“I’m the eldest boy!” Kendall Roy and the Tragedy of ‘Succession’

graphic by sophia flissler

Content warning: This article contains spoilers for HBO’s ‘Succession.’

The question of who would “win” HBO’s “Succession” has been a part of nearly every conversation about the show since its very first season. Of course, the title of the series immediately tells us that we will follow the story of one individual succeeding another, but the rat race doesn’t officially begin until Logan Roy suffers a brain hemorrhage on the helicopter ride back to Manhattan near the end of the first episode. From then on, given the number of Roy children and the very purposeful manipulation and competition fueled by the family’s patriarch the moment Logan regains his health, the question on everyone’s mind was who will win the title of CEO … right?

The word “win” is admittedly strange given how bleak the scenario of the series is: How can there be a “winner” out of a group of uber-rich people vying to be the head of an ultra-conservative, fear-mongering mega media conglomerate? Fans of “Succession” have, for the most part, always recognized this misnomer, yet it persisted because of a general understanding of what the show is on a fundamental level. 

It only makes sense to discuss theories and predictions using the criteria of the characters on the show; being able to win in the world created by Logan Roy — winning by his standards and by the standards that those around him, in turn, held themselves to — meant effectively succeeding the behemoth that the man was. The winner would have to be “a killer,” large enough in personality and sheer gall to fill those big, big shoes. Their life as Logan’s successor would be overrun by drive and corporate dealmaking, if it hadn’t already been that way in the fight to be that successor. In becoming a brute like Logan and in maintaining the poisoned company he began, the winner would lose any of the self they had left.

Though nearly every character in “Succession” is on this twisted path toward the throne, there has been one person primed to succeed Logan from the very beginning: Kendall Roy. While Roman and Siobhan were certainly in the running as their father dangled the carrot in front of each child (aside from Connor, who was, of course, interested in politics from a very young age), promising them the win if they could pass his manipulative tests, “Succession’s” plot consistently returned to Kendall and his constant inability to prove himself as “the one” in the eyes of his father and siblings. 

“Succession’s” director and executive producer Mark Mylod has long considered the show a tragedy, stating in the final episode of the official “Succession” podcast that the most tragic part of the series is caring deeply about the “hopelessly broken” characters. “Succession” is tragic in that no one comes away a winner — all the characters lose in various ways — yet the more harrowing tragedy is one that we watch across all four seasons as one character in particular fails practically the moment he finds any semblance of success. It is the tragic irony that we as an audience know that the successor should be Kendall, but that it cannot and never can be.

In line with what his father would expect from his successor — if we are to believe that Logan would ever really have given up his company to one of his children — there is nothing to Kendall other than this job. He has a personality, of course, and we are often reminded of his love for ’90s hip hop and for showboating, but, as he says in his final plea to Roman and Shiv before his fate is sealed, he is “like a cog built to fit only one machine. … It’s the one thing I know how to do.” Shiv replies that “it is not all about you. You are not the most important one,” which is correct considering how traumatic the fight for CEO has been for all the Roy children since their births. Yet, in the context of the show, it really is all about Kendall.

However intertwined his story is with that of the other members of his family, Kendall has always been “Succession’s” protagonist. In the first season, Kendall was seemingly promised the role of CEO by his father, only to have it taken away when Logan decides he will not retire. We see this happen countless times: Kendall rises to the occasion (in his own way) but is shot down by his father. The series follows the can-he-can’t-he of Kendall’s attempts to regain control of the company, marked by the competition with his siblings and hitting rock bottom, only for his father to offer him a pickaxe so he can somehow hit an even lower point. 

While Kendall is more deplorable than what we define as an antihero, at many points throughout the series we are positioned to view him as such in comparison to the far more irredeemable Logan. This is especially easy to recognize when taking into account scenes where Kendall is completely mentally and emotionally broken, like when he turns to his father after the drowning of the young waiter at Shiv’s wedding in the Season 1 finale, “Nobody Is Ever Missing,” or the scene in the Season 3 finale, “All the Bells Say,” where Kendall reveals to Roman and Shiv that he caused the waiter’s death. When he falls from a high, what we as an audience recognize alongside the characters is that there is very little left for Kendall outside of the company. 

