Every Episode of 'Succession,' Ranked

By Frazier Tharpe, Gabriella Paiella, Paul Thompson, Julian Kimble, Abe Beame, Ariel LeBeau, Carrie Wittmer, Angel Diaz, Ross Scarano, and Brendan Klinkenberg

It's been less than a week since Succession aired its series finale, but the show's place in the TV Hall of Fame has been cemented for some time now. Even before the HBO series fully entered the zeitgeist (circa season 3), it was clear creator Jesse Armstrong and his collaborators had unlocked something special in their story of the Shakespearean drama within the fictional Roy family—specifically, aging patriarch Logan Roy's (Brian Cox) begrudging need to name an heir to maintain his company Waystar Royco's status as the fifth largest American media conglomerate.

Across four seasons, three of Logan's children—Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Roman (Kieran Culkin) and Shiv (Sarah Snook)—fell in and out of alliances and betrayals as they all made various bids to win his approval or force him out. With real-life American dynasties like Murdochs, the Redstones and even a splash of Kennedy for inspiration, Succession was a window into the banal, poisonous, casually glamorous lives of the one percent, and the ways in which their in-fighting ripples into grave circumstances for the rest of us. Entire magazine websites were laid off, rockets exploded, presidential elections were "influenced," victims were silenced. Through it all, Armstrong and a talented ensemble, doomed to fight each other for Emmys, somehow made these spoiled rich monsters into some of the most captivating characters on TV, from Jeremy Strong's notorious Method approach to the pathos Alan Ruck brought to Logan's bumbling oldest son, Connor.

Succession was often many things: acerbic and hilarious, bleakly realistic, crushingly tragic. Fans may debate when the series actually shifted gears from good to great, or what the best season is (OK, that's not really up for debate: it's season 2). But in the hands of this creative team (including lead director Mark Mylod), it was always distinct and memorable—this is not a show where the episodes bleed together, and they rarely ever missed.

So to help process this great show leaving the airwaves, let's debate. Here's all 39 episodes of Succession, ranked from least good to instant classic.

The One Where: Kendall vs Logan officially begins.Also: Greg slides the socio-political thermometer up the nation's ass and takes a reading!

The drawback of a season premiere is that it can reduce even the most richly drawn, transcendent series into feeling like, well, TV. There are tables to reset, plot threads to pick up and new dramas to foreshadow. After the high of the season 2 finale, which all but cemented Succession's place in the television Hall of Fame, "Secession" is the inevitable come-down, for the viewer and for Kendall. What seemed like a premeditated moment of the student becoming (and killing) his master is revealed to be nothing more than a crime of passion with no plan whatsoever for what comes next. Kendall's coup wouldn't fully crumble for another five episodes, but it was exposed as a house of cards the minute he drove around New York on a manic rush of emotions and ended up using his ex-wife's living room as his base of operations to plan his father's takedown once and for all. It's a bit of a disappointing swerve. But as every high-powered publicist and lawyer who comes by Rava's house would soon learn, actually believing in Kendall Roy was the first mistake.

A lesser show would operate in binaries. But Jesse Armstrong and his writers know family—and great characters—are complicated, the emotions are too messy to ever stay linear. And so, the morning after the siblings found themselves more divided than ever, here they are, sharing tender family moments on their way to and during their father's funeral, holding each other up when they can't bear to stand alone. And speaking of crumbling, how about Roman Roy, hours ago at the height of his fascist powers, now reduced to a slobbering mess, the man-child within made public in front of everyone whose respect he's so desperate to win. The prospect of delivering a eulogy would be understandably stressful, but Roman's Ls continue into the episode. Two episodes ago, Nate flatly told Kendall their dynamic wasn't that of Senator Gil's and Logan's. With Mencken, close to power and already reneging on his promises, Roman learns that hard lesson—and the reality of just how much he isn't up for the job sets in–deep enough for him to purge himself in the fires of a nice protest stampede. — Frazier Tharpe

The One Where: Kendall returns to the scene of the crime.Also: Tom has a pathetically weak bladder, like an old woman who has had a baby somehow!

An episode in which Kendall—who has spent most of the season practically catatonic, forever haunted by the events of the season 1 finale—literally returns to the scene of the crime, sounds like the makings of a classic hour of Succession. Instead, it's one of the weaker installments in season 2, for reasons that are mostly intangible. Maybe it's because it's here that the Rhea subplot starts to get a little too byzantine for its own good. She helps Logan weasel out of his promises to Shiv with a sly little double-cross, but knowing the way things with her character fizzle out does this arc no favors. (Case in point: no one batted an eye when she didn't make Widower's Row at Logan's funeral.) And of all the depths Jeremy Strong took Kendall to this season, somehow, visiting the family of that poor waiter doesn't rank among the most memorable or visceral. But give it up to Caroline, who paints an even clearer picture of her part in the core three's upbringing than her first appearance in the series at Shiv's wedding. These kids were always doomed. — FT

The One Where: Kendall takes charge and calls in his old friend Stewy for help.Also: Tom fixes the Death Star with a grill on the exhaust vent!

If Succession had sputtered, creatively or commercially, early in its first season and drifted off into the HBO graveyard alongside Vinyl and Luck, its third episode would have at least given us Arian Moayed's Stewy Hosseini, one of the great comic side characters of his era. We meet him as he's saying to Kendall, his friend from grade school, Harvard, and weekend-long coke binges, "The thing about capitalism is—I mean, yeah, sure, it's got its issues" before reaching his hand into a glass case to steal a second donut from the under the nose of an oblivious barista.

By The Editors of GQ

By The Editors of GQ

By Tyler Chin

A string of meetings at this coffee shop see the pair hatch a plan for the private equity bailout of Waystar, which will morph into a hostile takeover bid that hangs over the entire series. Yet beyond plot consequences, Stewy clarifies that the Succession milieu—which is populated almost entirely by people who are uncomfortably rich, surprisingly erudite, and still wholly base—is filled not only with people who were shaped by gauntlets of family dysfunction but those who adopted those positions eagerly, cultivating lives filled with leveraged buyouts and molly water through choice alone.

While the executive role in which Kendall finds himself in the immediate aftermath of Logan's stroke is—as everyone keeps reminding him—temporary, he throws himself into it: imitating famous CEOs’ rigorous early-morning routines, leaving the office abruptly when he needs to "get some altitude" on a problem. The cracks show as he preens for his ex-wife, Rava, over FaceTime, pretending to need her advice on a monumental financial crisis; he attempts to smooth over those fault lines with insufferable business-hip bravado. "I just wanted to get the gang together early in my tenure," he says during a hastily assembled meeting of the company's top brass, "to say… yo." When he learns about Kendall's maneuvering, Logan, addled as he may be, is unimpressed. "You’re a fucking idiot," he tells his son through labored breaths. — Paul Thompson

The One Where: Adrien Brody plays the world's most insanely outerwear-layered billionaire.Also: Tom researches burping toilet wine bags.

Succession's strengths are its impeccable casting, from main cast to one-episode guest stars, its inventive twist on vulgarity, and its nail-biting, high-anxiety tension. In this season three episode which in the early going immortalizes the phrase "Little Lord Fuckleroy," Oscar winner Adrien Brody disappears into the world of Succession like Bradley Cooper disappears into Rocket Raccoon as eccentric billionaire and Waystar shareholder Josh Aaronson. While visiting his Hamptons home, Aaronson (wearing what appears to be several jackets) invites Logan and Kendall to join him on the beach, which requires a long walk with elevation. The walk positions Kendall and Logan alone together for the first time since Kendall's betrayal in the season two finale, and the shaky camera – alongside Logan's heavy breathing and stubborn refusal to take a beat — might make you rip your hair out. — Carrie Wittmer

The One Where: The gang goes to NorwayAlso: Tom doesn't really give a fuck about France!

