How does ‘Succession’ end? Predicting the series finale

CLEVELAND, Ohio — “Succession,” HBO’s razor-sharp, highly addictive satire of the rich and power-hungry disguised as a modern-day Shakespearean family drama and the epitome of the Peak TV era, ends its four-season run this weekend. The supersized, 88-minute series finale, titled “With Open Eyes,” airs at 9 p.m. on Sunday.

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Logline: Ahead of the final board vote on the Waystar-GoJo deal, Kendall and Shiv try to shore up their opposing interests… and get a fix on the whereabouts of a physically and emotionally bruised Roman.

If it is to be said, so it be, so it is: Series finales tend to be all over the place. Some are great (“Breaking Bad”), some are bad (“Game of Thrones”), others are misunderstood (“Seinfeld”). But if you want to be part of the zeitgeist, you have to watch.

You’re too online, you’ve lost context: If it feels like the “Succession” craze is ending too early, that’s because many viewers only latched on to it recently. The series has won the Emmy for Best Drama Series twice, but the show’s average of 8.8 million viewers per episode this season is 40% more than at this point last season. In fact, the series has more than doubled its audience since its debut in 2018.

Big shoes, big, big shoes: The series finale follows last week’s riveting penultimate episode in which we said goodbye to Logan Roy (Brian Cox), the menacing patriarch behind Waystar Royco. It didn’t take long after burying their father in a tomb that would make Stalin or Liberace jealous for the Roy Boys — Kendall (Jeremy Strong) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) — and Shiv the Shiv (Sarah Snook) to lay the groundwork for a nasty board fight over control of the family company. Kendall hatched a plan to sabotage Lukas Matsson’s (Alexander Skarsgård) takeover bid, while Shiv made an appeal to President-elect (pending a grueling jurisdictional knife fight) Jeryd Mencken (Justin Kirk). Meanwhile, Roman, reeling from grief and shame, embarked on a path of self-destruction by baiting a crowd of anti-Mencken protesters. Elsewhere, Connor (Alan Ruck) pictured life in Slovenia, Cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) continued to make himself indispensable and Tom (Matthew Macfayden) finally headed home for some much-needed sleep.

You can’t make a Tomlette without breaking some Gregs: Series creator Jesse Armstrong isn’t just smarter than the rest of us, he’s an expert at subverting expectations, too. Remember, he killed off Logan in the season’s third episode and then revealed Shiv’s pregnancy a week later. “We are in the midst of a genius who knows exactly how to make this satisfying,” Arian Moayed, who plays Stewy, told Variety. “The ending of this series is very satisfying. It’s kind of stunning, really.”

I love you, but you’re not serious people: Expect the series finale to be as unpredictable as a game of Bitey.

“Shiv wins” seems like the least likely outcome, yeah? In her eulogy, she said Logan “couldn’t fit a whole woman in his head.” It was a somewhat ironic statement considering some of the things the show’s writers have put its sole female lead character through over four seasons.

I could see Tom and Greg winning, I guess, if the series was really the “money corrupts, rich people are terrible, screw ‘em all” show that it appeared to be at times. There’s an interesting theory about Tom’s last name, Wambsgans, that could provide a clue to him taking out the three Roy kids and grabbing the Waystar throne for himself. The character shares the unusual surname with former Cleveland second baseman Bill Wambsganss, who, in 1920, made the only unassisted triple play in World Series history. Hmmm…

Still, for me, “Succession” has always been about how a son inevitably becomes his father, and signs have been pointing to Kendall succeeding Logan as head of the company since the first season. The latest hint was dropped in the funeral episode when Uncle Ewan (James Cromwell) revealed Logan carried the guilt for the death of their baby sister. The story parallels Kendall’s belief that he killed a waiter at Shiv’s wedding in S1, E10.

We here for you: I hope you pre-grieved because, no matter the outcome, be prepared to cry like a little slime puppy. “Oh, my God. Wow!” executive producer Adam McKay told Variety after watching the finale. “I knew what was coming. And still! Oh, my God. Wow.”