History Recap / SuccessionS04E10

* TheUnfavorite: Played with. At one point, Connor -- the Roy child always considered the least liked and respected by their father -- has dinner with his siblings, and reveals that he has found a recording of a dinner Logan attended with his inner circle some time ago and has set up the room so that Logan can be with them in spirit one final time. The other Roys clearly had no idea that

At the board meeting, six of the board members support the sale, and six vote no. The tiebreaker vote falls to Shiv, who gets second thoughts and exits the room. Kendall and Roman follow her and a fight ensues between the three. She claims that she cannot see Kendall as leader of Waystar, especially because he killed a man. Kendall claims that the waiter's death was a lie he told his siblings, but this only turns Shiv further against him. Shiv votes yes on the deal and the Waystar-[=GoJo=] sale is finalized with Tom as CEO.

* LeftHanging: While the main question of "who will succeed Logan as CEO?" is resolved -- it's Tom -- many other threads from the series, such as the outcome of the election, what will happen in Tom and Shiv's marriage, how Kendall will cope with losing his chance to become CEO, are never resolved. The creators state that this is deliberate, as they essentially wanted to create the effect of the camera simply losing interest in each of the Roy siblings the very moment it became clear to them that they would never achieve their goal of taking over the company.

* NiceJobFixingItVillain: Shiv dismisses her husband to Matsson as a toadying bootlicker... which, as it turns out, is exactly what Matsson wants in a CEO.

* DrivenToSuicide: Kendall tells Shiv that he's been groomed for CEO since he was seven, and he needs this or he'll kill himself. The episode ends with him staring out over the Hudson River, seemingly contemplating suicide.

* HopeSpot: The "meal fit for a king" scene, where the Roy siblings childishly act like kids playing together for the first time in the series, takes place at around the episode's halfway point the night before the climactic board meeting, making the viewers think that maybe they can genuinely rally together despite their previously shaky relationships.[[note]]In the "Controlling the Narrative" postcredits scene, WordOfGod confirms that this scene was intended to act as a ray of hope.[[/note]] Unfortunately, they end up backstabbing each other as always, except this backstabbing results in signing away the family company.

* ItsAllAboutMe: Listen closely to Kendall's final "pitch" to Shiv about why she should vote for him. Pretty much everything he says is a reason for why being CEO is good for ''him'', as opposed to a concrete reason for why he would be good for the company or his siblings as CEO.

* ThatCameOutWrong: When confronted with the death he caused as a reason that he shouldn't be CEO, Kendall is taken aback and blurts out "Which?!" for some reason (he presumably meant "Who?" but either misspoke in pure shock or mentally caught himself just before speaking after realising that acting like he didn't know who Shiv was talking about wouldn't sound good either). This, as Roman incredulously notes, just makes it sound like Kendall has such an extensive collection of dead bodies to his conscience that he has trouble remembering them all.

* VillainousBreakdown: The climax of the episode is essentially this for Kendall, who has become increasingly unscrupulous, ruthless and determined to trample over others in order to win -- in short, more like his father -- the closer he has come to achieving his goal of becoming CEO. When Shiv begins to have second thoughts, however, he begins acting increasingly irrational in his efforts to change her mind. He begins begging, claiming that he has nothing else in his life, denying his role in killing the waiter in the Series 1 finale when confronted with it, and finally ends up having a mini-tantrum where he simply yells "I am the eldest boy!" at her. He then completely loses it when Roman points out that Kendall's kids aren't biologically his (at least according to Logan), physically attacking Roman and trying to manhandle Shiv when, disgusted, she leaves the room to cast her vote. Finally, when it's all over and he's lost, the last we see of Kendall is him staggering to a bench where he sits and blankly looks over the ocean, the implication being that he is seriously considering suicide.

* MadnessMantra: A downplayed example. While he only yells it twice, after all his other attempts at convincing Shiv to vote for him fall on deaf ears Kendall is reduced to simply shouting "''I'm the eldest boy!''" at her... within hearing distance of the board and employees present, which simply makes him appear irrational, petulant and immature. And what makes it even worse is that everyone present knows it's not even true.

