#i also have a gripe with being needlessly melodramatic but don't feel to attacked by that i get it

[cakebatteronabrickwall]

Sure, “the cycle is cycling” is a fun and cute thing to say but in all honesty? To me, the succession ending sort of accidentally broke that logic. Can you really draw the logical conclusion that the siblings end up like Ewan and Logan? No, because what was the reason for their estrangement? Ultimately, Ewan resents Logan for letting himself become the person he died as. Why was Logan like that? Because of the company (very simplisitc, there is more here obviously). Shiv literally takes that possibility away from Kendall by voting against him.

Does that mean being “out” magically fixes their shit? Of course not. Here is the thing. Kendall will always be trapped in the cycle of thinking he was meant to be CEO, it was instilled into him as a child! Part of him will always resent Shiv for her vote and will always come back to this formative moment. But. Does that mean he can never care about anything else, doomed to wander around as an empty shell? I don’t think so, we’ve been through the epic highs and lows of corporate fuckery with Ken, he somehow always returns to himself in the end, partially because of his siblings.

Shiv will always be stuck knowing that her being a woman plays a major part in the way her father and every other man in her life treats her. That resentment won’t go away either, it may even take a new shape with motherhood mixed in. But also, she is probably working a new angle with Tom as we speak. Maybe she’ll return to her political roots, who knows, she certainly will do everything to not become her mother even if she jokes about the opposite at the funeral. But the most important thing to me is the fact that, even in her resentment towards Ken, she tells him “I love you, but I can’t fucking stomach you”. The first part did not need to be there. And yet.

And Roman (always hardest to talk about for me, lol). Well, he will always look for guidance outside of himself, he will always need his family. His ending is lonely on one side, but there is a quiet beauty in it as well. After everything, there is a moment of solitude and being able to breathe, even reminisce. He just started really grieving and wherever the path leads, it will never lead back to Logan. It can’t. He will always love his father (and I need to take the moment to say- that is totally fine, we as observers have a different view on their relationship than him), but his father will never be able to abuse that or hold it against him again. The wheels have come off the cycle and the engine is dead. The entire fourth season can be seen as an attempt to keep the cycle alive, because it is comforting in a way. But it doesn’t work, because, I repeat, THE ENGINE IS LITERALLY DEAD.

See, succession clearly has shown that whereas Logan and Ewan had no desire to be a family, the sibs always find their way back to each other. After Ken’s season 1 bullshit. After Ken’s press conference. After the confrontation with Logan. Ewan tells people at the funeral “I loved him I suppose, but-” but none of them would ever say that. The love is so clearly, inarguably there and maybe that is the real tragedy; that in another world it could have been a much easier kind of love (but it rarely is, for most of us anyways).