By The Editors of GQ

By The Editors of GQ

By Tyler Chin

Great things happen when the Succession gang goes abroad. Well, not great, but … you know what we mean. In "Kill List," the siblings fly to Norway to meet with Lukas Matsson, the Swedish tech mogul looking to acquire Waystar Royco. It's just days after Logan has died, and it really hammers home how inept the kids are without him. After some primo sauna time and navigating mild cross-cultural differences, the negotiations go down. Kendall and Roman hike the top of a mountain with Matsson, and tell him to go fuck himself while they’re up there. Shiv—revealed to be pregnant in the last episode—starts forming a quiet, unlikely alliance with Matsson. While they bond, he takes the opportunity to tell her about the time he had a bad breakup with his ex, who also happens to be the head of comms at his company. After which he, uh, kept sending her bricks of his own frozen blood. How do you say "red flag" in Swedish? — Gabriella Paiella

The One Where: Kendall tries to fill Logan's big shoes. Big, big shoes.Also: Tom wins Bitey!

In his GQ cover story, Jeremy Strong listed the Kanye West, Don Toliver and Kid Cudi track "Moon" as one of his Kendall Roy inspirations; in an interview with Matt Zoller Seitz he clarified that he used the track specifically for this episode. This is fitting: while Kendall is, in Strong's eyes, both tipping into mania and leveraging his father's death for professional gain, the character is also approaching a state of semi-spiritual zen. The occasionally clumsy, economically unfounded, and tonally uncanny presentation he makes for a bizarre retirement community venture somehow transcends those hurdles, convinces skeptics, and positions Kendall as Logan's logical successor. The episode ends with Kendall immersed in water—only this time it's by choice, and he's at peace.

That sort of calm eludes Roman, who fires the head of Waystar studios in a brilliantly nervy scene and Gerri in one that's depressingly blunt. But the most surprising character arc in "Living+" is the one that Shiv and Tom trace together. The scene they share in a bedroom, where Tom confesses his anxieties about money and love for fine watches before turning this supposed shallowness on Shiv, is the most honest conversation the couple ever has on screen—bringing them onto equal footing and into total understanding, setting up a cautious reconciliation. For Shiv, whose struggle has always been to see her own limitations and overcome the vanity that compels her to deny them, the acknowledgement of split loyalties and compromised morality is, at least briefly, invigorating.

The One Where: Kendall and Squiggle cook up "L to the O-G (Freestyle")Also: Tom gets pimped out!

By The Editors of GQ

By The Editors of GQ

By Tyler Chin

Twenty-five years ago this September, four remarkable rap records were released on the same day: Outkast's Aquemini, Jay-Z's Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life, A Tribe Called Quest's The Love Movement and, perhaps most crucially, Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star. The branch of rap that Mos and Kweli embodied—formally inventive but ideologically revivalist—was the key counterpoint to the turn-of-the-century excess that bled onto the pop charts, and no label distilled it more cleanly than Rawkus Records, the legendary indie label financed and eventually owned by James Murdoch. If you bought a copy of Soundbombing II, there's a good chance your $16.99 went toward a consultant's flight to gut a newsroom in Cincinnati.

From the opening moments of Succession's pilot—when he's introduced in the back of a chauffeured car, rapping along to the Beastie Boys’ "An Open Letter to New York"—the show has flirted with this particular parallel between Kendall and James. There's the fantastic cold open to "Which Side Are You On?" in which he and Stewy wait backstage to see a rapper signed to a Waystar subsidiary ("You’re fucking imperial right now," Kendall tells him); there's the soundtrack he meticulously curated for the party in "Too Much Birthday," which oscillates between I-still-get-it staples like Schoolboy Q's "Man of the Year" and high school revelations like KRS-One's "MC's Act Like They Don't Know." But Kendall's affinity for rap truly comes to a head in "Dundee," where he delivers the unforgettable tribute to his dad known as "L to the OG." While Kendall outsources plenty of his creative endeavors—he hires writers to punch up his speeches and tweet for him—the song could only come from a man of very specific age and taste: this is somebody who heard "Can I Get A…" and thought Jay sold out.

While the back-to-back European sojourns of "Return" and "Dundee" feel in many ways like a breather before Season 2's endgame, this episode is quietly significant to the show's plot—and the approaching high-water mark of Shiv's plotting and competency. Her on-the-fly decision to cede ground to Rhea as the new CEO, so that she might take the blow for the impending cruises bombshell that she's temporarily keeping from her father, insulates her to take the role with clean hands in the future. Composer Nicholas Britell, who admits the Bach-sampling "L to the OG" beat was a remnant from his college-aged rap production dabbling, is "Dundee"'s MVP on a few levels, scoring Shiv et al.'s cruises huddle like the end of the world's saddest ballet. — PT

The One Where: The gang takes over a hospital wing, prayers up for Logan.Also: Tom proposes—in the hospital! And difference between plaid, gingham, and tartan!

"Shitshow at the Fuck Factory" is an extension of the pilot, following the Roy children at the hospital while they await Logan's unsure fate. From its title to its dialogue, the episode establishes the show's unique vulgarity as well as its dichotomy of drama and comedy. With their patriarch in a coma, the Roy siblings are left to fend for themselves–which only exaggerates how childish they are. Roman and Shiv have a physical fight, the kind you probably haven't had since kindergarten, if ever. Most importantly, the episode also includes Tom's haphazard proposal to Shiv, introduces J.Smith Cameron as the sharp, no-nonsense Gerri, and sets the tone for the kids’ relationship with Marcia–seemingly the only person who has ever told them no. — CW

The One Where: The Roys attend a big event for the first time; Connor obsesses over the temperature of table butter.Also: A little boy from St. Paul (read: Tom) goes to his first Roy Endowment Creative Ball with the most beautiful gal in the world!

By The Editors of GQ

By The Editors of GQ

By Tyler Chin

Mistrust and paranoia rule the Roys and everyone in their orbit. Anxiety that the next person is planning to fuck you over, relationship be damned, is a lifelong learned behavior. Beginning with this episode,Succession sets up that one of its greatest tragedies is the way its characters not only fear, but assume betrayal. The idea that your son isn't trying to maneuver his way to the throne at your expense, that your fiance didn't go behind your back and blab about a company secret, doesn't even occur to people like Logan and Kendall, or Tom and Shiv. For them, Occam's Razor always cuts towards something self-serving and venal. It’d be depressing if it wasn't so hilarious; the Three's Company-esque misunderstanding over fundraiser speech copy, all but ensuring Logan and Kendall will be at odds.

Such is the brilliance of Succession, which after a very good pilot and two solid-but-not-quite-there episodes, begins to coalesce into something great with "Sad Sack Wasp Trap." The Succession uber-faithful will insist the show was perfect from the jump and anyone who disagrees simply "didn't get it yet." It wasn't, and that's OK—refining the pitch on the fly is what great TV is all about. And while we wouldn't reach "truly excellent hour of TV" until the next one or two episodes, this installment, the first to revolve around an event that brings the Roys and everyone in their orbit under one roof, where an hour's worth of simmering tension can explode, is a crucial step towards greatness. From Connor Roy terrorizing the kitchen staff over the temperature of table butter to Greg's first display of corporate wiliness, Succession proved itself worthy of its HBO peers earlier than expected. — FT

The One Where: The gang goes to England for Shiv's wedding. Also: Tom slaps Greg (for the first time)!