* ThatCameOutWrong: When confronted with the death he caused as a reason that he shouldn't be CEO, Kendall is taken aback and blurts out "Which?!" for some reason (he presumably meant "Who?" but either misspoke in pure shock or mentally caught himself just before speaking after realising that acting like he didn't know what Shiv was talking about wouldn't sound good either). This, as Roman notes, just makes it sound like Kendall has such an extensive collection of dead bodies to his conscience that he has trouble remembering them all.

* BreakTheHaughty: It's the culmination of a series long project, but also within this episode specifically; compare the Kendall swaggering arrogantly through the Waystar offices, putting his feet up on his dad's old desk, and basically acting DrunkWithPower even before the vote when he thinks he's got the CEO position locked down with the shattered, broken wreck of a man staggering around the offices and streets aimlessly and who ends up staring blankly at the Hudson with a ThousandYardStare once it's been taken from him once and for all.

* DiggingYourselfDeeper: When Shiv confronts Kendall with his involvement in the death of the waiter as a reason why he is unsuitable to be the CEO, Kendall brushes this off by claiming that he was simply lying about having done it -- not stopping to realise that either way this just makes him look ''worse'', as he is either (a) desperately denying culpability in a death he caused just to get a job (which actually is the case), which makes him seem at least somewhat sociopathic, or (b) was willing to lie to his siblings about having caused someone's death in order to play on their sympathies towards him, which also makes him seem at least somewhat sociopathic.

* BriefAccentImitation: Shiv, Kendall and Roman mockingly put on their mother's posh British accent while messing around in her kitchen.

** Kendall's inability to cope with real pressure; he increasingly falls apart when trying to convince Shiv to vote for him. Also his hypocrisy, since the way he instantly tries to claim he didn't actually have anything to do with the waiter's death when it's brought up sickens both Shiv and Roman.

* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: The Roy siblings ultimately give into their penchant for this, destroying their chances of running the company. Matsson has shades of this too, as he 's perfectly happy to ditch Shiv after promising her the top job — and when Greg finds out about that, he's more than willing to use that information to betray him.

* EveryoneHasStandards: Roman is visibly and vocally disgusted when Kendall claims to have lied about killing the waiter, immediately switching to Shiv's position. As the siblings' subsequent fight devolves into a physical brawl Roman yells at Kendall for hitting Shiv, because she's pregnant.

* AmbiguousSituation: Why did Shiv vote for the merger? Because she figured that being the CEO's wife would be a more influential position than being the CEO's sister? Or because she recognized that Kendall wasn't fit for the job and was trying to do the right thing? Or is it because she truly can’t live with the thought of any Roy sibling besides her being the CEO, and decides to sabotage Ken in one last act of spite?

** Tom gets the top spot at Waystar-[=GoJo=] -- with the salary and benefits to match -- but at the cost of ultimately being a corporate lapdog to Mattson, who only kept him on because he's completely subservient and willing to cut costs to the bone. He is also stuck in an unhappy marriage to a woman who is at the very least unsure if she wants the baby she's carrying.

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Shiv finally ends up being in a more affluent position than all of her brothers…at the cost of being in an unhappy marriage with Tom, the new Waystar CEO, with a child she’s unsure she wants, [[HistoryRepeats doomed to the same fate as her own mother.]] Worse still, she is still little more than an underling for Matsson, who backstabbed her not long ago.

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Shiv finally ends up being in a more affluent position than all of her brothers…at the cost of being in an unhappy marriage with Tom, the new Waystar CEO, with a child she’s unsure she wants, [[HistoryRepeats doomed to the same fate as her own mother.]] Worse still, she is still little more than underling for Matsson, who backstabbed her not long ago.

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Shiv finally ends up being in a more affluent position than all of her brothers…at the cost of being in an unhappy marriage with Tom, the new Waystar CEO, with a child she’s unsure she wants, [[HereWeGoAgain doomed to the same fate as her own mother.]] Worse still, she is still little more than underling for Matsson, who even previously backstabbed her.