Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Season 4 Episode 9 of Succession."See Shivvy cry, see Kenny lie, see Roman the Showman light up the sky!” is how Roman (Kieran Culkin) thinks his speech will go until he loses confidence after the first speaker goes up. Succession has no shortage of bad family blood. There are siblings against siblings, children against parents, and spouses against spouses, and these conflicts can boil down to who has more power over who or who is better than the other. Of the volatile relationships, there are the brothers who can’t stand to be in the same room, Logan (Brian Cox) and Ewan (James Cromwell). Ewan doesn’t pass up his chance to offer some words at his late brother’s funeral. It’s not exactly cold and not exactly warm, as he condemns Logan while offering painful revelations. The Roy children are quick to readjust for potential fallout over their father’s good image, but Ewan, and Cromwell in the role, leave a lasting impression. “What sort of people would stop a brother from speaking for the sake of a share price?” When he declares this, it is the first of many truths by a man who recognizes both the faults of his late brother and his own.
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A ‘Succession’ Funeral Uncovers More Backstory to Logan Roy
Ewan’s eulogy was inevitable, he wouldn't miss the opportunity to deliver it. He loathed how corrupt and greedy Logan became, this being a major point of conflict for the two. In Season 1, Ewan makes his first appearance in an episode that lives up to the hype of seeing Brian Cox and James Cromwell share the screen. It’s Thanksgiving, and when the brothers encounter each other, Logan treats Ewan as an equal when they get into a heated argument, unlike the bullying tactics Logan usually pulls from his arsenal. Ewan has since been shown to be the humble opposite of Logan. Yet, when Kendall (Jeremy Strong) attempts a vote of no confidence to yank power away from his father, Ewan denies his nephew his participation. His vote goes in favor of his brother, complicating the high and mighty moral code he takes pride in. And that’s because Ewan may be giving money to Greenpeace and living away in a secluded mansion, but it’s only possible due to the millions Logan sends his way.
In “Church and State,” Ewan is without a brother, and big, useless Greg (Nicolas Braun) can’t stop his grandfather from discussing their deceased relative. Ewan’s eulogy touches on the past in ways that peel back layers of the history between the estranged brothers, including a bombshell revelation. When they were very young, they had to deal with traveling from Scotland to Canada during World War II. The kids were forced to be absolutely quiet for fear of enemy fire when the ship suffered an engine failure. One can only imagine how traumatizing this was, and no doubt, how the brothers compartmentalized this in their own ways. Moving on, Ewan (and finally Succession) touches on the storyline of Logan’s sister, Rose.
Logan was sent to a prestigious school while the brothers lived with an aunt and uncle. However, little Logan demanded to return and once he did, Ewan says how, "He always believed that he brought home the polio, which took her. I don't even know if that's true. But our aunt and uncle certainly did nothing to disabuse him of that notion. They let it lie with him." This emotional abuse put on Logan for his sister’s death can certainly be one reason why he acted emotionally distant from those around them. Put together with the scars on Logan’s back which he got from his uncle, the Roy family has been in a cycle of generational abuse and trauma. But Ewan then effortlessly pivots to the main reason for speaking. He explains how his brother’s awful side can’t be ignored, despite how Greg, his mother, and the Roy siblings grow more and more uncomfortable in the pews. Ewan’s monologue states how Logan, “fed that dark flame in men, the hard, mean, hard-relenting flame that keeps their hearths warm while another grow cold, their grain stashed, while another goes hungry, and even has the temerity to tell that hard — funny, yes, funny, but hard — joke about the man in the cold.”
Ewan Isn’t Corrupt Like Logan Roy, But That Doesn’t Make Him Better
In the election episode, Kendall shares a fear with Shiv (Sarah Snook) that he’ll end up being as bad of a father to his own kids, which he is working overtime in succeeding at. “Maybe the poison drips through,” he says. It isn’t just between Logan and Kendall, it’s for the whole Roy clan that this poison taints the drinking water. Their elite bubble hasn’t burst and they are all arguing or playing tug-a-war within it. This factors into the Ewan-Logan relationship, does it really matter who is more corrupt and more humble between them? Ewan isn’t so self-righteous to avoid admitting his hypocrisy: “He gave away a few million of his billions, but he was not a generous man. He was mean, and he made but a mean estimation of the world. And he fed a certain kind of meagerness in men. Perhaps he had to because he had a meagerness about him. And maybe I do about me too. I don’t know. I try, I try.”
James Cromwell Used ‘Succession’ for Activism
Cromwell is perfect casting. One can’t go wrong with the show giving him lines to read like, “The Logan Roy School of Journalism? What's next, the Jack the Ripper Women's Health Clinic?" And in a move that would delight Ewan, Cromwell ended up using this recent appearance on Succession to express the importance to writers for the current WGA Strike, posting on Twitter:
“It begins with the words. Nothing happens without them. Sometimes, the writing achieves transcendence, but, in every case, it’s seminal. I got to give a brilliant speech recently, which not only explicated my and my brother’s characters, it illuminated an entire narrative. This is what great writers do. And they need to be compensated in accordance with their contribution. At the very least, they need to be able to provide for themselves and their families. In this era of corporate greed and union busting, management seems to hold all the cards. Except for the most important ones: Unity; Solidarity; Fraternity. All of us win when the writers win. And we will win. Union! Strike!”
While Cromwell plays the brother with morals on Succession, he can just as well seep into the darkness. On AHS: Asylum, the actor played Dr. Arthur Arden, a Nazi doctor hiding within the seedy Briarcliff Manor to continue his morbid human experiments, winning the actor a Primetime Emmy award. Cromwell’s tall stature and booming voice can make him an intimidating adversary to the AHS cast, and when going up against the Roy family. The fanatics that feel they got a win in Succession during the election episode may not be as heinous as Cromwell’s Dr. Arden, but they are just as dangerous nonetheless — the Roy siblings responsible for helping them gain a platform.
The Roy Siblings Won’t Change on ‘Succession’ and Ewan Roy Knows It
The Roy children instantly switch into PR mode as Ewan steps down from the mic. It doesn’t matter if their uncle's contempt for Logan’s behavior is felt among those who knew him best, this isn’t the time for a public jeer. Without setting out to do so, Ewan rattles Roman, who stammers at the start of his eulogy before crumbling apart and having to sit back down. If the grief didn’t hit him on the yacht (“Connor’s Wedding”), it certainly did in this episode. All it took was Ewan to take the stage; that’s the power of Cromwell in the role, with a booming voice and unwavering convictions.
Roman originally planned a far more theatrical eulogy, reminiscing on the great, loud man his father was. Kendall may refer to Logan as a “brute,’ but he transitions it into reflecting on his father’s accomplishments. Shiv, too, mentions how scared she was of Logan as a kid, before ending on the heartbreaking loss of her “world of a father.” The Roy kids focus on the bad, then switch it up to focus on the good. Ewan starts with the, not great, but decent and human “instances,” to then close out with the awfulness to Logan, a bitter man to the bitter end. There’s no growth to Roman, Shiv, Kendall, or even Connor. Uncle Ewan understands that, he has for a long while. Whatever may become of Waystar Royco, Ewan will be sending a few more million to Greenpeace until the money dries up.
The series finale of Succession premieres this Sunday on HBO and Max.
