[This story contains major spoilers from the April 9 episode of Succession, “Connor’s Wedding.”]
No matter how inevitable that Succession death may have been, it came as a shock to the show’s devoted audience when it happened in the third episode of the 10-episode fourth and final season.
Logan Roy, the patriarch of the HBO media drama played by Brian Cox, dropped dead on the April 9 episode, “Connor’s Wedding.” His death happened offscreen — a decision director Mark Mylod elaborated on when speaking about the episode on HBO’s podcast with creator Jesse Armstrong — which meant the Emmy-winning actor appeared very little in his final episode. After his opening scenes before boarding a private plane to seal the Waystar Royco-GoJo deal, viewers only see flashes of Logan’s body as the flight attendant performs CPR.
The episode is Cox’s official goodbye to the series, as next week will see how everyone mourns the loss of the media titan. Armstrong made the decision to kill off Logan in service of answering the looming question of who will succeed him in the final season, and he said the “sense of losing our No. 1 on the call sheet” made the table read for this episode as emotional as the one for the series finale.
But with seven episodes remaining this season, Cox wanted to get creative in order to keep the press off their scent when filming.
During a Monday visit to Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Cox was able to discuss the death for the first time in front of an audience. And he shared how he filmed extra scenes later in the season, including showing up at Logan’s funeral.
“I’m hopeless at keeping secrets. It was a triumph, an absolute triumph. I was very proud of myself,” said Cox about his character’s death not getting out. “What happened was that they invented this scene that I would play at this church Uptown, very fancy, big Catholic [church]. I was on my way to film this scene and I got the call saying, ‘Oh, we’re so behind and it’s a scene that will never be used — because it’s your funeral — so, don’t come.’ And I thought, ‘No, I better go.’ Because I know there’s going to be a lot of paparazzi there, and as sure as eggs, I went there and as soon as I got out of the car, they started clicking away. So immediately I was able to put off the fact that it was my funeral.”
Colbert noted that because of those paparazzi shots, the media speculated about the funeral, but never guessed Logan as being the one who departed.
Behind-the-scenes, the writers were also tasked with keeping this big secret.
Succession writer Georgia Pritchett took to Twitter to say how difficult the tragic development was to keep, and revealed they used a code word in the writers room in order to do so: “Larry David.”
The plotting of the death was decided in the room on Jan. 22, she said. (Armstrong made the decision during season three.) “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,” she wrote.
When speaking about his death on HBO’s Succession podcast after the episode, Cox said he was disappointed it came so early in the final season, but praised the storytelling by Armstrong. “I knew something would have to be done in order to complete the show. And I knew [Logan] would probably have to die,” said Cox, referencing his character’s health being a focus since Succession‘s first episode, while also praising Armstrong and his decision to end the show on his terms. “I didn’t quite expect it to happen as early as it did, but then we were locked into the fact that each episode is one day, which we haven’t done in the seasons before. So he dies on day three.”
The “Connor’s Wedding” episode, written by Armstrong, was praised by critics and viewers, including the performances from Roy children Sarah Snook (Shiv), Kieran Culkin (Roman), Jeremy Strong (Kendall) and Alan Ruck (Connor) as they processed the news in a nearly 30-minute scene that was shot continuously for a real-time effect. The Hollywood Reporter‘s chief TV critic Daniel Fienberg said director Mylod delivered the episode “in absolutely stunning fashion” and did a “remarkable job of landing on the chaos of death and how we react to it, nailing how the confirmation and finality of death run counter to the human response to it.”
Logan’s children were all aboard a yacht and preparing to celebrate oldest child Connor’s nuptials when Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) called to deliver the news. The episode ended with the children and rest of the inner circle putting their grief aside to handle business and consider the company’s stock price, with Shiv delivering a public statement.
The death is sure to propel the final season story forward to a satisfying conclusion amid the looming series question of who will succeed the Waystar Royco king. The game-changing episode also delivered Succession‘s biggest first-night audience ever. Read THR‘s deep dive analysis and critic’s take on “Connor’s Wedding.”
Source: Hollywood
