‘Succession’ Season 4 Episode 4 Recap: “Honeymoon States”

ICYMI from last week on Succession: Logan Roy is dead. As we rejoin his children, employees, rivals, and hangers-on the day after his passing, Kendall is lost, Roman is businesslike, and Shiv is pregnant. …Well, Shiv’s been pregnant, but this is the first time we’re finding about it, putting us ahead of everyone else in her life.

Everything’s happening everywhere at Logan’s town house when Kendall arrives, including in the foyer downstairs, as he passes Hugo on the phone, yelling at someone named Juliet that she “taken a strap-on and fucked [him] in the ass.” Kendall’s next surprise: Marcia, returned from “shopping, forever” and acting as the lady of the manor; her fascinator looks particularly mournful as she assures Kendall that, although their marriage was “complicated,” she and Logan had still been speaking “intimately” multiple times daily. “Go fuck yourself” technically fits that description.

The younger Roy kids check in with each other — Shiv and Kendall feel “knocked out,” while Roman claims to have imagined this moment so often during Logan’s life that he may have “pre-grieved”…

…and then the jockeying for power begins in earnest, because the board has to name an interim CEO in a matter of hours, and a lot of money is at stake. Obviously, Matsson has no compunction about calling the grieving children of the man who died on a plane bound to a meeting with him, but reaches Roman before the kids have formulated an answer; when they let the call go and return it five minutes later, suddenly a functionary named Oskar (Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson) has control of Matsson’s phone, vaguely denying that Matsson is dodging them in retaliation for their having apparently dodged him. Could they come meet with him in Sweden within the next 24 hours? Sure, they have a funeral to arrange and a presidential election days away, but no, Matsson could not come to them instead — not during GoJo’s company retreat! Heaven forbid Matsson’s staffers miss out on access to his inspirational leadership!

Meanwhile, the Top Team are trying to figure out whether any of them should try to install themselves interim CEO over any of the (non-Connor) kids. Should it be Karl, the natural choice as CFO? Should it be Gerri, who’s already done it once? What about Tom, or is he perhaps a clumsy interloper whom no one trusts, and whose wife isn’t even speaking to him? 

Whose wife is speaking to him? Connor, who arrives with Willa amid the wrangling. “Look how far you’ve come,” purrs Marcia to Willa. “Look at us both, right?” Willa smiles back. Then Connor reminds them both (and all of us) which got the better end of the deal: the honeymoon next week will be through several swing states despite the fact that we already know his campaign is just well-funded presidential LARPing. Enjoy Wisconsin, Willa! Feed Connor a lot of cheese and maybe you’ll be where Marcia is soon. 

Back to the Top Team: Frank is the executor of Logan’s estate, and in that capacity, he has found an undated piece of paper on which Logan wrote…something. Karl, Frank, and Gerri all seem to agree that it wouldn’t be the worst thing if the paper were to fly out of Frank’s hand and get flushed down the toilet, ha ha, they are only joking, unless…?

Downstairs, Hugo pulls Kendall aside to give him the context for the angry phone conversation Kendall overheard earlier: Juliet is Hugo’s daughter — estranged, according to him — and she happens to have sold a lot of Waystar stock right before Logan’s death was announced. Put a pin in THAT for now…

…because then it’s time for us all to find out, with the kids, what’s on The Piece Of Paper: Logan wanted Kendall to succeed him at Waystar. Or, to be clearer, that’s what Logan had wanted, at some point; based on the materials around it in the safe, Frank’s guess is that it’s from four years ago. Obviously, no one is more inclined to treat The Piece Of Paper as a holy and unassailable relic than Kendall, and he takes it poorly when Shiv wonders whether Kendall’s name is underlined or crossed out. Roman also notes that, if The Piece Of Paper is even from 18 months ago (as another addendum suggests), Kendall has “tried to put [Logan] in jail like 12 times since then.” When Shiv continues discrediting The Piece Of Paper, Kendall gets heated: “Well, it sure as fucking shit doesn’t say Shiv.” Tough but fair and you know it galls her not to have been considered enough to be mentioned!

Once everyone’s been called back downstairs for speeches, Kendall very seriously asks Frank whether The Piece Of Paper is “real.” Frank’s response is, well, frank in a way that people rarely are on this show: he doesn’t know. Sometimes Logan did want Kendall to take over. “He made me hate him, and he died,” says Kendall. “I feel like he didn’t like me. I disappointed him.” Frank kindly says that people tend to think in apocalyptic terms at times like this, but that Kendall’s feelings aren’t facts: “He was an old bastard, and he loved you. He loved you.” Deciding to believe it, Kendall asks, if he can get his siblings to go along with it, will Frank back him for interim CEO? Frank reminds Kendall that he has “stuff cooking” and seems “so well”: “Do you really want back in?” Ooh, nice try, Frank, but your once-removed declaration of paternal love has given Kendall the strength of ten men, and nothing you say will stop him now.

