Episode three of Succession’s fourth and final season came as a shocker! While fans assumed they will be attending “Connor’s Wedding,” they rather witnessed the funeral of one of the TV’s most characters – Logan Roy, played by Brian Cox. No other TV event had surprised the audience to this degree since Game of Thrones’ Red Wedding. The shocking episode also clocked in 2.5M viewers across HBO Max and linear telecasts, Deadline has reported.
According to the report, the viewership numbers have set a new record high which is a 22 percent increase over last week’s audience of 2M and 7 percent more than Episode 1’s previous record-setting audience of 2.3M. The premiere of the fourth season of Succession was up 62 percent compared to the previous season’s premiere viewership of 1.4M in October 2021. At the time, it marked the best premiere night performance of any HBO original series since HBO Max launched in May 2020. Furthermore, the Season 2 premiere episode has now reached nearly 7M viewers across platforms since its release, according to HBO.
The Legacy of Logan Roy
Logan Roy is unapologetically one of the best characters on TV in recent memory. A patriarch that runs his company with an iron hand, loves his children (though not often obviously), and is a man of unparalleled brilliance. To top that off, Cox’s performance only elevated the character most loved. Though fans had suspected that sooner or later this season, he would die, no one anticipated it to be as soon as Episode 3. The cast and makers were able to keep the death a secret thanks to Cox himself who insisted to show up on the funeral shoot, keeping everything in control Logan style. The actor recounted in a recent interview:
I said, look, I’m coming in, because I know there’s going to be a whole lot of paparazzi there, and they’re going to be wondering what that funeral is. I am coming in... and as soon as I got out of the car, there were paparazzi shooting me left, right, and center, and therefore, they thought, Logan’s at the funeral, what is he doing? You see, and if I hadn’t done that, if I hadn’t come, they would’ve gone, it’s Logan’s funeral. And I was the one who took that responsibility.”
With Logan gone, the end of the road is near for the Roy siblings. Only time will tell how they will deal with their grief and the long looming question of succeeding Logan’s legacy.
The newest episode of Succession will air on Sunday, April 16. You can check out the season trailer below: