‘Succession’ season three finale recap: honey, I punked the kids

So here we are. Nothing lasts forever, and now we find ourselves staring down the barrel of Succession‘s season finale. Get the hankies out.

Still in Italy, waiting for Caroline’s (Harriet Walter) wedding to Peter Munion (Pip Torrens), Logan (Brian Cox) is reading the story Goodbye Mog to Kendall’s son Iverson (Quentin Morales). Unimpressed, he asks Kerry (Zoe Winters) if she can find a book with more action in it. Meanwhile, the siblings are playing Monopoly and Shiv (Sarah Snook) is cheating. “I’m only stealing so I can win,” she says.

As we learn that Kendall (Jeremy Strong) was hospitalised overnight because he nearly drowned (we had last seen him floating on a lilo, staring into the water), Logan tells the group that he is going to meet Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård); they have learned that the DoJ are likely to hit them with a “historic fine”, in Gerri’s (J. Smith-Cameron) words, and Matsson’s company GoJo may be considering other options.

At his lakeside house, Matsson sits down with Logan and Roman (Kieran Culkin). Logan doesn’t mess about. “Shall we dance or what?” he asks. “We’re flying like a fucking rocket ship and you’re sinking like a lead balloon,” Matsson says. He proposes a radical alternative to the planned merger of equals: that he take over; that the board be under his control. Though Logan tells him it’s not happening, he dismisses Roman and stays to chew things over.

Claiming to be worried about Kendall because they love him, the siblings hold a kind of intervention for their increasingly morose brother; they can see that he basically tried to kill himself the day before. Kendall finds this laughable, telling them that they don’t have any standing. Explaining his actions, he says, “Do you have any idea how it feels, as the eldest son, to be promised something and then just have it taken?” Connor (Alan Ruck) can’t let this slide, and says, “I’m the eldest son” increasingly loudly. The gathering, which began with proclamations of love, ends with Connor storming out and saying “fuck you.” Fortunately for him, in the next scene Willa (Justine Lupe) finally agrees to marry him, with a not-entirely-convincing “fuck it.”

At the wedding ceremony itself, we watch a duplicitous Greg (Nicholas Braun) in the middle of Comfry (Dasha Nekrasova) and the Contessa (Ella Rumpf), saying one thing to one and another to the other. After the nuptials, Connor tells Roman and Shiv that Logan is having maca root in his smoothies, probably to strengthen his sperm count: he may be trying to have a baby with Kerri, they realise with disgust.

Panicked that Matsson might buy Waystar, leaving them irrelevant, the siblings rally around – halted only by Kendall breaking down and revealing that he killed the caterer at Shiv’s wedding. Roman tells his brother sincerely that he shouldn’t feel as guilty as he does. “This sounds like the story of a hero to me,” he says when he learns that Kendall tried to save the guy. “I would have been straight out of there.”

Confirming that the deal is on, Shiv and her brothers plan to ambush Logan, scuppering the deal with their power (under Logan and Caroline’s divorce agreement) that Logan can’t sign that kind of deal without his children agreeing. “Time to rip off the band aid,” says Shiv. “How do we feel about killing Dad? Mixed feelings?” “Pass me the fucking shotgun,” says Kendall.

Tom (Matthew Macfayden), meanwhile, learning of the situation, promises Greg that in the new order Greg will be heading towards “the bottom of the top”. “Who has ever looked after you in this fucking family?” he says, asking him if he’s ready to do a deal with the devil. In the best line of the episode, Greg says, “What am I gonna do with a soul anyway?”

The siblings burst into Logan drawing up the deal, pleading that he needs to slow things down. He says it’s the best time to sell and that no longer being directly under his wing will be a great opportunity for them to “get an education in real life”. They disagree and threaten to use their vetoing power. “Fuck off!” says Logan. “I have you beat, you morons.” He then reveals that Caroline is talking to him on the phone, and that they have reviewed the terms and conditions of the divorce – i.e. that he and his ex-wife have taken away the siblings’ power to end deals just like this. “Mum, you just slit our throats,” Shiv says on speakerphone.

With Logan triumphant and his children bereft, Shiv wonders how her dad could have known about their arrival with enough time to contact Caroline. This is when her beloved Tom emerges, receives a warm pat on the shoulder from Logan, and she learns that it is he who betrayed them all.

The season three finale of ‘Succession’ aired at 2am on Sky Atlantic in the UK – it is repeated at 9pm tonight (December 13) and is streaming on NOW