Always get it in writing. A written agreement can really be to your benefit when someone dies. Look at Kerry—she’s reduced to tears in Logan’s palatial apartment, prohibited by Marcia from going upstairs to collect her things, her affair with Logan reduced to a sad little bag of belongings that she spills all over the foyer floor in front of everyone. Before she’s escorted out the back door, she quietly asks Roman to check if Logan provided for her. The inner circle surely can hear her quiet desperation and humiliation. Greg gloats at Kerry’s fall like an asshole while Roman shows a little kindness and helps her pick up her things—what a turnaround from how the cousins were introduced in the beginning.
Who knows if Logan ever made any provisions for Kerry. As the mistress, she never had anything on paper so she’s entitled to nothing but the kindness of strangers. Marcia has been estranged from Logan and shopping forever in Milan, but she’s still his wife. Their agreement is legal and on paper and she holds all the power. (This is why it annoys me when people scoff at marriage and say, “It’s just a piece of paper.” So is the deed to your house.) Marcia dons a mantilla, claims she talked to Logan every night, and makes an appropriate show of grief but she sure can’t wait to unload that apartment. With a spit-on handshake, she sells it to Connor for $63 million without a second thought or any sentiment. Willa is already measuring the drapes and seems to want to turn that amazing New York apartment into an open floor plan.
For Waystar Royco, it very much matters what’s on paper when it comes to who will be the next CEO. Tom—mourning in his own way by scarfing down a fish taco—tries for the job until Karl tells him, accurately, that he’s a clumsy interloper whom nobody trusts, that the only person who supported him is dead, and that he’s married to the boss’ daughter but she doesn’t even like him. Gerri responds to Karl’s play for CEO with a deeply backhanded compliment that Karl was a legend in the ‘90s for what he did with cable.
But Ken’s name is the one on that paper and it appears that Logan wanted him to take over. No matter what we know about how Ken spurred the DOJ investigation into the cruise deaths, or that Logan was trusting Roman more right before his death, the written evidence is that Ken is the intended heir.
Or is it? It looks like Logan underlined Ken’s name on that piece of paper but as Shiv notes, it kind of looks like his name is crossed out. So Succession becomes Game of Thrones, where Robert Baratheon died with conflicting, half-assed plans in place for who would inherit his kingdom. It is hilarious to me that the leadership of this multibillion-dollar company could hinge on the exact latitude of a pencil mark. It’s also pretty dark since Ken will harbor a little doubt for the rest of his life that his dad really wanted him to succeed.
None of this has the force of a will. (I’m kind of also wondering if this is a setup since Frank just pulled that piece of paper out of a folder on Logan’s desk. We didn’t see him get it from the safe and have only his word that nobody altered it. But if it’s a setup, I don’t know to what end this would be.) However, the board votes in Ken and Roman as interim CEO and COO and that has more force than anybody’s feelings about who was closest to Logan.
Ken and Roman say they won’t screw over Shiv, but yeah, she got screwed. She feels like the only person who lost something she really wanted. I liked the moment when she chastised mourners for laughing—not every moment at a wake is tearful, but it can seem offensive to some people when they see levity. And it was just funny when she told the stroked-out Sandy Furness to stop smiling. Shiv is still working her way through her complex feelings over her father’s death. She notes the hagiographic obituaries in the newspapers (some undoubtedly owned by Waystar) and says “Dad sounds amazing. I’d like to have met Dad.” Shiv does get good news that she’s pregnant but then worryingly trips and falls at the wake. So not a great day for her on several fronts.
Even for a wake, that was depressing. No real friends show up, just employees who walk around the apartment like they own it and plot to replace the boss before his body is cold. The Roys are grieving but can’t really express it. It’s all “sorry for your loss” in the most impersonal tones possible. It makes me never want to be in those heartless circles, not for any amount of money.
Ken and Roman shoot down Karolina and Hugo’s plans to spread rumors about Logan’s treatment of his first wife and other unsavory dealings to soften people up to embrace the new leadership. Privately, Ken takes Hugo aside and tells him to start spreading those rumors. Ken knows he has Hugo over a barrel because of his daughter’s inside trading of Waystar stock. This defaming of a dead man’s memory is what Dad would have wanted, Kendall says. This is the twisted way this family honors the wishes of the dead.
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