Season 1's finale, "Nobody Is Ever Missing," tends to overshadow the penultimate episode, and understandably so. But "Pre-Nuptial" is a remarkable escalation of personal and professional stakes, not only setting the stage for the revelation of the cruises scandal and the Stewy-Sandy-Kendall hostile takeover bid, but cracking open the fissures that would eventually swallow Shiv and Tom's marriage. It also wisely jumps the gun on the expected second-season addition of new characters to deepen a show's bench.

Succession moves to England for Shiv and Tom's wedding; we meet the three younger Roy children's mother, Caroline, who proceeds to guilt trip and unsettle every guest in a way that tracks with all her offsprings’ various neuroses. More unsettling for Tom, though, is Roman's date: Tabitha, the tall, striking woman who was the other half of his "closed-loop system" at his bachelor party in "Prague." An appearance that easily could’ve been a one-off gag instead pays out like a broken slot machine, with Caitlin Fitzgerald providing a love interest who can vibrate on Kieran Culkin's bizarre frequency. Trying valiantly to seem unfazed, he tells an alarmed Greg that this is "just one of those weird urban things, like when you go to see standup and the comedian is your dentist."

By The Editors of GQ

By The Editors of GQ

By Tyler Chin

From Tabitha and Caroline, to Tom's snippiness about the wedding planning, to Connor saying he's "cracking the nut of happiness like a modern day Thoreau," "Pre-Nuptial" is one of Succession's funniest episodes. It's even, briefly, touching—both in the scene in which Logan assembles his top strategic and public-relations minds simply to conclude that he has no choice but to attend his daughter's wedding, and in the one where Kendall, Roman, and Shiv return to their teenaged hideaway and fall into a group hug. The familial sentimentality is cut, however, by Shiv's attempt to blackmail Gerri in the midst of asking her for marital advice—Gerri is her godmother, after all. There may be hugging, but there's certainly no learning. — PT

The One Where: Shiv officially joins the game.Also: Greg buys Park Coke!

Season 2 starts with a bang. Logan has Ken by the balls, holding his involvement in the waiter's fatal accident over his head, effectively making Kendall his lap dog. Ken is done, he's finished, he's over. Meanwhile the two other siblings are playing Gin Rummy with Zeus as Tom so eloquently puts it. Romulus wants to shed dead weight and focus on news while Shiv figures out Logan's test and votes to "not asset strip the baby." Logan formally asks her to become CEO. What a turn of events, right?

Logan wants to be the last media company standing, "the number one media conglomerate in the world," he proclaims towards the end of the episode. He keeps the Shiv news tucked in his vest and picks frick (Ken) and frack (Rome) as his wartime CEOs. We then get brought down to earth as the patriarch sends his reluctant heir-apparent to shoot Stewy and Sandy in the face. They're downstairs in some private room holding court like mob bosses, on some real Illuminati shit, and Kenny gets the gun from the bathroom stall and does the deed. "The Summer Palace" renders KLR as the most pathetic version of Michael Corleone. Unrelated: shout out to Napoleon's dick. — Angel Diaz

The One Where: The gang pregames the presidential electionAlso: Tom buys Shiv a… scorpion!

By The Editors of GQ

By The Editors of GQ

By Tyler Chin

Succession, gloriously cynical until the end, is foremost, a series l about exploring what people will do to secure power: gleeful bootlicking, schmoozing with an enemy, betraying one's siblings, marriages of convenience, being a punching bag for a spouseI"Tailgate Party" features all of the above, and my goodness is Succession adept at handling mess confined to one location.

On the eve of the presidential election, Shiv and Tom become the new hosts of Logan's pre-election party. It's the requisite gathering of movers and shakers across industries and political parties, many of whom are just happy to revel in their status. S Shiv is trying to screw Kendall and Roman over by acting as Matsson's mole. Kendall and Roman hope to undermine Matsson after learning that GoJo's subscription numbers are janky. Matsson shows up unexpectedly with the GoJo crew, clad in a loud jacket and a pair of Kyries, smug as ever. Tom, ever the ass-kisser, is just trying to make sure he’ll still have a job amid the corporate upheaval.

It's an assembly of terrible people spitting venom at one another with smiles on their faces. Arguably the ugliest and most enthralling confrontation is the overdue showdown between Tom and Shiv. Their relationship, rooted in their mutual need for power, has always been corrosive. But here, isolated from their guests, they’re finally honest with each other. He thinks she's cold and selfish. She thinks he's a social climbing hick. This ain't foreplay: they’re trying to kneecap each other. And the goddamn of it all is how right both of them are.

Succession excels at dropping the viewer into chaos, then zooming in on the pathos. It always reminds its audience that bad things happen when these people convene. Nobody died at this party, but it sure looks like any chance of Tom and Shiv reconciling did. — Julian Kimble

The One Where: The Roys do ThanksgivingAlso: Greg discovers Bertrand Russell!

How generous of Jesse Armstrong to include a holiday episode so early in the first season of Succession. On Thanksgiving day, Kendall plans his vote of no confidence in his dad with Frank, and Greg drives his Uncle Ewan and Logan's polar opposite brother, played by James Cromwell, to New York from Canada. The Roys’ decadent Thanksgiving dinner — prepared and served, as always, by staff they don't acknowledge — is cold, tense, and uninviting, like most of the family's gatherings, leading the audience to wonder why they keep doing this. But like most Succession episodes involving family gatherings, it's suffused with clever dialogue and forces together characters who don't really want to be interacting with each other; the only thing a Roy Thanksgiving has in common with a normal person's Thanksgiving. "I Went to Market" also sets up a major plot point throughout the series when Tom sends the unsuspecting, naive Cousin Greg to shred cruise documents. — CW

The One Where: Logan turns 80, un-retires, and has a strokeAlso: Greg definitely did not smoke that joint!

By The Editors of GQ

By The Editors of GQ

By Tyler Chin

Everything in the Succession pilot is a test: Tom worries about showing up to Logan's 80th birthday party with a gift that's too forgettable or too lavish; Kendall starts to fear that showing up at all exposes him as insufficiently focused on work. Logan promises Greg, who's been fired from Waystar management training after vomiting out of a mascot head's eyes, a new job if he can only get his grandfather—Logan's semi-estranged brother, Ewan—to call and ask. And at the episode's climactic softball game, Roman dangles a check for $1 million in front of a young boy from a working class family as an incentive to hit a home run. When the boy gets tagged out at the plate, Roman rips up the check in front of him. (Later we see Logan's body man, Colin, getting the boy's parents to sign a non-disclosure agreement—a deal sweetened with Tom's re-gifted watch.)

By the end of "Celebration," this world of interrupted lunches and identical black helicopters is thrown into disarray by the stroke Logan suffers on the flight back to Manhattan. Several key figures are unsure if they’ve been fired or given new roles at Waystar, the Roy children are split on whether to support their father's desire to add his third wife, Marcia, to the family trust, and the stock price is about to plummet. Even more important is what doesn't happen. Kendall wakes up believing he's about to be announced as CEO-in-waiting and, before lunch, is being called soft by the father who thinks he should be hashing out the finer points of a new-media acquisition deal rather than eating cake and smiling politely through toasts. "Sometimes," Logan patiently explains in what arguably functions as the show's thesis statement, "it is a big-dick contest." — PT

The One Where: Logan tries to buy PGM for his birthday.Also: Greg brings Bridget Random Fuck From The Apps to Logan's birthday party!

By The Editors of GQ

By The Editors of GQ

By Tyler Chin

In retrospect, "The Munsters" is a cruel sleight of hand. In just two episodes—two days, in show-time—Logan Roy will die. But on his last birthday, he seems more virile than ever, right up to the very last scene, which sees him chewing out Cyd Peach over the kinds of small ATN details he likely hasn't bothered with in years. If there's one area in which Succession stumbles—a nitpick, to be sure—it's with season premieres, which almost inevitably feel like a perfunctory table-setting. This may be the best of the bunch, thanks to a Greg C-story that keeps on giving ("capacious bag," "Disgusting Brothers"), not to mention the show's most nail-biting can-they-close-the-deal drama since season 2's "Argestes."

