Ogres. Barbarians. Snakes. Pirates. Knives. Hit men. Fire-breathers. Santa Claus. What is this? A Succession season trailer or a spooky-ooky Halloween house of horrors? As with most things pertaining to the Roy family (and the billionaire classic general), it’s both. The trailer for the latest season of Succession is here, and you’d better enjoy it like it’s your last, because it is. After Jesse Armstrong broke the hearts of Wambsgstans everywhere when he announced that the show will end after its upcoming fourth season, HBO dropped the trailer when we’re down hardest and need it most. It shows the fallout from the season-three finale, when Logan Roy (Brian Cox) Uno-reversed his children’s attempted supermajority. The battle lines are drawn, the paranoia is growing, and the barbs are flying. So who’s on whose side in this battle for the dead, shriveled soul of the Roy empire? And did we gain any new intel from the trailer?
Team Logan
In season four, Logan is positioning Waystar Royco for a deal with Lukas Matsson’s (Alexander Skarsgard) new-media empire, GoJo, that will be less of a merger and more of a buyout, selling his children’s birthright out from under them. Scurrying to his side like rats on a Titanic lifeboat are son-in-law Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) and his faithful manservant Greg (Nicholas Braun). These two are the newest of Succession’s new money and have been positioned as outsiders since the beginning. Tom has a survival instinct that the Roy children, by virtue of the circumstances they were born into, lack. The buttoned-up Midwesterner sees Logan as a proven entity and a devil you know: a surer bet. Greg has been treated better by Logan than by his own grandfather, and he’s Tom’s ride-or-die. In the trailer, Tom has Greg spying on Logan in the newsroom, because even though he clearly scares them, they want to stay as close to Money Daddy Logan as possible. In the trailer, we see the rift that Tom’s allegiance to Logan has caused in his marriage to Shiv (Sarah Snook), who is on the other team. By ratting out his own wife to Logan in the season finale, he shows where his priorities lie. This could change, though, if Shiv turns out to be pregnant. She toasted with water at her mom’s wedding.
Logan’s ex-wife, Caroline (Harriet Walter), colluded with Logan in the season-three finale. Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv, and Roman (Kieran Culkin) attempted to take on their dad by invoking a supermajority clause in their mother’s divorce settlement, but she nixed it behind their backs, cutting their attempted coup off at the knees. Also on his side is his sidepiece, naturally. Logan’s assistant Kerry (Zoe Winters) has been pivotal in shutting his kids out of the loop, and in the finale, it’s suggested that the two might be trying for a new baby heir to the throne.
Logan can also rely on his innermost war room. The trailer shows Kendall, Shiv, and Roman “death-wrestling ogres,†referring to Waystar Royco C-suite stalwarts Karl (David Rasche), Frank (Peter Friedman), and Gerri (J. Smith-Cameron). The latter, most powerful of three would have possibly allied herself with her on-and-off sick puppy Roman if he hadn’t humiliated her in a meeting with an unsolicited dick pic sent to the wrong person. It was the wake-up call she needed to stop playing around with this petulant man-child. Still, Gerri and Roman are endgame, so watch this space.
Finally, alt-right politician Jeryd Mencken (Justin Kirk) seems to have benefitted from the Waystar Royco bump, and he’s back in the trailer to needle Connor (Alan Ruck).
Team Nepo
Kendall spent a good chunk of season three trying to win his siblings over to his side in the fight against their father, but it took an act of radical vulnerability in the finale to form an alliance. Shiv had enough of Logan dangling the carrot, and Roman ruined his chances of being his father’s successor with the aforementioned pic of his own, uh, dangling carrot. Kendall’s emotional breakdown brought the three to a place where they can see each other as humans, as family, and fight together against a common enemy. Still, the trailer suggests further fracturing (more on this in the next section).
In the trailer, we learn that Team Overthrow Logan is being backed by ultra-wealthy investors Stewy (Arian Moayed), Sandi (Hope Davis), and rival conglomerate head Nan Pierce (Cherry Jones).
Team Question Mark??
So about those siblings. The trailer shows Logan coming to Roman for help handling Matsson. Will Roman’s ego be sufficiently stroked by hearing Daddy say “I need you?†Will he try to smooth things over with Gerri by hopping back over to the dark side? Or will he use Logan’s underestimation of him to his advantage and be a double agent? The trailer shows him telling Matsson that he hates him and plans on being “sand in the gears,†presumably slowing the merger down and buying time for his sibs.
And what of the fourth sibling — true eldest son Connor? The guy’s a wildcard, a true chaotic neutral, and the way he left things last season, it looks like he’s more invested in his marriage to Willa than in putting up with more dismissal from his siblings or his dad. He’s also still running for president. If Waystar subsidiary ATN continues to back Jeryd Mencken, Connor can probably be swayed over to his siblings — if they flatter him by asking.
Of course, the biggest question mark of them all is the ever-enigmatic Marcia (Hiam Abbas), Logan’s estranged wife who keeps her cards close to her chest. Despite Logan’s infidelity, Marcia has secured the bag as Logan’s wife, and she happens to have a son, Amir, whom the show conveniently keeps in the shadows. She probably wouldn’t want Logan to sell the company for the same reason her stepchildren don’t, but she’ll probably act in quiet opposition to father and son as the show approaches its series finale.