successtions

Will Succession’s Series Finale Answer These Burning Questions?

What happened to Greg’s copied cruise documents? Will the world find out about Kendall’s killer secret? And what about the ex who broke Shiv’s heart?
Will Successions Series Finale Answer These Burning Questions
Still courtesy of HBO. 

With a body buried and a stolen presidency nearly clinched, only a single, supersized episode of Succession remains. The HBO hit’s fourth and final season has unveiled a few trade secrets—from the fate of Logan Roy himself to the reason Logan felt responsible for his sister Rose’s death. And while Shiv has finally revealed her “wambsgland” of a pregnancy to the family, just in time for one last dog fight (insert Hugo’s barking sounds here), plenty of unresolved storylines and lingering mysteries remain. 

Ahead of the series finale, here are 13 queries about dangling plot threads, lingering questions, and other unresolved minutiae we may or may not find answered before Succession ends its “bloody, complicated life.”

First of all: Was Kendall’s name underlined or crossed out?

Succession’s version of the blue-versus-gold dress debate is the question of whether Kendall Roy’s name was crossed out or underlined in a document outlining details of Logan’s successor. This clerical mystery has divided fans (and members of the family itself), inciting Twitter discord (which makes Roman’s “dick hard”) and even a few polls. But unless another rogue piece of paper contextualizing the first materializes, we may never know the true intent of Logan’s scribble.

What ever happened to those cruise documents Greg didn’t shred?

Back in season two, Tom Wambsgans tasked Greg the Egg with destroying a trove of damning documents related to misconduct in Waystar’s cruise department. Alas, Greg didn’t shred every bit of evidence, instead pocketing a few pages and handing them over to Kendall as leverage for himself. But whatever became of such consequential paperwork—and will Greg pull another fast one by declining to delete whatever is in the “logistics” folder Tom asks him to wipe in season four?

Will Cousin Greg actually sue Greenpeace?

Another chess move Greg made in securing his (admittedly still low) spot in the company’s hierarchy was threatening to sue Greenpeace for his inheritance. Viewers may remember that Greg’s grandfather Ewan vowed to donate every bit of his grandson’s inheritance to the nonprofit. It’s unclear whether Greg was serious about challenging the transfer, or merely bluffing to earn favor with his wealthy cousins—but either way, we want to know.

When will the world discover Kendall’s deadly car accident cover-up?

The killer secret hanging over the entire series is that Kendall left a waiter named Andrew Dodds for dead at Shiv’s wedding, after driving their car into a lake. To date, Kendall has only disclosed his Chappaquiddick moment to his father, his mother, and his siblings. There’s also the matter of Colin, the security guard who knows about the incident. He made an appearance in the show’s penultimate episode, where he confessed to going to therapy. Could Kendall—or Colin’s—guilty conscience wreak havoc on the series’ outcome, or will one of the other power players protecting Kendall’s crime come forward?

What ever happened to Roman’s wife?

Roman the Showman, whose sexual proclivities now center on sadomasochistic flirting with Gerri, once had a wife named Grace and, potentially, a kid. In the pilot, both he and Grace wear wedding rings—but in subsequent episodes both the character and Roman’s marriage are never referenced again. “Not his kid. Not his wife either,” Kieran Culkin said when asked about the abandoned storyline by Variety. “It was in the pilot, and after it was picked up, it was his girlfriend, and she had a child. I’m wearing my real wedding band in the episode. I was excited about the idea of having a kid, and the kid was like 7 or 8. It was a little disappointing, but I think the idea was that it would just give them more freedom to play with the character.” So actually, this question has been answered—but a future reference to Roman’s matrimony would be a satisfying finale Easter egg for loyal viewers.

How about that man with Kendall’s name tattooed on his body?