It's a fitting, almost-final hour for Logan: the brute too proud to reach out to his children, wondering why, at his birthday party, he's surrounded by a room full of stone-faced "Munsters" who can't crack a joke. On that classic ‘60s sitcom, the characters were kind, affable souls who only looked ghoulish. (Who's the Marilyn in this scenario, Tom, or Greg?) In the Waystar orbit, everyone is perfectly coiffed and dead inside, just as Logan made them. — FT

The One Where: The gang goes to the capital to testify.Also: Greg turns down a quarter of a billion dollars!

Though Jesse Armstrong's show girds its humor with graver consequences, its depiction of American government occasionally seems to share DNA with Veep, Armstrong's past collaborator Armando Iannucci's own HBO project. So while the Congressional hearings over Waystar's cruises scandal could potentially wrest control of the company from the Roy family, they’re rendered as pure farce: a senator reads "You can't make a Tomelette without breaking some Gregs" into the official record; Greg encourages sworn-in witnesses to "maybe just try to enjoy it"; a Republican senator thanks the Roys for the cruise he took with his wife, which he describes as "frankly delightful." It is perhaps Succession's finest sequence of pure comedy, even before The Atlantic calls Tom a "smirking block of domestic feta."

Elsewhere the kids finally get some dirt under their fingernails: Roman, Karl, and Laird's mission to Turkey, where they hope to secure foreign investment that would allow Waystar to go private, is interrupted by an "anti-corruption" militia that storms the hotel they’re meeting in, while Shiv is deployed to a playground to reason with a cruises whistleblower. In one of perhaps two scenes over the show's entire run that suggest she has what it takes to run the conglomerate, she convinces this woman to bail on testifying—not by posing as a friend or ally, but by laying bare how self-interested the Roys’ enemies are as well. Coupled with Kendall's dressing down of Gil during the hearings, this is the high-water mark for the Roy kids as useful employees of their father. But it's usefulness in service of some truly ghastly ends: as Rhea says when she tells Logan she's quitting her brief stint as CEO, "I can't see the bottom of the pool." — PT

The One Where: Kendall and Shiv go to warAlso: Greg buys a watch!

By The Editors of GQ

By The Editors of GQ

By Tyler Chin

Kendall's manic high from nuking Logan peaks and the comedown begins in "The Disruption," an episode in which multiple characters get rug-pulled and struggle to save face. "The Disruption" also happens to be the name of a late night show hosted by a comedian that takes pleasure in roasting Kendall, who in turn takes masochistic pleasure in being called "Oedipussy" and having his underlings recite negative tweets about him. (A substitute for some of his other, more dangerous self-destructive habits, perhaps?)

L's abound in this episode: Kendall's vision of storming the Waystar office like Clint Eastwood rolling into the saloon falls short when Colin levels him with a single piercing stare. Shiv is publicly humiliated when Kendall sabotages her town hall speech at Waystar with an industrial-sized speaker; Nirvana's "Rape Me" drowns out her feeble attempt to assuage employees about the company's sexual misconduct controversy. Certain that his incarceration is imminent, Tom agrees to be Logan's human shield against the DOJ in hopes it will curry his favor in the long run. (We see by the end of the season that it does.) Greg gets suckered into buying a $40,000 watch due to his fear of falling out of line with Team Kendall and general inability to assert himself. Even Logan is forced to back down when the FBI raids Waystar HQ and for once he can't bark "fuck off" emphatically enough to get his way, lest he incriminate himself. Everyone in the episode either chooses or is forced to make a disempowering compromise– familiar ground for Tom and Greg, less so for the Roy clan –to protect the status quo.

Kendall's awakening is the rudest, when Shiv gets her lick back moments before his planned appearance on The Disruption. Her public letter labeling him a deadbeat dad and unstable drug addict, among other things, thwarts Ken's deluded fantasy of being in on the jokes. He instantly comes spiraling back down to earth (in a tracking shot that is now a Twitter staple.)

The episode's portrayal of media discourse sparked talk about whether Succession had become too online, but perhaps what felt jarring was the sheer novelty of incorporating the voice of a public that, by design, rarely pierces the Roys’ echo chamber. In "The Disruption," the bubble is punctured, and for once, the Roys experience the impact. — Ariel LeBeau

The One Where: Kendall, Roman and Shiv are not serious peopleAlso: Tom meets with every divorce lawyer in New York City!

In "Rehearsal," Logan Roy spends his final hours on Earth delivering an impassioned speech to the ATN newsroom, then tells his children, at a karaoke bar in K-Town, that they "are not serious people." Logan's cruel analysis of his own kin is correct, and, essentially, the show's thesis: despite their privilege and access, the Roy children are relentlessly spoiled and thusly have not developed the skills necessary to be independent, working people. "Rehearsal" is also, ever so briefly, a rare display of unity between the Roy children as they attempt to comfort Connor after Willa suddenly escapes their rehearsal dinner. That outing comes to an end almost as soon as it starts, when Kendall, Shiv, and Roman make the night about Waystar: the circle of Roy life. — CW

By The Editors of GQ

By The Editors of GQ

By Tyler Chin

The One Where: Logan goes loony at the shareholders meetingAlso: Greg loses his trust fund to Greenpeace!

From the beginning of the series, each time Logan is indisposed is a reminder of how woefully unequipped everyone else is to function in his stead. Despite how desperately they jockey for more power, none of his kids or execs prove themselves truly capable of taking the reins when the moment arises. "Retired Janitors of Idaho," a highlight of Season 3, may be the funniest and most pathetic display of this. The episode takes place at Waystar's much anticipated shareholders meeting, during which a severe UTI incapacitates Logan before he can close a pivotal deal with Stewy, Sandi, and Sandy to avoid putting the company's leadership to a vote (which would put their fate in the hands of said retirees in Idaho.) Roman, Shiv, and the Waystar mafia panic as they scramble to land the plane without Logan's guidance, weighing whether they should wheel him out onstage to put on a good show for the shareholders. (An all-time Karl line: "It would be great to get the body up there.") Tom and Colin take turns catering to mentally-compromised Logan's demands, including the disposal of an invisible cat under his chair, which Colin handles with utmost urgency. Kendall, sidelined, is desperate for any attention that will let him feel like he still has a hand to play against his dad.

Both Kendall and Shiv go rogue and don't get the reaction they hope for from Logan. Shiv scarcely salvages the deal in time, without Logan's approval, but when she expects a gold star for her girlbossery, he smacks her down. Kendall gets onstage at the shareholder presentation and spews nonsense, daring Logan to react, but Logan merely stands him up for a fake meeting in the bowels of the conference center. As ever, even when he's gone "piss mad" and back, Logan takes all. — AL

The One Where: Kendall keeps going up to the Waystar roofAlso: Tom and Greg end up in the shitty panic room.

By The Editors of GQ

By The Editors of GQ

By Tyler Chin

Imagine you’re working in a newsroom: it's loud and chaotic, but not so loud or chaotic as to drown out the gunshot that rings out from your coworker's desk—killing him instantly, as was his plan. It's the sort of horror that could mar witnesses’ psyches for the rest of their lives. On Succession, however, it doesn't even happen on screen. In fact, "Safe Room" treats an ATN segment producer's suicide—described matter-of-factly by Gerri to an exasperated Logan—as an anticlimax, the dull reality that prevents the network from running the salacious "ATN UNDER ATTACK" chyrons that they whipped up when protesters assembled outside the offices to denounce an almost-definitely-fascist anchor. Even Holly Hunter's Rhea Jarrell, the CEO of a more left-leaning news operation, offers transparently perfunctory condolences as she climbs into the black car that will ferry her away, unseen and unaffected.

