‘Succession’ creator Jesse Armstrong shares thoughts on action-packed finale’s outcome
This article contains major spoilers for the ‘Succession’ finale.
Succession creator Jesse Armstrong has shared his thoughts on the outcome of the lauded HBO show’s dramatic finale, which aired last night (May 28).
After a power struggle between the Roy siblings after the death of their father Logan, the finale ended with Shiv Roy (Sarah Snook) backtracking on her pact with brothers Kendall (Jeremy Strong) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) to betray them and cast the deciding vote to sell Waystar Royco to Lukas Matsson’s (Alexander Skarsgård) GoJo company.
This meant that Shiv’s husband and ATN boss Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) became boss of the company in a major twist after Matsson betrayed Shiv, who was initially in line for the CEO job.
Speaking as part of a ‘Controlling The Narrative’ featurette on streaming service Max, Armstrong said he knew what he wanted the outcome of the finale to be for a good while.
“The idea of Tom being the eventual successor, that had been something that I thought was the right ending for quite a while now,” Armstrong said.
“Even though he’s not exactly the most powerful monarch you’ll ever meet — his power comes from Matsson. Those figures that drift upwards and make themselves amenable to powerful people are around.”
Of the future of the Roy siblings, Armstrong added: “I thought about all their stories. You know, they don’t end. They will carry on. But it’s sort of where this show loses interest in them because they’ve lost what they wanted, which was to succeed — which, you know, was this prize that their father held out.
“In a reductive, brutal way, Roman ends up exactly where he started. He is that guy still. And he maybe easily could have been a playboy jerk with some slightly nasty instincts, and some quite funny jokes. He could’ve stayed in a bar, being that guy. And this has been a bit of a detour in his life, I would say.”
He added: “Shiv is still in play, I’d say, in a rather terrifying, frozen emotionally barren place. But she has got this kind of non-victory, non-defeat. I mean, there’s gonna be some movement there. There’s still a lot of that game to play out, but that’s where we leave it. And it feels like it’s going to be hard to progress for them, emotionally, given the things they’ve said about each other.
“For Kendall, this will never stop being the central event of his life, the central days of his life, central couple of years of his life. Maybe he could go on and start a company, or do a thing. But the chances of him achieving the sort of corporate status that his dad achieved are very low. And I think that will mark his whole life.”
See how fans reacted to the Succession finale online here.
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Will Richards
NME
