Succession Brings Back SPOILER for Creepy Surprise Cameo
The third episode of Succession's final season pulled the rug out from viewers everywhere, killing off Logan Roy with several episodes still to go in the show's acclaimed run. The move to kill Logan this early shifts the focus of the show solely to his children and how they attempt to run Waystar-Royco. While Succession is set in the real world and no one is coming back from the dead, the Roy patriarch still found a way to appear in the latest episode. WARNING: This article contains spoilers for the latest episode of Succession! Continue reading at your own risk...
With Logan gone, Kendall and Roman have taken over the company and their first big act as co-CEOs is the rollout of Living+, a type of retirement community that is meant to feel more like a vacation or "land cruise" than a living space. The announcement of the program was planned before Logan's death, so Logan had already recorded a video that was going to be presented to investors.
This video allowed Brian Cox to return for a couple of brief scenes, as a pre-recorded Logan Roy. Instead of simply using the video, however, Kendall and Greg got a video editor to change Logan's words and promise more growth than had been initially planned. Kendall also had the video chopped up to act as something of a conversation between him and his dad while he was on stage giving the presentation.
Think about John Hammond's presentation at the beginning of Jurassic Park, where he talks Mr. DNA and a pre-recorded version of himself. That's what Kendall did with Logan's video, only it was a lot creepier because he was trying to create a conversation with his dead father.
Lorene Scafaria, who directed the new episode of Succession, spoke with Variety about bringing Logan back as a recording and getting the chance to work with Brian Cox one more time.
"As you can imagine, after Episode 3, I didn't think I'd be working with Brian again," the director said. "It was thrilling to think of the audible gasp from the audience seeing his face again. I love that we're seeing him in this completely surreal setting, this strange green screen behind him and the clapper in front of his face. It's a little bit meta. In the scene with Brian, I'm playing the director off camera. Jesse Armstrong asked if I'd like to play the part, and I can safely say it was the most nervous I've ever been on the set of Succession, hands down. Acting opposite Brian Cox, I was sweating and brought a change of clothes that day. It was a dream to have Brian back on set, resurrected."
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