"Safe Room" sets in motion Logan's plan to buy PGM, a move that he hopes would make Waystar big enough to stave off Stewy and Sandy's takeover bid. While his opening salvo is successful in intriguing Rhea ($24 billion will do that), the conversation that gets them to that figure devolves into a spat between siblings: at one point, Shiv turns to her father and asks if Kendall is "allowed" to keep ratcheting up the offer. But this tiff resolves in an arresting scene between them in Logan's office, where Kendall collapses, crying, into his sister's arms, asking her to take care of him in the event he needs it. "If Dad didn't need me right now," he says to her, "I don't exactly know what I’d be for." Having to constantly question the Roy children's motives is a big part of what makes Succession compelling, but in this rare moment of vulnerability, Kendall seems broken in a way that is impossible to fake.

To that point: the most chilling threat in "Safe Room" is the implied one that comes in the episode's bookend scenes, each of which finds Kendall on the roof of the office building. In the opening moments, his standing at the low railing, looking out at the city—the implication of what he may or may not be considering is brutally obvious. When he returns there the next morning, a glass wall runs too high to scale. It's the clearest example of Waystar's power to cocoon and confine at once—a prison, smartly decorated. — PT

The One Where: Logan is laid to rest.Also: Greg CitiBikes to the funeral!

A lesser show would operate in binaries. But Jesse Armstrong and his writers know families are complicated, the emotions are too messy to ever stay linear. And so, the morning after the siblings found themselves more divided than ever, here they are, sharing tender family moments on their way to and during their father's funeral, holding each other up when they can't bear to stand alone.

And speaking of crumbling, how about Roman Roy, hours ago at the height of his fascist powers, now reduced to a slobbering mess, the man-child within made public in front of everyone whose respect he's so desperate to win. The prospect of delivering a eulogy would be understandably stressful, but Roman's Ls continue into the episode. Two episodes ago, Nate flatly told Kendall their dynamic wasn't that of Senator Gil's and Logan's. With Mencken, close to power and already reneging on his promises, Roman learns that hard lesson—and the reality of just how much he isn't up for the job sets in–deep enough for him to purge himself in the fires of a nice protest stampede.

By The Editors of GQ

By The Editors of GQ

By Tyler Chin

And still the legend of Logan looms large, as the writers use the occasion of his funeral to finally peel the curtain back on two longstanding bits of Logan lore at the series' one yard line. First, we meet Sally Anne, the woman the Waystar C-suite always refer to in hushed tones as the one lover who ever had Logan under pressure. (Played by Brian Cox's real wife, in a nice touch.) And in his showstopping eulogy, Ewan reveals why Logan's face went sheet white any time someone mentioned Rose. — FT

The One Where: Kendall tries to get his siblings in on his revolution.Also: Greg wonders if he "tied his dick to a runaway train!"

Ken has that trademark KLR manic gleam in his eyes to begin episode. He's got Logan freaking out—the killer he created went a little too far, and now his daughter may be switching sides on him. Logan spends most of the hour asking where Shiv is while she's polictrickin’ behind his back at Kendall the snake's house. The snake in question is at his snake pit trying to get his brother and sister to eat the apple. They hurl obscenities and insults and strategy at each other until, ultimately, no one bites. The KLR gleam extinguishes fast, as he loses Shiv to Logan, who offers her the president position at Waystar. While Kendall holds the cards (read: the cruise ship papers Greg didn't shred), just two episodes into the season, his stance is already looking shaky. — AD

The One Where: The Roy kids bond in Barbados and live happily ever afterAlso: Tom wins! Sort of!

"Huge board meeting. That's never happened before." As Lady Caroline points out early in the series finale, everything is cyclical. The events of Succession's final episode are just a super-sized sequel to the show's very first event ep, season 1's "Whose Side Are You On?" And once again Kendall Logan Roy thinks he has the teams clearly delineated, in his favor, only to stumble out of the Waystar Royco offices in a fugue state, so aimless and lost that suicide would be redundant because he's already dead inside.

By The Editors of GQ

By The Editors of GQ

By Tyler Chin

The last time, his tour through rock bottom took him to meth, an attempt at venture capitalism that failed to launch because even the potential clients who needed his money could barely take him seriously, and then back to trying to [metaphorically] kill his father. This time, his father's already dead. Where does a life defined by either pleasing or defeating daddy go after that happens? Kendall only had one morning to complicate that before the infamous document renewed his desire for his birthright (as notarized informally in Candy Kitchen). But now with this loss, Waystar is no longer a family company, and none of the behavior that family enables will be tolerated, or even acknowledged.

Kendall and Roman, are freed from their loops by Shiv's decision to stay in her own, a decision we’ll be debating the nuances of forever, but ultimately boils down to spite. A good chunk of the premiere is devoted to the siblings laughing and crying together, a vision of the healthy relationship they could have, if the zero-sum rules of dynastic succession weren't coded into their DNA. It takes a lot to get them to a place of laughing together fucking up their mom's kitchen. Betraying past confessions for leverage or underlining hurtful open secrets, we quickly learn, comes much more naturally. Everything we’ve seen on this show implies that there's no way these three can ever stay away from each other for long—but something about this betrayal feels, as Jeremy Strong described it, like an extinction-level event. And closing with a family apocalypse was always going to be the right place to end. — FT

The One Where: Logan picks the next Republican candidateAlso: Tom ethers Kendall with the series' thesis statement!

Given how central the presidential election came to be in Succession's conclusion, "What It Takes" appears, in hindsight, to be one of the skeleton keys unlocking the series's chief thematic and character concerns. As expansive a lens as it takes—it attempts to indict every faction of the modern Republican party, the American electoral system itself, and Hamilton—the episode's power can be isolated in three key scenes.

The first is the conversation between Tom and Kendall that begins in a diner and continues into its parking lot. Tom, convinced he's going to prison, orders approximately 5,500 calories’ worth of starch and syrup; Kendall, perpetually uncomfortable anywhere with a plastic-covered menu, decides to simply watch him inhale it. The dinner underlines the opacity of Tom's motivations and the rapid pace at which Kendall's case against Waystar is unraveling. "My hunch is that you’re going to get fucked," Tom tells Kendall as he climbs into a black SUV that will take him back to the seat of power. "Because I’ve seen you get fucked a lot. And I’ve never seen Logan get fucked once."

The second key scene—perhaps the most sexually charged in all of Succession—is the one that finds Roman and Justin Kirk's Jeryd Mencken, a post-Jordan Peterson quasi-fascist, leaning and skulking around a marble hotel bathroom. "I don't have a lot of boundaries," Mencken says. He's talking about his willingness to borrow ideas from Franco or Hitler, but he's stepping toward Roman as he says it.

By The Editors of GQ

By The Editors of GQ

By Tyler Chin

"What It Takes" cuts closest to bone in its final sequence, when Shiv, a career Democratic strategist who earlier in the episode urged her dad to jump parties with his endorsement, initially refuses to be in the photo that will signal her family's alignment with Mencken. When she inevitably caves—clinging to the tiny moral victory that is standing on the opposite side of the photo's frame—her father feigns defeat. "You win, Pinky," he says. "You win." Succession is not often, or at least not directly, about the immorality of Waystar; that's a given. And while it occasionally grapples with the complicity of lower-level cogs in that machine, "What It Takes" is unsparing in its assessment of Shiv—and, by extension, of all the characters at this echelon who give lip service to more humane worldviews. Their objections are limp, ignored–little more than grasps at vanity. — PT

The One Where: Kendall's name is either underlined, or crossed out.Also: Tightrope Tommy rides his subtle cycle over Niagara Falls!

