WARNING: SUCCESSION SPOILERS AHEAD! DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED THE SERIES FINALE!
Ready?
Let’s go.
Before the series finale of HBO’s Succession, a predictive theory about the ending spread like wildfire across social media.
Sophie Kihm of Nameberry made a video about the names used in the popular HBO show. She postured that the character Tom Wambsgans could be named after the 1920s Cleveland infielder Bill Wambsganss.
Cleveland’s Wambsganss famously recorded the only unassisted triple play in World Series, defeating beat Brooklyn in 1920.
HBO’s Wambgans, meanwhile, got all three Roy siblings “out” of the running to unexpectedly become the U.S.-based CEO of Waystar-Royco in the series finale.
Unfortunately, however, this theory was recently debunked.
Stefan Fatsis reached out to Frank Rich, an executive producer on the show. Here is what Rich said (via Slate):
“I hate to spoil the internet’s fun, but it’s false … Tom’s family name was picked before we had shot a first season”—the Succession pilot was made in 2016—“let alone mapped out precise story twists that would culminate 39 episodes later! Not to mention that many of the key writers on the show, starting with its creator, Jesse [Armstrong], are British, live in London, and are devoted to British football.”
So the last name wasn’t actually a clue. It was just a coincidence.
Rich added that Tom’s character, in reality, was likely given the surname of someone on the Succession staff. Here is more:
“If memory serves,” Rich said, “we were looking for something off-key that would be awkward to say/pronounce, befitting a character who arrives as an outsider in the Roys’ world.”
While it was fun for us all to briefly believe in the power of foreshadowing by using naming conventions, sadly, this one falls short when put under the microscope.
