Brian Cox has complained that a huge Succession plot twist came too early in the show.
The actor was reflecting on the third episode of the acclaimed drama’s fourth and final season, in which it’s revealed that Cox’s character Logan Roy had keeled over and died while flying to meet Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård) in Sweden.
Logan’s death, which happens off-screen, shook up the show in a big way, leaving his children scrambling to assume control of Waystar Royco.
Cox has acknowleged that the twist occurred in “a pretty brilliant way”, but said he felt creator Jesse Armstrong “decided to make Logan die, I think ultimately too early”.
Speaking to BBC’s Amol Rajan, Cox said he thinks the scene was pulled off “brilliantly”, but that he initially viewed Armstrong’s decision “wrongly, as a form of rejection”.
“I was fine with it ultimately, but I did feel a little bit rejected. I felt a little bit, ‘Oh, all the work I’ve done’,” the actor said.
In an interview with Barley, Cox echoed these sentiments while speaking to the poet Don Paterson. He said he was “fine with what happened and happy to be finished”, but added that he “would have done it later”.
“In my view it is strange to be missing the main protagonist from so early on, but we are hostages to the writers in situations like this,” he explained.
Cox also described his Succession experience as “phenomenal”, telling Barley: “There’s no question it’s changed my life in so many ways. I’ve lost my anonymity, you know, I’ve lost all of that. That’s all gone. I used to be the guy you’d say ‘Oh, you were in such and such or no, or no you weren’t’ ….but now I’m Logan Roy and everybody just wants me to tell them to f*** off!”
Cox said he’s asked to say the phrase so many times that he tells Succession fans “they can have one for $500”.
Succession concludes on HBO in the US on Sunday (28 May). The episode is simulcast live in the UK on Sky Atlantic and NOW, and repeats at 9pm the following day.
Find The Independent’s theories about what will happen in the finale here.
One theory doing the rounds suggests that a cryptic Matsson scene, featured in the penultimate episode, reveals how the series will end.
