Here’s how writers on ‘Succession’ prevented its major plot twist from leaking

12 April, 2023

The cast of 'Succession' season four

HBO‘s Succession has done the unthinkable, finally pulling the trigger on a major plot point that will change the course of the show’s remaining episodes. Now, a producer and writer on the show has opened up about how they managed to keep the plot twist from leaking. Warning: major spoilers ahead.

Following the shocking death of Logan Roy in season four, episode three, Succession writer and longtime producer Georgia Pritchett has taken to Twitter to reveal how the show’s creative team used code words when planning Logan’s death to prevent it from leaking.

Pritchett wrote: “This was a tough secret to keep! We decided it in the #Succession writers’ room in Jan 22. So nobody found out we used code on the whiteboards. Larry David meant Logan Dies. So episode 403 said Connor’s Wedding, Larry David. Mind you, that would also have been a great episode.”

Besides the code word, the Succession creative team went a step further to film “dummy scenes” with Logan for the rest of the season “as a misdirect”, per director Mark Mylod to Variety.

Mylod said: “The stuff [filmed for] a subsequent episode, we basically brought him on to shoot dummy scenes — scenes that didn’t actually exist. As a misdirect”. The director said show creator Jesse Armstrong informed him of Logan’s death when the team was in pre-production for its previous season.

“That’s when he first told me about this idea, that it should happen early in the season in an episode slot that you would not necessarily expect,” Mylod said. “This idea of actually creating, hopefully, great drama out of mundanity — you know, the inconvenience of it all. Which just seemed wonderful to me.”

Fans were blindsided by Logan’s death, with many taking to social media to express their shock. One viewer wrote: “I never thought that I would be crying for Logan’s death, but this episode was brutal. Magnificent writing and acting, this episode needs to win [a] bunch of Emmys.”

Check out more reactions here.

Succession season four continues on HBO on Sunday in the US, with episodes airing on Sky Atlantic and NOW in the UK.

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