The first episode in the post-Logan Roy world reinforces the towering shadow he cast. Even in death, the impact of his tyranny is reflected in how his underlings and children scramble to settle his affairs, do his bidding, and win his approval. "Honeymoon States" revolves around the most pressing matter in the wake of his passing: naming an interim Waystar CEO to satisfy the board. As expected, the sharpest daggers come out with the crown up for grabs.

Despite being united against Logan just 24 hours prior, the cracks in the Roy siblings’ alliance surface once Frank discovers a piece of paper naming Kendall as his preferred successor. It's at least four years old and there's debate about whether Kendall's name is underlined or crossed out, but the revelation changes the tone of the episode. Kendall is energized upon learning that his father had faith in him at one point, while Shiv and Roman stew in jealousy.

Although they ultimately agree to operate as a trio, with Kendall and Roman officially running Waystar, Shiv knows she's being pushed to the side. So in an episode filled with the withering dialogue Succession is revered for (i.e., Marcia sending the devastated Kerry home to her "tiny apartment"), Kendall telling his sister that the letter "sure as fuckin’ shit doesn't say Shiv" cuts deepest. Even with Logan lying on a morgue slab, the younger Roy children will slit each other's throats for a kiss from daddy. And he wouldn't want it any other way. — JK

The One Where: The cruise scandal exposé dropsAlso: Tom and Greg discover that ATN is, in fact, listening!

A go-to joke from Succession Philistines is that, when reduced to a still image, some of this show's most lauded scenes are just two people sitting in a conference room, barely indistinguishable from a Getty stock photo. But for one hour, Succession was as thrilling as a nail-biting episode of 24. "Argestes" proves that even a titan like Logan Roy isn't above the humbling adage that life comes at you fast. Nan Pierce, the nemesis who he’d just debased in the previous episode by proving there's a price even she isn't too good for, now has him literally running after her car like a madman begging her to take his cash. The episode is a race against the clock, to close the sale of PGM to Waystar before a New York article about the sleazy cruises scandal damns the deal forever. Alas, Logan is a lot of things, but he's no Jack Bauer. For the first time, we see him take a very public hit to his armor, one that no PR spin can save for the moment. It's bad enough to erupt into petty violence, visited upon his youngest son, an example of the childhood abuse we’d only heard not seen until now. — FT

The One Where: Kendall helps a fascist win the presidential election out of spiteAlso: Tom and Greg do election night bumps!

By The Editors of GQ

By The Editors of GQ

By Tyler Chin

Every series featuring "antiheroes," or for a less reductive term, morally grey protagonists, always has an episode in the final stretch that forcibly removes the blinders for any viewers still wearing them. After all, it wouldn't be a watchable show if those characters weren't charming in some way, cajoling you to stay invested for years at a time. Maybe you even actually started to root for them: to escape jail, to cheat death, to keep making millions off of meth. It's after you’ve been seduced that the best shows hand out a cold hard slap of a reminder: these are terrible, greedy, selfish people who don't deserve whatever they’re fighting for.

And so, after a heart wrenching season of watching the Roy kids grapple with grief and be there for one another even as they continue their power struggle, Jesse Armstrong reaffirms the cold, hard truths: Roman will fully endorse fascism if it guarantees power; Kendall is spineless; and Shiv, for all of her so-called democratic values, will ultimately always put her own interests first. The fate of American democracy only matters to these adult children in so much as it determines the fate of The Company. Any guilt about the effect their familial squabbling has on the real world, if they bother to consider it, is tossed off as an unfortunate but unavoidable outcome. (Consider how much of an afterthought Mencken is in the finale, where the idea that he may not win is just a punchline for Shiv's tease to Willa that Connor may not have a diplomat job to take him out of the country as often as she’d hoped.) Some people can't close a deal. — FT

The One Where: Kenny turns 40Also: Tom evades jail time!

By The Editors of GQ

By The Editors of GQ

By Tyler Chin

"Too Much Birthday" opens with Kendall Roy hilariously rehearsing his rendition of Billy Joel's "Honesty," which he plans to sing while suspended from a crucifix. We don't get "L to the OG: The Remix," but we do get one of the most devastating episodes of TV ever aired.

Kendall's turning 40 and is throwing a massive birthday bash to celebrate. Because he's Kendall, things get real conceptual real fast. To enter the party, guests have to pass through a massive immersive room that mimics his mother's womb. There are other themed rooms, including one that is the recreation of the WayStar Royco offices entirely on fire. (The set designer was in their bag.) The song selection? "All bangers all the time." The special guests? Tiny Wu-Tang Clan, a group of children who perform Wu-Tang covers. Let's gooooo.

At this point, Kendall is estranged from his siblings. They show up anyway, and things get tense. Then things get dark. Knee-deep in bacchanalia, Kendall starts rummaging through his pile of gifts and realizes he can't find the one from his children. The illusion breaks and he realizes that even with all the A-list names present, nobody there actually could care less about him. The episode ends with him on his balcony, pitifully wrapped in an A-Team blanket for comfort. And, once again, Jeremy Strong shows that he's the master of making you feel empathy for someone so damn embarrassing. — GP

The One Where: Kendall shutters a website and steals some bodega batteries.Also: Tom gets curved on a cheeky little breakfast bang!

In the most triggering episode of television for anyone who has ever worked in media, Kendall proves his loyalty to his dad by shutting down Vaulter, the edgy Vice-like publication Waystar bought in season one. To soothe his guilty conscience, Kendall offers Greg an apartment. The episode contrasts Kendall's complex sympathetic psyche with Logan's ruthless manipulation of his children: in this episode Logan has all of his children wrapped around his finger, with Kendall doing his bidding, Roman agreeing with him without second thought, and Shiv under the impression that she is going to be the CEO of Waystar Royco. While the most memorable moment from the episode is the gutting of Vaulter, this is also the episode in which Shiv makes a hard pivot to girlboss (Senator Gil Eavis fires her). — CW

The One Where: Lukas Matsson makes Logan an offer he can't refuse.Also: Tom betrays his wife and destroys his marriage!

By The Editors of GQ

By The Editors of GQ

By Tyler Chin

In case you forgot: this episode was the one that arrived after a full week of speculation and theorizing that only Game of Thrones could match. Did Kendall Roy drown himself, capping a sad end to what was supposed to be his most triumphant season? What the ‘yes’ voters didn't count on was just how vindictive Jessie Armstrong and his writers could be. When Ken limps back into frame at the opening of the season three finale, we understand that quiet, tragic death would’ve been a mercy. In "All the Bells Say," Ken finds that the pool wasn't his true bottom. Ittwas actually the white soil of a trash can lined parking lot in Italy. His true bottom is at last, after three seasons, finding a true bond and common cause with his sibling/rivals and standing up to their father with one voice, only to be destroyed, betrayed by their mother of all people, again.

Or was it? Just a few episodes later, the writers room would finally grant Ken the thing he's wanted more than anything else in his entire miserable life, temporary stewardship of his father's empire, and we can see now–given the wheel of a corporate car that he appears to be careening off the side of a bridge–how much crueler that fate could be. That the actual worst way to punish a person like Kendall Roy is to grant all his wishes. — Abe Beame

The One Where: Kendall leaves his sister's wedding to go for a little drive.Also: Tom reclaims his family's wine, if not his dignity!

"Nobody Is Ever Really Missing," the season one finale, is where you can feel the stakes skyrocket up—where Succession goes from pretty damn good to masterful, all-time TV. The Roys have decamped to an English castle for Shiv and Tom's wedding, an event filled with the normal amount of bickering, backstabbing, and familial drama. Roman's rocket launch blows up, literally. Shiv tearfully reveals to Tom that she's not thrilled with the whole monogamous marriage thing. Kendall is trying to mow ahead with his hostile takeover of WayStar Royco. And then, as so often happens, the first domino falls.

