\u2019s important for him to have a sycophant in that position; someone who will be his little lap dog and do exactly what he needs. Tom has proven himself worthy,\u201d explained Alexander Skarsg\u00e5rd on the official Succession<\/em> podcast <\/a>after the series finale about Matsson\u2019s awkward job offer to Tom, where he said he couldn\u2019t work with Shiv in that position because he wants to have sex with her, which would make for a messy business relationship. \u201cHe gets the answer that he wants\u201d when Tom signs on, Skarsg\u00e5rd added of the power move with Shiv\u2019s husband. \u201c[Lukas] thrives on that weirdness; the madness of it all. That\u2019s something he says in that moment just to see how much of a well-trained lap dog [Tom] will be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Speaking to host Kara Swisher following the May 29 series closer, \u201cWith Open Eyes,\u201d the Succession<\/em> winner explained what drives Matsson, giving insight into the new Waystar owner the show leaves behind. Skarsg\u00e5rd said he wasn\u2019t only based on real-world tech billionaires, like the obvious comparison of Elon Musk, and that his main M.O. is to \u201cfuck shit up.\u201d He said, \u201cThere\u2019s something so deliciously juicy about taking down this family dynasty. I wanted that to be a driving force for Lukas. He sees himself, even though he\u2019s incredibly wealthy, as David vs. Goliath here. It\u2019s exciting to him to take this on and try something that nobody thought was possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n In the end, Skarsg\u00e5rd called it \u201ctragic\u201d and yet \u201cinevitable\u201d that the kids don\u2019t end up being Logan\u2019s successor. Strong also separately app<\/a>eared on the podcast, saying he was \u201cgutted\u201d by the ending and that it was \u201cpainful\u201d to watch.<\/p>\n

\n \u201cKendall goes in a sense Icarus flying as close to the sun as he possibly can. And we\u2019ve seen this character attempt again and again to sort of summit this mountaintop and fall ass-backwards down to the bottom of the lowest ravine,\u201d said Strong. \u201cI felt that the journey through this was winding the bow back as far as it could possibly go to reach its final target, which is someone who has finally lost everything. He\u2019s lost his father, he\u2019s lost his morality. He\u2019s lost in a sense his soul. He\u2019s lost his brother and sister, he\u2019s lost his children. He\u2019s lost love, and he\u2019s lost his ambition, which is a defining thing in his life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Strong said something that stuck with him while filming the fourth and final season of the Emmy-winning HBO saga was a line from Armstrong written in the stage direction during \u201cConnor\u2019s Wedding,\u201d shortly after Kendall and his siblings find out that their father Logan (Brian Cox) had died.<\/p>\n

\n \u201c\u2018Kendall finds himself. He\u2019s looking down towards the Statue of Liberty, at this moment, the sharp tip of the spear of American history and this colossal loss that the worst thing has happened and the world is off its axis, and at the same time, he\u2019s still there. And he doesn\u2019t know if he might be a wraith or a superbeing,’\u201d shared Strong, citing the line. He continued, \u201cThis idea of the wraith and the superbeing was something that I think was at play the rest of the season. Episode 10 starts with Kendall surmounting his superbeing, he\u2019s in ascendency. And when that finally fails and the full catastrophe is sort of upon him, then at the end he is that wraith walking through Battery Park and I think facing the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n The ultimate tragedy for Strong is that Kendall did, in the end, becomes his father, as he says was demonstrated in Kendall\u2019s final moment of desperation, where he lied to his siblings about killing the waiter back in the first season when trying to sway their votes. \u201cHe has the moment of \u2018no real person involved,\u2019 which is what his father said to him on the yacht in Croatia about the cater waiter who died,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was a monstrous thing for Kendall to hear and it showed a heart of darkness, or at least a complete lack of the moral ethical core and kind of terrible immorality. And when Kendall says, \u2018It didn\u2019t happen; I never got in the car,\u2019 he\u2019s basically willing to cross any lines that are left.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n When unpacking the ending on HBO\u2019s official \u201cSuccession: Controlling the Narrative\u201d feature after the episode, creator Jesse Armstrong explained, \u201cThey don\u2019t end. They will carry on. But it\u2019s sort of where this show loses interest in them because they\u2019ve lost what they wanted, which was to succeed this prize their father held out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Armstrong said Roman ends in a \u201creductive, brutal way\u201d as he drinks at a bar; Shiv ends in a \u201cterrifying, frozen, emotionally barren place\u201d in her non-victory as CEO Tom\u2019s wife, and for Kendall, \u201cThis will never stop being the central event of his life, central days of his life, central couple years of his life. Maybe he could go on and start a company or do a thing, but the chances of him achieving the sort of corporate status that his dad achieved are very low, and I think that will mark at his whole life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Strong agreed but pushed it further when he told Swisher, \u201cUltimately the tragedy I think of this show is in a sense Kendall\u2019s tragedy,\u201d he says of Kendall never even wanting something that was \u201cimposed upon him and it shaped and misshaped and deformed his life.\u201d The actor described the series ending as a \u201cdoom loop,\u201d noting the finale\u2019s explosive \u201ctraumatic reenactment\u201d of abuse between the siblings, and similarities in the end to how the series began: \u201cPhilosophically, I don\u2019t think [Jesse] believes that people change.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n That ethos was vocalized by Roman, when he tells Kendall \u201cwe are bullshit,\u201d ringing true of Logan\u2019s parting words to his children that they are \u201cnot serious people.\u201d Strong said the series was supposed to end with that scene between Strong and Culkin, but he \u201ccouldn\u2019t accept that, and it\u2019s why I had to keep going. Walking back into the boardroom was something that just happened,\u201d he said of the board room conversation where Frank (Peter Friedman) told Kendall he lost the vote, and it\u2019s over. <\/p>\n

\n Strong said Kendall had \u201csomething left in the tank,\u201d so director Mark Mylod and Armstrong followed Strong as he went back into the room. \u201cFor me, it\u2019s an extinction-level event that happens and I don\u2019t think we used it in the show but sometimes Jesse would give people off-camera lines and I think Frank said to me, \u2018You don\u2019t have it, you never had it,\u2019 and when Frank said \u2018you never had it,\u2019 which we don\u2019t hear in the show but which I heard in the room,\u2019 that did something to me. it just stopped me. It just stopped me in my tracks, and I guess the life went out to me. I think [Kendall] realizes maybe not that he\u2019s bullshit, but that he never had it. That this entire thing was a fallacious thing and was a fantasy, and the whole thing deflates and he goes from the superbeing to the wraith.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n Strong is convinced there\u2019s \u201cno coming back from this\u201d for Kendall, saying, \u201cKendall has just slowly mortgaged off everything, and has nothing left to live for.\u201d And in one take that also didn\u2019t make it to final cut, Strong said in his final scene of Kendall looking out at the water, that he \u201cstood up and walked slowly to the barrier that was set up there and climbed over it, and I didn\u2019t really know what I planned to do and the actor playing Colin saw me and ran, and stopped me from doing it.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n He hopes viewers can sense the intentionality in that final shot: \u201cIt is a completely tragic ending from my perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Succession<\/em>\u00a0is now streaming on Max. Read\u00a0THR<\/em>\u2018s\u00a0Succession<\/em>\u00a0finale coverage.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n