Editor's note: The below contains spoilers for Season 4 of Succession.Logan Roy (Brian Cox) is a bad parent. This is obvious to anyone who’s seen even a minute of HBO’s Succession. The show’s dysfunctional family offers up a buffet of dynamics and issues that inform how they act and allows viewers to dissect what makes them tick. Throughout the seasons, we’ve gotten to know a lot about the unique relationships between the Roy kids and their father and in doing so have come to understand more of just how broken this family is.

Kendall (Jeremy Strong) makes attempts to be his father’s golden boy, only for Logan to repeatedly break promises, leading to Kendall turning on his father publicly. Shiv (Sarah Snook) has worked hard for his approval for years in seeking the same kind of recognition as her brothers, only for Logan’s promises to again prove empty. Roman (Kieran Culkin) still comes back when his father calls, no matter how many times he’s been hurt. But perhaps the most emblematic of this family as a whole is the relationship between Logan and his eldest child, Connor (Alan Ruck). In Season 4, Connor is the most ubiquitous example of the many, many flaws with Logan’s parenting, especially after his heartbreaking speech about love to his siblings in Episode 2.

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Connor Has Never Been Roy Enough

Connor has always been an outsider, even in his own family. The oldest of the four siblings and the only one born to a different mother, it seems as if Logan has written off Connor from the start. We know Connor's mother was sent off somewhere by Logan, but little else is known about her or spoken of. He sought his father’s approval like the rest of the kids, but Logan didn’t seem to care for or believe in him enough to try and send him down the path to success the way he did with the rest of his kids. He’s been largely left to his own devices for years, still in the family by name but far removed from any questions involving the titular succession.

Connor is not a Waystar employee — unlike his siblings, he’s a shareholder, but based on how little he’s contacted by either Logan or the other children when shareholder meetings come up, he clearly doesn’t hold anywhere near enough sway to be deemed valuable, and this is where we start to see Logan’s impact. Logan is a capitalist through and through. He is concerned with getting proper returns on his investments and doesn’t bother wasting time on things he doesn’t feel are valuable. Enter: his children, the ones he can squeeze value out of get more attention and the moment he stops seeing them as valuable he becomes even more rude and disinterested than he already was. This has happened to Kendall, Roman, and Shiv at least once over the course of the series. The difference for Connor is that he’s been valued as nothing by his father seemingly since the beginning.

What Is Logan Roy's “Parenting” Style?

Jeremy Strong, Kieran Culkin, Brian Cox, Sarah Snook and Alan Ruck in a Succession promo still
Image via Max

Logan Roy isn’t a good father, but what makes him such a bad father is a bit harder to pin down. He’s taciturn, cruel, and has an ego large enough to fill his penthouse apartment. One could easily come to think that it’s his harsh, perfectionist attitude towards his kids that has had the biggest impact on them, and it certainly has — but what Logan has done to his kids doesn’t seem to have nearly as much of an impact on them as what he hasn’t.

Kendall, Roman, and Shiv, even with their revolving love and hatred for their father, are constantly seeking his attention. They’d started Season 4 finally working as a team with a plan to start their own endeavor and leave their dad behind, only to immediately change course and spend $10 billion just to screw him over. Even if they can’t be loved by him, they desperately want to be acknowledged by him — and if they couldn’t have that by being loyal to him, then they’ll try and earn it by beating him. It’s pointless, though, because they can’t win. Logan’s main flaw in parenting wasn’t his innate cruelty but rather his absence. His kids have been fighting each other their entire lives just to try and be the favorite of a man who barely seems to care if they exist. Neglect is Logan’s main form of parenting. So as adults his kids are still desperately seeking the love and attention they were denied as children. All except for Connor. Connor has already accepted the truth that Logan and in turn the rest of his family will never love him.

Connor's Speech Says Volumes About Logan's Parenting

Alan Ruck as Connor Roy in Season 4 of Succession
Image via HBO

Connor is something of a joke to his family — and as the audience enters this family dynamic by proxy, he becomes a joke to us as well. His failed presidential campaign and his engagement to a woman who barely seems to love him all make him come off as kind of pathetic. His siblings make fun of him even after his fiancé, Willa (Justine Lupe), has abandoned him, with Roman voicing multiple jokes about how she’s off cheating on him. Connor has been kind of a constant punching bag, but the second episode of Season 4 gives him a rare opportunity to stand up for himself. After Logan appears at his impromptu failed-rehearsal dinner turned failed-karaoke night, the kids get into a tense argument with him that helps to showcase just how large the rift between them has become but also reveals how invested Kendall, Roman, and Shiv are with staying in their father’s line of sight at all costs.

Connor is understandably distraught that even this, his siblings' supposed attempt to cheer him up, has become yet another demonstration of how everyone’s priorities always lie elsewhere even on one of the worst nights of his life. He starts his short speech with “The good thing about having a family that doesn’t love you is you learn to live without it,” before putting the rest of his siblings on blast. Connor says what’s been clear to the audience since the beginning — despite their appearances, his siblings are still desperately seeking their father’s love. He calls them “needy love sponges” while he himself is “a plant that grows on rocks,” and while Connor’s never been particularly clever, this hits home. Despite appearances and how often we’re made to laugh at him, Connor is the only one who truly understands they will never get anything more than money from their father. He’s learned to live without love out of necessity, even the love of his siblings — because as long as they’re all chasing after Logan’s approval, they aren’t truly caring for each other, as we saw clearly with Roman going behind his siblings' backs the moment Logan called him.

That’s the true poison of Logan’s parenting: how it's seeped into his children as well and made them just as callous and cruel as he is. Kendall, Shiv, and Roman may attempt to change, to leave their father, to show care for Connor, but it’s all an empty show. Logan’s neglect has taught them all to act the same way; it’s why they’re so bad at having genuine conversations with each other. Because genuine emotion is a weakness Logan would never expose to them, they only know how to communicate through business and biting comments. The consequence of growing up with a parent and family that gives you scraps is you either learn to beg for more or do without. While his siblings are still clamoring for whatever morsels their father could hand out, Connor’s accepted that he will get nothing. He’s internalized the neglect he’s experienced his entire life into one distilled truth: he is not and will never be loved. It’s so easy to see how this applies to Kendall, Shiv, and Roman as well, but they’re still convinced there’s a way to make their father see them.

Logan Roy is a terrible parent who made his children subsist on scraps of affection, fighting each other tooth and nail for whatever they could get — but the truth is it’s an empty fight, there’s no love to be found. Connor, through his years of being pushed aside and made a joke out of, only to give one of the most solid reads on the main trio in the entire show, puts on full display just how much Logan’s neglect has broken these people. Emotionally bankrupt as they are, they can’t even muster the energy to sincerely comfort their brother yet will weaponize his neglect at the drop of a hat to try and get a hit on their father. It’s cruel, it’s heartless, and it’s all from Logan. The only way for the siblings to “win” against their father is to present a united front, but in their unending desperation to be Logan’s favorite they repeatedly sabotage their own chances of beating him.

New episodes of Succession Season 4 premiere each Sunday on HBO and HBO Max.