While the story of “Succession” is about the characters and how they employ sabotage and subterfuge, Kendall’s oscillation between failing and returning serves as the driving force for the series’ plot, allowing us to feel sympathy for the Roy siblings in contrast to Logan’s abuse. Kendall crashing to rock bottom and becoming his father’s puppet at the end of Season 1 and into Season 2 allows Roman and Shiv a legitimate chance at CEO; him defying his father publicly at the end of Season 2 also allows for the other siblings to try to move up; and Kendall hitting his lowest point yet in Season 3, culminating in his breakdown in “All the Bells Say,” is what changes the family’s trajectory, making the idea of the siblings working together to stage a coup a possibility.

As the show began featuring the stories of Roman, Siobhan, Tom and Greg more prominently, the idea of Kendall as the main character seemed to fall to the wayside for audiences. Though obviously not forgotten in any sense, Kendall being subtly shifted from the protagonist to part of an ensemble cast underscores the tragedy on two fronts. First, we knew, as previously stated, there would be no “winners” at the end of the story. Second, in a meta sense, Kendall was written off well before the final sequence of the series finale, “With Open Eyes.” The reality that Kendall has been doomed from the start has been there from Season 1, but it becomes unignorable in the scene where Kendall begs Shiv to vote for him, his voice cracking as he responds “I don’t believe you!” when she says “I don’t think you’d be good at it.” 

In tandem with Jeremy Strong’s performance of Kendall at a new low, the cinematography highlights this tragedy. The camera is used to frame him in a medium reverse shot from behind both when he races back into the boardroom in an attempt to delay the inevitable and in the penultimate shot of the series when he sits looking out at the Hudson River.

This specific shot is significant in the power it symbolizes. As Mark Mylod said in an interview with Vanity Fair, “that’s probably our most Logan-esque shot, if you like, because of the dynamics to the frame and to the composition. I will use that — a reverse shot following the character from behind, in quite a tight shot with the character completely center-framed — as a recurring thing over four seasons, as a mark of that character’s ascendancy.” This framing has perhaps been most significant when used on one of the Roy siblings given how close each child was to ascending the throne in a sense. In “With Open Eyes,” the irony of this shot’s use is tangible; aside from being used to follow Tom Wambsgans as he leaves the building after being named CEO of Waystar Royco, the reverse shot is used on Kendall when he has fallen as low as he possibly could have. As he looks out onto the water, seeing Kendall from this angle is not an indication of his power or a hint that he will make a comeback — it is exactly the opposite. 

When used in these two instances, the shot serves as a reminder of what could have been and what could never have been. Kendall failed Logan in many ways, but in others, he embodies his father. The true tragedy of “Succession” is that Kendall, more than his other siblings, was molded to succeed his father, yet it was certain that he would never be allowed to do so. Mylod said of Logan in this shot that “he owns the frame.” Evident of the shot’s lack of power in this penultimate moment is that Kendall cannot own the frame; it was never his to begin with.

“Succession’s” Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) overlooking the Hudson River in the show’s finale, “With Open Eyes” (2023).

Every season finale of “Succession” gets its title from the John Berryman poem “Dream Song 29” — “Nobody Is Ever Missing,” “This Is Not for Tears,” “All the Bells Say” and “With Open Eyes.” In the context of the poem, each of the line fragments used for an episode title speaks to a significant turning point. The second stanza of the poem reads:

And there is another thing he has in mind

like a grave Sienese face a thousand years

would fail to blur the still profiled reproach of. Ghastly,

with open eyes, he attends, blind.

All the bells say: too late. This is not for tears;

thinking.

Each line in this stanza becomes all the more significant when read alongside the climax of the tragedy that is Kendall Roy. At the end of the episode, it is too late, yet it has always been too late. Kendall has walked through his life “with open eyes,” yet blind, attempting to achieve the goal that has been on his mind since birth, to push through his father’s reproach and succeed. As the series ends, we are left wondering if Kendall’s eyes are now truly opened after a failure from which he cannot return. Roman ends the episode showing a brief smirk of relief as he sips a martini, though we know his future is not the brightest. Shiv places her hand in Tom’s: she is a shell of a person yet still in proximity to power, perhaps both for herself and her child. But Kendall, that cog built for just one machine and thrown out without being used, has absolutely nothing left. 

Kendall ends the series like he began it, now with the realization that there is no return for him. Framed from behind using the shot length that signaled the power of his father, his siblings and himself at various points across four seasons, Kendall is devoid of life, and the tragedy of “Succession” is complete.