I think if you’ve clicked on this post, one of two things is true, and honestly, both are equally possible: you either enjoy truly dark, raw comedy, or you already know and follow the show. So yes, there will be some spoilers in this review. With that out of the way, I want to talk about “Church and State,” an episode of Succession that is almost impossible not to feel on a deeply human level. If you watched the very first episode of this story, you could never have imagined that its closing chapters would become this bitter, dark, mordant, and frankly psychotic. Honestly, even rating this episode feels like a challenge to me.
Roman Roy, a complete asshole, arrogant, emotionally detached, cold, mocking, obscenely wealthy, and operating on a moral scale so far removed from anything you or I might consider normal, is the undisputed protagonist of this episode. And believe me, to write this review, I went back and watched the entire series from the beginning, and obviously, I watched this episode again too. By this point, it has been six episodes since the absolute king of Succession, the capo di tutti capi, the soul of the entire production, died. His death had been foreshadowed, but it was still absolutely unexpected. I think you’ll agree with me when I say that the way it was presented to the audience was both magnificent and deeply distressing.
Dying in agony on a flight, in the middle of the air, surrounded by your children and the capitalist vipers who had spent decades flattering you and doing whatever you wanted, yet completely removed from the one thing that was supposedly worth something in life: your family. It wasn’t merely a brilliant writing decision; it was an incredibly risky one. With seven episodes still left, Succession had killed off its central figure, and suddenly it felt as though the entire final season could go completely off the rails. Fortunately, that never happened. In fact, during the remaining episodes, we begin to see the distorted and deeply unhealthy nature of his children finally rise to the surface. Shiv, Kendall, and Roman, along with Connor, are no longer hiding just how profoundly damaged their relationship with power has made them.
For five seasons, from 2018 to 2023, we watched these siblings expose the real wounds beneath their obsession with absolute power. It was never really about money. And now, finally, the finish line is in sight. The King has been deposed, and like Caesar after his assassination, the Senators are the ones left holding the power. Yet in “Church and State,” we are suddenly confronted with Roman Roy’s most devastatingly human side. His siblings choose him to deliver the eulogy for their father during the funeral Mass. Throughout the episode, Jesse Armstrong, the creator, writer, and producer of Succession, leaves us little breadcrumbs about what is coming for the youngest Roy: the spoiled child, the mocker, the powerful little bastard who has spent years hiding behind jokes and cruelty. And then the scene arrives. All the siblings are sitting in the front row of the cathedral. It is Roman’s turn to speak, after his uncle Ewan Roy, Logan’s brother, unexpectedly reveals why Logan became Logan. The death of his little sister from polio haunted him for the rest of his life. It made him hard, cruel, ruthless, ambitious. Everything he eventually became.
And then Roman walks up to the podium, unable to say a word. He stammers, breaks down, and starts crying uncontrollably. And I swear, watching him cry made me think of my own daughter. He made me cry too. This absolute asshole, this mocker, this cruel little man who has spent the entire series hiding his vulnerability behind sarcasm. Kieran Culkin is so damn good that I was sitting there crying while Roman was crying. There are still thirty minutes left in the episode, but that goodbye, from the son who perhaps loved his father more desperately than any of the others, breaks something inside you. For one brief moment, the Roys and you have something in common: you are both mourning someone who, in the end, didn’t care about you nearly as much as you cared about them. And if that isn’t a masterpiece, then honestly, what is?