In Succession’s third season, Roman confides to Gerri that at Kendall’s bachelor party more than a decade ago, the group paid a man to have Kendall’s initials tattooed on his forehead. When contacted by Roman, the unnamed Tattoo Man reveals that his branding has been removed, but he’d probably be willing to share photos of his former forehead for a cool $1 million. There’s still plenty of time for either Roman or Gerri to use this factoid against Kendall while he’s enjoying a momentary victory. 

Or the boy Roman taunted with $1 million?

Speaking of broken promises with a million-dollar price tag: Back in the show’s pilot, Roman offers that same amount to a boy watching his family play softball. Roman ensures that if the kid—whose parents work for the Roys—hits a home run, he will cut a check right then and there for $1 million. When the young player only reaches third base, Roman cruelly rips the check in front of his eyes. “This is a guy who’s felt like he’s never had to suffer any consequences,” Culkin told Vanity Fair. “He can always blag his way out of something. He can always talk his way out of it or pay his way.” It’s unlikely we’ll ever see this boy again—but a callback to that first episode would provide quite a full-circle ending.

What was Shiv’s deal before all this?

Speaking of early series plot points, much about Shiv Roy’s backstory remains clouded in frustrating secrecy. There’s the matter of Shiv’s inner circle—who were those women filling in as bridesmaids at her wedding to Tom, and did she ever speak to them again after heading on her honeymoon? And why was Shiv “a total mess” when she met Tom, as he tells her this season? Was she heartbroken over her ex Nate or a different mystery man? And how was this steely scion even capable of having her heart broken?

Who is Connor’s mom? 

While Harriet Walter makes sporadic appearances as Lady Caroline Collingwood, mother to the three youngest Roy children, not much is known about Connor’s mom. References have been made to her potential mental health issues, with throwaway lines about his mother being sent to a “funny farm” and the young boy eating a “loony cake” to distract himself from the fact that she was institutionalized. We know Connor was eight when his parents divorced, but further details remain cloudy. 

Is Kerry pregnant with Logan’s child?

“He made life happen,” Kendall says in the eulogy to his father. But should that statement be taken literally? In the past, Connor alleged that Kerry, Logan’s much younger assistant, was slipping “maca root” into the patriarch’s smoothies in order to boost “his baby batter.” Is it possible that Kerry’s laughter-filled reaction to Logan’s death had something to do with the fact that she’s secretly carrying his child? And how would another Roy child complicate the will? Zoe Winters, the actor behind the character Tom dubbed “Chuckles the Clown,” isn’t talking one way or the other: “I think it creates this sense of anxiety, not having all the answers. But the reality of life is that we don’t have all the answers. So I’ve kind of kept my opinion out of it, just so I could give the audience the pleasure of deciphering their own ideas.”

Graeme Hunter
Will Edda get revenge on Matsson?

Alexander Skarsgård’s Lukas Matsson, whose philosophy is founded on “privacy, pussy, and pasta,” may see his power plummet in the show’s final episode. While the fate of his GoJo offer still hangs in the balance, what we do know is that his company’s numbers are falsified—and that his comms director, Ebba, has intimate knowledge of their bogusness. Earlier this season, Lukas also revealed that he’s been sending vials of his blood, or blood bricks, as he calls them, to Ebba, along with regular sexual harassment and verbal taunting. With one whisper of his maniacal gift to the media, she could deal a fatal blow to Lukas’s tech empire. Will she?

Is that investigative podcast into the Roys still happening?

In season 3 episode “Chiantishire,” Kendall learns that a podcast centered on “the curse of the Roys” was imminent and had the potential to unearth some of the dynasty’s darkest deeds. Yet nothing more has been said about the podcast’s existence, or its possible ramifications for the Roy family. Perhaps a series finale drop?

And, of course, who will run Waystar Royco?

It’s all in the name—this show has always been about who will succeed Logan Roy as head of Waystar Royco and which moves they’ll make to do it. The series finale will presumably provide an answer to this question, which the Vanity Fair team also ventured to predict prior to the season 4 premiere. Alas, the landscape has dramatically shifted since then, meaning nearly any outcome is within reach.