Succession: What Will Happen in the Finale?

What will happen in the Succession Series Finale?

That's the question on the minds of millions of viewers are now asking, after watching the pivotal and powerful penultimate episode of Succession, "Church and State" and the nerve-wracking preview for Succession Season 4 Episode 10, "With Open Eyes". Thankfully, the expert craftsmanship of Succession's story over four seasons – plus a key moment in Episode 9 – may reveal some big hints as to what the final episode of the series will be about. 

Family / Business 

Succession has always been about examining the line between a family (The Roys) and a business (Waystar Royco), and how that line got deeply, brutally, and irrevocably blurred. The arc of season 4 has seen the worlds of the Roy Family and Roy business empire finally fatally collide, as the sudden (and shocking) death of patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox) shattered whatever (slightly crazy) walls the Roy Family kept up between their private and business dealings, leaving them treading some increasingly choppy waters of both intense grief and socio-political uncertainty that could upend their economic future. 

It only makes sense that the Succession finale does the job of forcing its main characters to finally reconcile both sides of their lives, and answer the big question: are they just like their father? 

Succession Series Finale Prediction

The preview for the Succession Series Finale has made a point of highlighting the big business negotiation that will be the showdown for the Roy kids, Roman (Kieran Culkin), Shiv (Sarah Snook), and Kendall (Jeremy Strong), as they try to outmaneuver each other for control of the business, and its direction in the future. The scenes in that boardroom look like they will push each of the Roys to the breaking point (or beyond) – but that's not where the series will let things lie, for good, most likely. 

A lot of Succession fans picked up on a moment early on during Episode 9, where Ken, Shiv, and Roman all arrive for their father's funeral. During the sibling banter in the limo, Roman mockingly brings up how their mother Caroline Collingwood (Harriet Walter) wants to have them all go away to the Caribbean to reconnect after Logan's death ("Did you guys get Mom's invitation for a 'Caribbean air clear?'"). The notion is laughed off at the start, but by the end of "Church and State" none of the characters are quite where they expected to be when the day began. In fact, after how the last episode ended (with Roman storming out into a sea of protestors to nihilistically instigate them into physical confrontation), he definitely could need a retreat to the islands... 

The Succession Series Finale will be an extended episode, which will be as long as a feature film. There has also been information circulating on Reddit and other fan threads stating that the cast and crew of Succession were spotted filming at a Caribbean destination months ago – a notion backed up by Esquire's lengthy profile on Kieran Culkin. As the profile notes: "A small group of cast and crew went on a final weeklong trip to film the last scenes of the final episode of Succession. It was like an upscale sleepaway camp."

With all that on the table, it's easy to presume that Succession's Final Episode will examine the Roy Family dynamic in two key locations: in the business board room trying to settle the biggest deal of their lives; and at one of the family's luxurious Caribbean properties, where the true weight of Logan's death the Waystar deal finally weigh down on the family bonds (or lack thereof). 

The real mystery is in which order the episode will place those two dramas: Could it start with the vacation and a personal reconnection that utterly fractures come deal time? Or will we witness the most awkward family vacation ever, where the ramifications of the Waystar/GoJo deal and Logan Roy's legacy have to be faced when the family is sequestered from the outside world? 

Knowing the team behind Succession we could just as easily get an episode structure that dovetails between both chapters of the story, revealing layer by layer how what happened in business shapes the personal – or vice versa. 

And, the one question all fans want to be answered ("Who is the new king or queen?") will have to get addressed (or not?). 

Succession's Series Finale airs Sunday on HBO and HBO Max. 

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