Early on in Season 4 of Succession, Brian Cox‘s Logan Roy — who until then was the main character of the series — died. The move shocked shocked fans, and set the series up for an unpredictable final run of episodes. Now, Cox reveals feels like killing Roy was a little early.
Speaking to BBC News’ Amol Rajan (via The Hollywood Reporter) ahead of this week’s series finale of Succession, Cox said that he was fine with Roy’s death due to how it happened in “a pretty brilliant way.” The actor did say, however, that he felt “rejected” about leaving the show so soon in the fourth season.
“I was fine with it ultimately, but I did feel a little bit rejected. You know, I felt a little bit, oh, all the work I’ve done and finally I’m going to, you know, end up as an ear on a carpet of a plane,” Cox joked.
Roy’s death in the show had always been planned by creator Jesse Armstrong. According to Armstrong in the Succession podcast, the team behind the series chose an earlier episode to explore the aftermath of such an event.
“He was always going to die. It felt like that had to happen,” Armstrong said to host Kara Swisher. “That was always coded into it once we decided it was going to be the final season. Occasionally, when I was going crazy about what the end would be I would think, most tragedies end with the death at the end and we go back and look at that as a shape. But it really was this feeling of wanting to see how they would cope afterward that was the prevailing one.”
What is Succession about?
Succession follows the story of the Roy family — Logan Roy and his four children — who control one of the biggest media and entertainment conglomerates in the world. The series tracks their lives as they contemplate what the future will hold once their aging father steps back from the company.
“In season four, the sale of media conglomerate Waystar Royco to tech visionary Lukas Matsson moves ever closer,” reads the season’s synopsis. “The prospect of this seismic sale provokes existential angst and familial division among the Roys as they anticipate what their lives will look like once the deal is completed. A power struggle ensues as the family weighs up a future where their cultural and political weight is severely curtailed.”
The series stars Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong, Alan Ruck, Kieran Culkin, Sarah Snook, Nicholas Braun, Matthew Macfadyen, J. Smith-Cameron, Peter Friedman, David Rasche, Fisher Stevens, Hiam Abbass, Cherry Jones, Alexander Skarsgård, Stephen Root and more.
The Emmy-winning series is created and executive produced by showrunner Jesse Armstrong. Other executive producers include Adam McKay, Frank Rich, Kevin Messick, Jane Tranter, Mark Mylod, Tony Roche, Scott Ferguson, Jon Brown, Lucy Prebble, Will Tracy, and Will Ferrell.