Succession Season 4 Spoiled That Big Twist Ages Ago And You Didn’t Even Notice

This article contains spoilers for Succession season 4 episode 3.

If you’re a Succession fan, you’re most likely still reeling at “Connor’s Wedding” the traumatic, emotionally raw third episode of this fourth and final season. In the first 15 minutes of the hour, Roy family patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox) has a presumed heart attack and stops breathing while on route to discuss business with one of his main competitors, Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård). The death takes place off screen, and we don’t even get to see Logan for the majority of the time he’s receiving chest compressions. This leaves most of the action to take place on the boat in which Connor Roy (Alan Ruck) is to get married. 

The Roy siblings all react in their own ways to the death, and the audience lives vicariously through them. Not only is the episode eerily relatable if you’ve experienced loss in real life, it also came as a stunner in the show’s timeline. Many expected Logan to die at some point in the series, but definitely not during the first trimester of the final season. This twist was a new high point for the show, but the brilliant marketing team behind the camera may have been hiding hints about Logan’s demise in plain sight. 

Remember back to the pre-season poster for the fourth season? With all of the characters standing in front of a corporate building high in the sky, there’s one small detail that was staring us in the face. An airplane is in the upper right corner of the poster, and it’s one of the only objects in the photo outside of the family members themselves.

It may seem innocuous considering how often the Roys travel first class to some business or personal event, but no detail is too small for creator Jesse Armstrong and his team to include. It was definitely an intentional decision, one that was corroborated by Shiv Roy actor Sarah Snook on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon during the press tours before the premiere in March 2023. 

Snook laughed with Fallon when asked about whether there were any Easter eggs in the poster by saying “you’ll only know once you know . . . there is a thing that once the season begins airing, it may get related back to this moment.” She almost definitely is talking about the airplane hanging above the characters. 

This wouldn’t be the first time fans thought they could deduce answers to the show’s biggest surprises. In the third season posters, many people dissected the sides of the room that the characters were standing on. This led to predictions about how the divided factions of the Roy family would come to finalize after the dust settled on the third season. HBO released several different versions of this poster to help illustrate the ways the relationships and loyalties of the characters would switch up throughout the episodes. 

Minutia like this is what separates legendary TV shows from average ones. Succession is arguably already part of the pantheon of all-timers because of its incredible attention to detail that seemingly expands and continues to mesmerize with every passing season. The choice to end the show so early may be the best one Armstrong has made yet. With fewer episodes than other programs, episodes like “Connor’s Wedding” strike emotional chords that simply can’t be reached in a series bogged down with eight seasons of material.

With seven episodes left, it’s hard to tell what is going to happen to the Roys. Logan was an omnipresent force in the lives of every person on the show. While most people disliked him, it was hard not to take his opinion as gospel. Logan’s absence will force massive character growth from Roman (Kieran Culkin), Kendall (Jeremy Strong), and Shiv (Snook). They always use their dad’s power as a barometer for their own feelings and aspirations. Something is going to change in a big way after this death, and the only thing we can be sure of is to look for the hints anywhere we can find them, even in the most unexpected of places!

New episodes of Succession premiere at 9 p.m. ET on Sundays on HBO.