A clumsy cater waiter pisses off Logan, who yells at him and orders him fired. Later, when Kendall is looking for coke, he runs into that same waiter. The two take a faded car ride, with Kendall at the wheel. Suddenly: a deer runs into the road and Kendall swerves the wheel. The car jumps off road and sinks into a body of water. The young waiter drowns, while Kendall runs back into his father's inescapable embrace. In an instant, the game is completely changed.

It's no wonder that method-heavy Jeremy Strong is still feeling it. "One day, when the show is over, it’ll be easier for me to maybe talk about that stuff," he told GQ for his March cover story. "But while it's still going, that thing still feels real to me in a way." — GP

The One Where: Tom's bachelor party turns into a local night of underground debaucheryAlso: Tom swallows it!

By The Editors of GQ

By The Editors of GQ

By Tyler Chin

The rich are not like you and me. So why should we expect the pedestrian pleasures of a typical bachelor party to suffice? In "Prague," Tom is hyped for his getaway to the titular city in advance of his impending nuptials with Shiv. His old friends from the Midwest, "the Fly Guys," are even joining in. They’re quickly ditched when Tom is scurried away into a dark railroad tunnel by his future bros-in-law (and Cousin Greg) and the gang ends up at an exclusive underground warehouse party in Brooklyn where unseen pleasures lurk.

But what one of the most fun episodes of the series ("Greg, you total coke whore!") reveals is that everyone's true kink is humiliation. And Succession does humiliation better than anything else. Roman reveals that his older siblings used to lock him in a dog cage and feed him dog food. (The "slime puppy" stuff makes more sense, in retrospect.) Kendall gets brutally read as a clown by the cool art girls whose company he's trying to acquire. Tom uses his hall pass on a sex act so goofily, unbelievably Tom-like, then spends the rest of the sad evening trying to convince himself and his compatriots that it was actually super hot. At least Connor offered up some dating advice for the ages: "A little tip: Ask them where they were on 9/11. If they don't know, they could be under 21." — GP

The One Where: Logan goes to the airplane bathroom, and doesn't come out.Also: Tom ropes in a few little Gregs from the pigpen!

There's a dawning realization at the center of "Connor's Wedding." When the episode aired, our minds all raced with the same series of questions: Are they actually going to do it? They can't really do that, can they? Would they? Then it clicks. They’re actually going to do it.

Central characters die all the time. The audacity of Logan Roy's death comes from the manner of execution. Television, and its seasonal structure, has patterns. A pilot episode ends with a revelation. The second widens the cast of characters. Around halfway into a season, an episode might deploy a storytelling gambit that adjusts what the show even is (and hopefully wins it an Emmy in the process). A shocking character death? That comes in the penultimate episode. Maybe the finale, if you’re bold. Succession did it in episode three, the only way to pull off the surprise. What confidence.

If anyone felt more shock than the audience at Logan's imminent, mostly-offscreen doom, it was his children. Kendall, Shiv, and Roman had turned against Logan at the outset of the Succession's final season, but their sincerity was always in question. They were play-acting at war, trying to create the conditions that would turn them into him. They were never going to figure it out. But they also never thought this was how it would end.

The episode unfolds in what feels like real time, as the Roys start to grasp the enormity of what's happening. The confusion, the boredom, the slow and true understanding — the episode revels in its mundanity. And it's in the claustrophobic close-ups and panicked silences on eavesdropped phone calls that Succession did something it hadn't before: it told a universal story. Since it began airing, I’ve believed Succession to be one of the best series on television, but this was the first time I saw anything of myself in these characters. Because this is how it feels when a relative dies. The bone-deep surprise, the inability to find the words you expected would simply appear, the instinctual grasping at your siblings, as if to keep them from dying, too. Wealth can't insulate you from this.

By The Editors of GQ

By The Editors of GQ

By Tyler Chin

There's a sickening, satisfying logic to Logan Roy's death. The show revolved around his boar-dense solidity, a solar system in miniature. But stars collapse, and to really find out who these characters are, a vacuum needed to be made. Succession, and its creator Jesse Armstrong, has always been up front about its Shakespearean ambitions. The show's staccato dialogue, its obsession with power, the character's frenzied plotting (and even their constant dick jokes) all made that clear. But to really do Shakespeare, to do it right? You need to kill the king. — Brendan Klinkenberg

The One Where: Kendall stages a coupAlso: Tom eats an ortolan!

Certain episodes of television surpass the conventional goals of the medium: entertain, make us feel, make us think, etc. Some are also instructional, teaching us, in real time, how to watch the show. "Which Side Are You On?" is one of those episodes. We have been conditioned throughout most of the last 40 odd years of culture and underdog narratives to expect the outcome Succession had been building towards over the course of six patient, masterful episodes.

We’ve seen Logan Roy, a fallen and diminished patriarch and CEO after suffering a stroke in the show's pilot, piss on a rug in his son's office. In the previous episode, we see him overfill a mug, and later lash out violently, backhanding his grandson. We’ve watched Kendall doing his father's bidding, caring for his father, and accumulating allies who at least seem to want what's "best" for Waystar Royco and Logan (and mostly themselves).

And then, of course, it all falls apart. Logan is a beast who may not have the firmest grasp on what a future could look like for a bloated legacy media company, but he understands human frailty and the nature of power, and will bully everyone around him to cling to it. By the end of the episode we are like Kendall in that heartbreaking, gorgeous final shot, blinkered and dazed as a numb and relentless city scurries around him, aware that we have discovered a show that doesn't play by conventional rules of narrative, and isn't like any other we’d seen before. — AB

The One Where: Kendall has a drink—or two—in an Italian pool.Also: Greg punches above his weight—read: tries to bag a duchess.

By The Editors of GQ

By The Editors of GQ

By Tyler Chin

Early on, Succession established that weddings are harbingers of terrible things to come for the Roys and anyone close to them. "Chiantishire" doubles down on this as they venture to Tuscany for the wedding of Caroline–Kendall, Roman, and Shiv's mother–amid Waystar's acquisition of GoJo. It's hard to feel sympathy for the Roy children (Connor, the forgotten son, included), but "Chiantishire" succeeds at burrowing deeper into why the three youngest are so broken. Their parents, who continue to wreak havoc on their lives well into adulthood, shoulder a significant portion of the blame, but before exploring the psychological warfare of two particular parent-child interactions, let us first address the errant dick pick.

While the Roys hiss insults at each other beneath the Tuscan sun, Lukas Matsson sends a couple of squirrelly tweets which drive up GoJo's stock price. Roman stands atop his inflated ego after meeting with Matsson, before falling victim to his perverse lack of self-control by accidentally sending a picture of his dick intended for Gerri to his father during a meeting with GoJo's bankers. For someone so desperate to be taken seriously—particularly by his father—he destroys his own credibility because he just can't help himself.

Although Succession always shines when uniting as much of its ensemble as possible, some of its finest acting comes through during tense family one-on-ones. When Caroline's bachelorette party turns into a heart-to-heart between her and Shiv, the former admits she never wanted to be a mother and urges Shiv to avoid it at all costs. Shiv blames the sharp edges of her personality on Caroline's absence, but her mother won't let her off the hook, reminding her that Shiv was the one who chose to live with Logan.

This exchange is almost loving compared to the dinner between Logan and Kendall. After scoffing at his second-eldest's moral superiority and rescinding his $2 billion buyout offer, he dangles Kendall's failures over his head. "And whenever you fucked up, I cleaned up your shit," he sneers. "And I’m the bad person? Fuck off, kiddo."

Why would Logan, with his zeal for cruelty, free Kendall from his torment? His Number One Boy is his favorite target. There was speculation about whether Kendall died at the end of this episode, floating face-down in self-loathing and defeat. He survived to face a fate worse than death: Logan keeping him around to torture, just for fun. — JK

The One Where: Logan plays a rousing game of "Boar on the Floor"Also: Greg gives an interview!

Scary. Vindictive. Paranoid. Violent. This description of Logan, relayed to prospective biographer Michelle Pantsil by Greg during an ill-advised "pre-meet," is a spot-on characterization of the capricious Roy patriarch. But what "Hunting" emphasizes, in spectacularly disturbing fashion, is how these qualities work in tandem and what that means for everyone in Logan's orbit. This man became a titan of industry by sheer force of will. He's instilled fear in opponents and subordinates alike. Who needs a cudgel when you’re the fucking hammer? Anyone standing in Logan Roy's way gets bludgeoned into submission or compliance. Those who don't live in perpetual fear of it.

By The Editors of GQ

By The Editors of GQ

By Tyler Chin

Logan's latest strategy for retaining the company he founded is to acquire rival media company PGM, for a staggering $20 billion. Although no one within the Waystar circle of trust will admit it, they have their reservations about the move. And during a corporate retreat to Hungary ahead of the proposed acquisition, the plan shifts from boar hunting in the name of forced camaraderie to Logan's search for at least one rat. Already furious that someone has been talking to Pantsil, his rage and paranoia erupt when he gets word that PGM is already aware of his plan. Cue an elaborate dinner that quickly turns Stalinesque ("Logan Goes Stalin" was the original title of the episode, before Armstrong and co decided to go full minimalist with their episode names). Logan calls for a game of "Boar on the Floor," interrogating his minions to find out who's been talking—but primarily, to exert his dominance.

In an episode featuring Connor beta-testing his presidential bid with an anti-tax platform and Shiv enjoying her open marriage with an actor who believes "the real news comes from comedians," the highlight is a room full of adults being terrorized by an octogenarian who orders three of them to fight for sausages. — JK

The One Where: The Roys do family therapy at Connor's house.Also: Tom catches a wild stray during Logan''s blow-up at Shiv!

For all its brutish personalities and cutting dialogue, Succession is an almost violence-free show; "Austerlitz," written by playwright Lucy Prebble, stands out for being its bloodiest episode. Mad Men would do this too, suddenly dab on the gore when you least expected it, and the nasty pool accident with the therapist calls to mind the lawnmower-meets-foot scene from season three. Nothing like a little blood on the face to put the audience on its heels. In "Austerlitz," Logan begrudgingly agrees to a family therapy session with a renowned corporate headshrinker played by Griffin Dunne. He's got the Pynchonesque name of Alon Parfit, and given that Dunne is a recognizable face you figure he’ll stick around for the duration.

In the first gathering, he makes a number of astute observations ("Have you thought about the possibility that your children are actually scared of you?"), all of which anger Logan. But before he can walk the Roys through some rupture and repair, he bonks his face against the bottom of Connor's shallow pool. The referee gone, the family can now have no-holds-barred conversation, which is exactly what happens that night, after Roman scoops up a relapsed Kendall from a wolf-decorated meth den. (Only on Succession would a tweaker say, "It's just fucking salesmanship of her neglect" about another tweaker's deadbeat mom.) Everything Jeremy Strong does in this episode is for the Emmy reel, especially his bright-eyed smile to Logan after the old man crosses the kitchen and gets up in his face in an attempt at physical intimidation.

By The Editors of GQ

By The Editors of GQ

By Tyler Chin

It's tragic how sharp and confident Kendall is when he's high. He's practically gleaming when he tells Logan that he's jealous of the bounty he's provided for his own children. In the final shot, you see the scars of Logan's abusive and severe childhood across his back. He’d actually have a lot to share in therapy. — Ross Scarano

The One Where: The gang chooses a blood sacrificeAlso: Tom eats Logan's chicken, and chickens out of a threesome!

You could make the argument that over four seasons (barring the final two) "This is Not for Tears" is the only "feel good" episode of the show. Its ending is as close as any character gets to fully getting one-up on Logan Roy and his otherwise omnipotent, ubiquitous, malevolent presence in the show. It's when Kendall finally breaks out of the season-long Schrader-like ascetic rut he's mired in, and stands up for himself in a manner not even Logan can take away from him.

So of course, before we get that, a blood sacrifice must be paid, in a shining city on the sea, which, like so many settings for the show, is one of otherworldly beauty and luxury that belies the utter brutality being committed there. The natural and obvious solution to who will eat the sin of the cruises scandal is Logan–as suggested by the board in the episode's opening. But as we know, that outcome is as impossible as it is logical.

So instead, we’re treated to another Stalinesque dinner party, a Stanford Prison experiment staged for Logan's amusement, as his children, long-time advisors,"friends", and peon sycophants alike all tear each other apart.

The final heart-to-heart between father and son, following a season of Kendall doing all he could to repent and make good, and nothing ever being quite good enough for his father, is one of the hardest to swallow in a show that made its legacy off a gauntlet of them. Kendall is told he will never get what he's always wanted because he isn't a killer, and never earned his father's respect. So Kendall takes his marching orders, and kills. He wrestles back his narrative, if only for a few moments at the end of one episode. — AB

The One Where: The Roys meet the Pierces.Also: Greg briefly rebrands as "Gregory!"

By The Editors of GQ

By The Editors of GQ

By Tyler Chin

Logan Roy is a man with no use for fluff. His best catchphrase (second only to "fuck off") is "what's the protein?" What's the logline, what's the point? Someone who reduces words to their bare minimum certainly does not read Shakespeare. Nan Pierce, his matriarch equivalent, head of the Pierce family behind the rival news network PGM that Logan hopes to acquire, knows this and tries to wield it as ignorance. And it almost works.

You can't use "Tern Haven" to win over a Succession neophyte. The drama, the tension, the cringe-worthy deliciousness are completely built on the context that for once, the Roys are in a room where they are all completely out of their element. In any other uncomfortable setting, they at least have their fortune and power to fall back on. But at Tern Haven, the name of the estate where the Pierce family hosts the Roys, they are second-class, representing the lamest thing a wealthy family can be to other filthy rich people: nouveau-riche. By this point in the series, we’ve seen Logan bark at other rich adversaries and humble presidents, but here, his discomfort is written on his face—as is his disappointment and disgust at how his own brood stacks up against the blueblood Pierces. (The Roys don't even have fancy names for their compounds; the Hamptons summer home is simply just "the summer palace.")

It's a masterclass performance from Cox, especially in the episode's crown jewel, a dinner scene in which the Roy kids crash and burn spectacularly. Mark Mylod, the series’ primary director, has accomplished incredible feats of filmmaking across all four seasons, but his finest work is here, weaving together a flurry of reaction shots, close-ups, stolen glances, with about a dozen actors. Cox manages to tower above them all. Logan would later call his children "unserious" to their faces; here he says that, and 999 more put-downs through narrowed eyes so sharp they could prick a finger.

From Mylod's roving cameras to Roman describing the plot of a NYT bestseller he's just made up, "Tern Haven" is everything the show does well in a microcosm (and it ends with our first glimpse that Shiv Roy is perhaps, Not Her.) And while it's not an hour that can reasonably lure in a newcomer, that ending—where King Logan touts his success as a group win with a toast as his entire family looks on miserably, then absconds up an ivory staircase to his throne room, alone—is every theme the show explores, every logline you could possible write for it, in one moment. Of course Logan wins; the days of class and morals outweighing the right price tag are long gone. There's a new bard in town, and he only writes odes to money. — FT