Mourners continue stopping in to pay their respects: Colin, in jeans; an offscreen Mencken, preceded by Secret Service agents with bomb-sniffing dogs; conservative ghoul Ron Petkus, giving a florid speech; Stewy with Sandi and Sandy. Roman and Shiv, already dubious about Kendall’s ascension, are further grossed out when Kendall kneels next to the significantly incapacitated Sandy to start campaigning for his board vote. Bit late in the day to start respecting Sandy’s personhood and capacity, Kendall, but go off!

Kendall soon moves on. Stewy jokes that he heard Logan read Kendall’s business plan for Pierce and died laughing — which Kendall either genuinely laughs at, because their real friendship is still in there somewhere and Stewy knows Kendall knows where he’s coming from, OR Kendall pretends to go along with it because it’s Stewy’s turn for Kendall to work him. Kendall tells him about The Piece Of Paper and makes his case to be CEO: Stewy knows his flaws, the GoJo deal has to happen, and it’ll be good for Kendall to shepherd it. What’s in it for Stewy? “Maybe do a solid for your oldest pal the day after his dad died?” Kendall offers…

…and apparently it works, because then Kendall is yelling at Shiv and Roman to stop ignoring him and join him in planning: they can’t give it to anyone on the Top Team just because they couldn’t get their shit together. Soon, Kendall is making concessions: the offer could be for Kendall and Roman to do it together; they are, after all, (officially) co-COOs right now. Resentment radiates from Shiv throughout the debate, such as it is, but even she has to know that she can’t really weasel in with them, and that a three-headed CEO is not going to look good for the company, at this pivotal moment. Roman and Kendall promise that, titles aside, Shiv will actually be “across everything” with them, and that it’s only going to be for six or eight months. “This is a Dad promise, on yesterday,” she intones. Her brothers agree. They’re not going to fuck her. The three of them plus Stewy tell the Top Team. The board votes. The succession succeeds. Shiv trips.

A portent of her falling out of her brothers’ favor? Hmmm.

When it’s official, Hugo and Karolina usher Kendall and Roman into a small private office of Logan’s — a space his sons don’t seem to have spent much time in, given the awe with which they take in his jacket, still draped on the back of his desk chair, and a book of puzzles they didn’t know he did. Apparently this is where the most secret secrets are shared: while Carolina and Hugo’s job, as Logan’s comms heads, used to be to burnish his reputation, now they will be doing that for Roman and Kendall. Maybe that means announcing their interim CEO accession with photos of them smiling with Logan, conveying that theirs are safe hands for Waystar to be in. Or, maybe the story is that Logan has been losing it, and actually, the people around him — like his sons — had been making Logan’s decisions for quite a while. “So it’s Operation Shit On Dad,” Roman spits. Hugo and Karolina both dispute that…but also mention that some stories could come out about physical and verbal abuse, or about Logan’s treatment of Connor’s mother. Roman shuts this down decisively, and Kendall agrees…

…and then we see him in yet another of his father’s many bathrooms, as in the series premiere — not quite freaking out in the same way he did after Logan told him he would definitely not be announcing his plans to hand Kendall Waystar…

…but certainly concerned about The Piece Of Paper, and whether Shiv was right about his name…

…and then he finds Hugo alone to say he’s on board with “the bad Dad stuff” after all: “It’s what he would do. He’d want this, for the firm….So action that.” Hugo should do it in a way that’s untraceable, and no, of course, Hugo can’t get that order in writing or even seek Karolina’s verbal signoff, he just has to get on it: “Unless,” Kendall adds, “you want me to pull out the strap-on.” We opened the episode on Kendall’s despair.

We close on his creepy smile.

What a difference a day makes — a day, and an unfathomable infusion of power. The most chilling part is that when Kendall says this is what Logan would want…he’s right.

Margin Calls

• Well, that was easy: Connor has barely gotten inside before he’s asking Marcia about buying the town house from her; seconds later, they’re spitting in their palms for a handshake deal at $63 million. Did anyone else wonder if they came to terms so fast because she knows the house isn’t hers to sell? For that matter, based on what did make it onscreen, do we buy Marcia’s claim that she and Logan were still in regular contact offscreen?!
• Obituaries decoded: One of the episode’s funniest scenes is when Shiv, Kendall, and Roman translate the euphemisms in Logan’s obits. “A complicated man” means “threw phones at staff.” “Sharp reader of the national mood” means “he’s a bit racist.” “He was very much a man of his era” means “again, racist, also relaxed about sexual assault.” “Business genius” means “never paid a penny in U.S. taxes.” Roman balks at “well-connected,” which he thinks connotes pedophilia, which no one alleged of Logan. “He wouldn’t even hug his grandkids,” Kendall cracks.
  
