Star of the show Brian Cox pictured here signing autographs plays patriarch Logan Roy
Photo by Gordan Correll via flickr

The latest season of HBO’s acclaimed series Succession has hit television screens and fans are excited. As this will be the final season of the show, there is a lot of anticipation about how the story will end.

First, let's look at the state of things for the Roy family and Waystar Royco. Spoilers ahead.

The Roy family has never been more divided as Kendell (played by Jeremy Strong) falls back into his addictive tendencies, Shiv (Sarah Snook) is being played against by her husband Tom (Matthew MacFadyen) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) tries to stand tall with his siblings against the patriarch of the family, Mr. Roy himself, Logan Roy (Brian Cox). As we can see, the family is in dire straits.

In the final scene of the season, Logan is taking the company back into his own hands. Shiv, Ken and Roman are pleading with their father to work with them and not make a deal with bloodthirsty tech mogul Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård). Logan believes the smart move is to have Matsson’s company Gojo acquire Waystar Royco for a paycheck. The kids are afraid this could be fatal for the company and Matsson does not have the Roys’ best interests at heart.

This scene is written, acted, directed and shot masterfully. It shows the current dynamic of Logan and his children as three small combatants against an unstoppable force. Like most Roy family discussions, the snarky, sarcastic verbal shots fired at each other quickly turn into threats and yelling. What the show is so adept at is showing the predatory nature of the people that make up the one percent.

The type of person that makes up the world of fortune 500 companies, societal influencers and secret-world manipulators know how to turn groups against each other. Noticing how quiet Roman is, Logan starts to target him. Shiv and Ken are both trying to create a united front against Logan. They know that the only way to fight their father is to not let themselves become divided. This is a common theme toward the latter end of the show. As a parental figure, each of Logan’s children want his approval in different ways.

Logan is extremely aware of this and uses it as a weapon to keep his children disorganized and weak. Like the ancient Roman government created the circus to distract the people from mutiny, Logan gives his children tasks to do and petty drama to argue about amongst themselves. Logan only holds his trust and approval out to his children like a carrot on a stick when he desperately needs their help

Take, for example, the season 2 episode “Argestes.” In this episode, Logan needs Shiv to go on a scheduled panel discussion to talk about the abuse cases happening aboard cruise ships owned by Waystar Royco. As the token woman, Shiv is used like a pawn to help get the story to the public in an easier way. Shiv is not unaware that she is being used out of necessity, but she wants the approval of her family and the ‘points’ she would get toward being the successor.

There's plenty to love about this show, and it will certainly give more amazing moments like we have seen already. The only prediction that can be made for what's next for the Roy family is that tensions will be high. The final season of Succession is sure to have audiences asking “what are the optics,” holding votes of confidence, swearing profusely and plotting coups against their parents.

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