There is only one winner in the Succession finale. And it's not who you think.

This post contains spoilers for the season finale of Succession. 

Succession has always been two very different shows in one. 

On the surface, it looks like a cut-throat drama about money and power. A series about ludicrously rich people in turtlenecks and blazers moving piles of money from Point A to Point B in some kind of never-ending d*ck measuring competition.

But underneath all the multi-billion dollar mergers and last-minute swing votes, Succession is really a show about families and how the people who are supposed to love us unconditionally, end up f*cking us up the most. 

The show should actually be called “Daddy Issues and How We All Have Them.” 

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On the surface, in the series finale, there looks to be one clear winner. After the siblings implode and turn on each other, the board votes yes on GoJo’s acquisition of Waystar Royco. Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård) takes control of the company, after using Shiv to help him push through the lucrative deal by promising to make her the CEO, and then giving the position to her husband Tom Wambsgans instead. 

Shiv is out. Kendall is out. Roman is out. Mattson is in. Tom is in. And by the skin of his teeth, so is bumbling Cousin Greg. 

On the surface, it looks like Tom has come out on top. After years of groveling to the Roy family (“I’m here to serve”) and working his way up the hierarchy by throwing other people under the bus (“You can’t make a Tomlette, without cracking a few Gregs”), Tom seems to finally be the top dog. But Shiv said it herself when she told Matsson that Tom would “suck the biggest d*ck in the room”. Although it looks like Tom has just gotten everything he ever wanted, he is still just a puppet with a new puppet master. And he is still just a slave to money and power. 

At the beginning of the episode, Shiv was so close to winning. She was finally going to get her revenge on her brothers and prove that she is the Number One Roy. She was so close to winning that she was even willing to give Tom another chance. In the final scenes, Shiv gets into Tom’s car. He places his hand between them and she places her hand in his but does not interlace their fingers. It seems that in the end, Shiv has decided to settle for a loveless marriage to the Kmart version of her father who screwed her over. 

Image HBO.

In the end, it was Kendall who had the furthest to fall. The eldest of the Roy siblings (none of us are even thinking about Connor, right?) Kendall had managed to convince himself that he was his father’s son and the rightful heir to the throne. In the penultimate episode, during his eulogy to his father, Kendall said Logan had a “magnificent, awful force” in him and he “hoped” it was in him too. In the finale episode, Kendall found out that even his siblings didn’t believe he had it in him. After the vote, Kendall walks out of the office alone. He sits alone on a park bench, overlooking the Hudson, and finally has to face his truth: he is not his father. And he will never be. 

And that leaves us with Roman, the youngest of the Roy siblings, and the surprise winner of the Succession finale. Roman was always uneasy with power. He tried to make big boy moves but would always retreat back to the safety of his father or his mother, and when they weren't available, his older siblings. Even in the finale episode, he was found hiding out in his mother’s house after being beaten up on the street by protestors. The legacy of Logan Roy was always too heavy a crown for Roman to carry. He felt like he had to fight to be the successor, to prove that he was his father’s son, but as Kendall said in the finale “he doesn’t even want it”. 

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In the final scenes, after Roman signs the deal with Matsson, he walks downstairs and into the bar. He orders a martini (Gerri’s favourite drink btw) and smiles. He’s relieved. Roman is finally free of the expectations of his father and the burden of carrying on his legacy. 

Roman has no idea what the rest of his life looks like now, but he knows what it doesn’t look like. That’s why Roman, the weird little slime puppy, is the real winner of the Succession finale. 

Image: HBO.