  Real ones who watched sitcoms in the ’90s might have been reminded of this scene, from a NewsRadio in which New York magazine (which also eulogized Logan this week) named Lisa Miller (Maura Tierney) the cutest reporter in the city; Beth (Vicki Lewis) disagreed…and made a strong argument as to why.

• Tom, grasping: Knowing he’s not really in contention for CEO on his own merits, Tom sets about currying favor with the Roys who aren’t dead, starting with Kendall. Things were said and done, but this could be a chance for them to clean the slate. “I like you, Tom,” says Kendall, smiling indulgently. “Good luck.” Bad start. 
• Tom, seducing: When Shiv is still reeling from The Piece Of Paper reveal, Tom manages to pull her aside to speak one-on-one. Shiv, it seems, thinks she and her brothers killed Logan: he wouldn’t have been on the plane if the kids had just taken the GoJo deal, and he could have lived another 20 years, rocking his grandchildren to sleep. (Tom snorts that no one thought he wanted to do that, and Shiv lets go the opportunity to tell him another grandchild is on their way.)
  
  Then Tom lowers his voice to remind her about the first time they “knew one another.” He’d sent her handwritten notes. She was having “that very difficult time.” He flew to see her in France, and as they got close, he kept asking her, “Do you like this?” “Actually, I like it all,” she told him. Damn, now I think I’m pregnant.
• Tom, grasping some more: …but then it’s only a few scenes later that Tom pulls Roman aside to say they both know Logan’s intention was to give Roman ATN and that he’s really the favored son! That sexy story may have just been more gamesmanship! Dammit, Tom, this is why no one trusts you!
• Tom, Disgusting (Brother): While Petkus speaks, Tom quietly annotates the details of Logan’s death to Greg, standing next to him: Logan died fishing his iPhone from a toilet Karl had clogged: “The man lives on Wonder Bread and steak frites. He hadn’t had a shit for 20 years.” I guess gallows humor is a form of coping. Maybe Tom is imagining gallows that drop convicts straight into an outhouse.
• Oh, KERRY: Eventually, one of the guests crossing through Marcia’s foyer is Kerry, tearfully asking to go upstairs and get some of her things. Marcia icily says she will not be permitted, and that said things have already been bagged up for her. Roman, of all people, is appalled by this treatment and helps Kerry out, only for her to spill all the bag’s contents on the floor before Colin tells some underling to take her out the back door. When Roman asks Marcia whether all that was necessary, she even more coldly says, “We’re calling her a taxi to the subway so that she can go home to her little apartment.” DAMN.
  
  For the record, I don’t necessarily buy that, affair aside, an assistant at Kerry’s level would make a scene like this — try to imagine Kendall’s assistant Jess popping off in front of these many rich and powerful witnesses! You can’t! — but I also didn’t buy how fast Kerry got familiar enough to hang out in high-level meetings and curse out her boss’s blood relations, so: maybe she started unraveling at the same time she took up with Logan, and just never stopped.
• Ewan some, you lose some: Logan’s only brother didn’t show up for his wake? Maybe he just doesn’t go anywhere now that he no longer has Greg to chauffeur.
• “Greg?”: Frank’s laughter at Greg’s suggestion that his name on “the piece of paper” meant he was intended to be Kendall’s #2 is so great. (Roman’s guess that Logan wrote Greg’s name with a question mark in order not to forget it seems reasonable; after all, there was some doubt, in the series premiere, as to whether Logan thought his brother’s grandson might be named Craig.) We know Greg is gormless, but he’s now digging himself a gorm deficit.

Television Without Pity, Fametracker, and Previously.TV co-founder Tara Ariano has had bylines in The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Vulture, Slate, Salon, Mel Magazine, Collider, and The Awl, among others. She co-hosts the podcasts Extra Hot Great, Again With This (a compulsively detailed episode-by-episode breakdown of Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place), Listen To Sassy, and The Sweet Smell Of Succession. She’s also the co-author, with Sarah D. Bunting, of A Very Special 90210 Book: 93 Absolutely Essential Episodes From TV’s Most Notorious Zip Code (Abrams 2020). She lives in Austin.