HBO’s comedy-drama series Succession features a host of selfish people making morally dubious decisions. Character actions are often related to personal standing within the global media conglomerate at the center of the show, Waystar Royco. In the Season 2 finale, titled “This Is Not for Tears,” the disregard for ethical concerns by many players in the company has led to a crisis. Someone of prominent position within the company will have to take the fall for decades of mishandled sexual abuse and wrongful death cases at Waystar Royco. As the patriarch of the Roy family and CEO of Waystar Royco, Logan Roy decides that it’s his own son Kendall who’s to be sacrificed. But in a twist ending, it’s Kendall who lands the last punch of the season when he places the guilt for the coverup squarely on his father’s shoulders. The dialogue at the climax of the episode sets up the possibility for this twist ending, and it also hints at some of the philosophy behind the two main characters of the show, Logan and Kendall.
The season finale takes place on a yacht. While supposedly a mini-vacation away from the congressional hearings that the family and company has been dealing with, the break effectively serves as a conference to debate who will be sacrificed for the company. Logan Roy rules both his family and his company with a Machiavellian fist, and in regards to his business dealings, this manifests itself in total disregard for the wellbeing of others. In the penultimate episode of Season 2, Logan’s brother equates him to Hitler in terms of the scale of human suffering he’s caused through his cutthroat capitalism. This sentiment is echoed throughout the finale, as the center of the crisis specifically involved the victims of Waystar Royco.
In the finale, Logan calls his son into a private room on the yacht to tell him personally why he’s been chosen as the scapegoat. He explains how the Incas, in times of crisis, used to sacrifice a child to the Sun. The implication here is that, if the situation called for it, Logan might literally sacrifice Kendall to make things right. While the present situation calls only for Kendall’s figurative death, Logan is reestablished in this scene as a brutal go-getter, someone wouldn’t hesitate to kill given the right circumstances. Kendall proceeds to ask his dad if he ever believed Kendall could one day take the reins as CEO, to which Logan replies, “You’re not a killer. You have to be a killer.” Importantly, part of the trouble Waystar finds itself in concerns the death and possible murders of migrant sex workers on the company’s cruise ships; during the coverup, these individuals were documented as NRPI: No Real Person Involved. The value of human life is not something that Logan Roy concerns himself with. Directly prior to their conversation, images are shown of the massive yacht towering over some local Mediterranean fishermen, a reminder of the distance between the Roys and the people they exploit.
Ultimately, Kendall does prove to possess the killer instinct necessary to survive in his dangerous environment. Kendall’s world is one in which his own father is willing to send him to prison for the good of the corporation, and he’s given the choice to either accept this fate or fight back. In the press conference at the end of the episode, Kendall shocks everyone by throwing his father under the bus. Logan Roy watches on the television, and in the final seconds of the season, we watch as his face turns into an almost imperceptible smile, a smile that seems to express a reluctant pride in his son for having finally learned how to kill.
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