Warning: Spoilers for Succession season 4, episode 3 to follow.
Nearly everything about the truly shocking third episode of Succession’s fourth season was a red herring—from the episode’s title, “Connor’s Wedding,” to its early positioning. All were ways of distracting viewers from the secret Brian Cox struggled to keep mum about: Logan Roy is dead.
In what Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson called “the snap-of-a-finger upending of the kids’ entire world,” Logan unceremoniously met his fate in the bathroom on his private jet. Viewers learned about the patriarch’s demise not by witnessing it themselves, but just as the Roy children (minus poor Connor) did. It was a jarring twist that few saw coming—except, perhaps, those who had analyzed the season four poster.
Knowing what we do now, Easter eggs pointing to Logan’s death fitting of the day his last episode aired are everywhere. Logan’s watch is prominently on display, hinting at his life’s ticking clock. All of the characters stand atop a skyscraper that looks awfully like the bow of a boat—and a cruise ship, adorned with Connor and Willa’s wedding regalia, is where all of the Roy children learn of their father’s death. But most pressing of all is the plane hovering over their heads—the spot of Logan’s ultimate resting place.
Sarah Snook, who plays Shiv, even teased the poster’s significance while on The Tonight Show last month. “There is!” she replied, when asked by Jimmy Fallon about any clues in the image. “But I feel like you won’t know until you know. There is a thing that once the season begins airing, it may get related back to this moment.”
In the wake of last night’s episode, fans are looking to another poster for potential hints about who will run Waystar Royco after the inevitable power struggle in upcoming episodes. Although it’s hard to glean firm meaning from where players are positioned in relation to one another, one choice tends to stick out: Nicholas Braun’s Cousin Greg is the only person looking at his own reflection in a wall of mirrors. Could this gaze suggest an air of Logan-esque victory, or even a guilty conscious about how he got there?
As Succession’s final season unfolds, one can’t help but return to Logan’s existential musings from the season’s second episode: “You think there’s anything after all this? Afterwards? I don’t think so. I think this is it,” he says while hiding out from his own birthday party. “Realistically though, that’s it. You don’t know. You can’t know. But I’ve got my fucking suspicions.” As do we.
