Kendall Makes One Thing Clear In Succession Season 4 Episode 7: He Wants To Be King
This post contains spoilers through the seventh episode of "Succession" season 4.
Watching this week's episode of "Succession," I couldn't help but think, "Well, it was fun while it lasted." The "it" in question here could of course be Shiv (Sarah Snook) and Tom's (Matthew Macfayden) reconciliation, a short-lived affair that blew up spectacularly and at length during a pre-election party in the latest episode. More generally, though, this week's episode ended the sense of relative harmony "Succession" had been fostering in the wake of Logan Roy's (Brian Cox) death, with Shiv trapped on Matsson's side, Roman (Kieran Culkin) and Connor (Alan Ruck) reaching a political impasse, and Kendall (Jeremy Strong) once again openly vying for the crown.
It's that last part that's the most bittersweet: just last week, Kendall was swimming in the ocean in a surprisingly triumphant scene that acted as an inversion of his pool floatie suicide attempt last season. He was high off the success of the Living+ launch, which worked specifically because he had other people on hand to reign in his most disastrous impulses. Now, though, Kendall's in lone wolf mode again, telling Frank (Peter Friedman) that they should use Matsson's bad numbers to leverage a deal to buy GoJo. When Frank asks about Roman and Shiv, Kendall answers, "I love them but I'm not in love with them" and then brings back some of that lofty, near-Shakespearean imagery he's so fond of for good measure: "One head, one crown."
'One head, one crown'
With just three episodes left in the entire series, Kendall's gambit here makes me more antsy than excited. At its core, much of the show has been about the tremendous pressure Kendall feels as Logan's heir apparent and the fundamental ways in which he's not cut out for the job. "You're not a killer," Logan told him in the second season finale. "You have to be a killer." Kendall has pulled off a few killer moves since then, like when he exposed Logan's misdeeds publicly in the very same episode, but he's never been able to escape his deep hunger for his dad's approval. He does, after all, write a #1 in the sand after the Living+ launch, a moment that calls to mind the time Logan called him his "number one boy." Logan may be dead, but the scars he left on Kendall's psyche aren't gone, and it seems more than a little likely that he'd choke under the pressure if left to his own devices.
Kendall would probably be a bad CEO, but that's not the only thing that makes this double-cross feel destabilizing. The Roys have never been more sympathetic than they are this season, as grief levels the playing field and makes these untouchable elites seem more human than ever. If Kendall does leave Roman and Shiv out in the cold, we'll no doubt see it happen, and it's a betrayal I'm not sure they'll all be able to endure.
Is Kendall finally 'a killer?'
All of this, of course, is also a reason why it makes narrative sense for Kendall to go rogue again at the last moment. This show has long since painted itself as a tragedy, both about the gnawing void at the center of these people and about America's deeply broken class system, which makes buffoons like these the most powerful people around. One last hostile takeover will hurt, but it'll also be on brand, reminding us that these characters see the world only in terms of thrones to be won and enemies to be pillaged.
Of course, there's also a very good chance that Kendall's plan backfires big time. The Gojo situation is a mess, the wildly pricey Pierce deal seems untenable, and ATN is probably about to be at the center of a political firestorm for spreading election misinformation and inciting violence. "One head, one crown" sounds like a good idea in theory, but it also means Kendall's neck is on the line when things go wrong. He and his siblings are too self-absorbed and myopic to realize that inside Waystar, things have already been going very, very badly. It would be a fitting (if crushing) end for the boy who would be king if getting his crown immediately led to his downfall — along with the downfall of everything his dad ever worked for.
"Succession" airs new episodes on Sundays at 9:00 p.m. ET on HBO and Max.