Episode number 3 of the fourth season of succession It has left us all speechless. Nobody expected that “Connor’s wedding” would become what has ended up being the most momentous chapter of the entire series and the one that undoubtedly marks the before and after of the fantastic work signed by Jesse Armstrong. As the days go by we are discovering details of how this genius was recorded and even the existence of scenes that were totally impromptu for its actors. Among them, one of the most powerful and significant of the final stretch.
spoiler warning: This article talks about what happens in Succession 4 × 03. If you haven’t seen it, we highly recommend you stop reading and go watch it now! We will continue waiting for you here to gut everything.
The big surprise of the season
It’s curious. The first chapter of Succession, Broadcast on June 3, 2018, it began with Logan Roy on the verge of death and his four children swarming like vultures to see who would take the succession chair at his company. Since then, we have seen the patriarch falter in terms of health on several occasions and still no one expected what happened in the third episode of his fourth season.
The Logan Roy’s death It has left us speechless, perhaps because we expected it to happen at the end of the series, perhaps because we thought we would never see him say goodbye. Be that as it may, “Connor’s wedding” has already been dubbed “The Red Wedding” (alluding to the shocking chapter of Game of Thrones in which everything went unexpectedly wrong) and has left us with a desolate panorama in which the figure of the tycoon, brilliantly played by Brian Cox, is no longer with us.
It has also given us one of the best episodes in its history, and also one of the best on television, for the great performances of all its actors (main and secondary, they are all brilliant) and for how well directed everything is. The chapter has endless details that demonstrate the high level at which this HBO Max production plays and that is reflected even in moments that were shot without any type of script in hand…
Impromptu moments and other curious details
One of the scenes that you surely remember from the episode is the one that takes place practically at the end of it. In it, Kendall hugs Shiv and Roman joins from behind, melting the three brothers in an emotional moment that we have rarely seen on screen. Well, this scene was totally impromptu by the actors, since they had no orders to hug each other at any time. As they explain in slashfilm, much of the cast of the show has experience in the theater, This gives the actors a great capacity for improvisation and flexibility as they work, and just that is evident in this scene: “They just found themselves there, which was just beautiful,” says its director, Mark Mylod. “That was an incredibly busy day of shooting. But it was very, very emotional for all of us.”
It is not the only curiosity that we have discovered from “Connor’s wedding”. A video summary of HBO Max in which he tells us how the filming was, reveals that a large part of the chapter was shot in a single sequence, with the use of three cameras. While one recorded the main moment, another stayed with the rest of the actors to immortalize their reaction and a third served as a backup -since they record on 35mm tapes and the rolls run out every 10 minutes.
We have also learned that Logan’s death was decided in January 2022 and that so that it was not leaked under any circumstances, on the production boards used «Larry David» as a code name for «Logan Dies» («Logan dies»). Thus, episode 4×03 was internally baptized as “Connor’s Wedding, Larry David”:
This was a tough secret to keep! We decided it in the #Succession writers’ room in Jan 22. So nobody found out we used code on the whiteboards. Larry David meant Logan Dies. So episode 403 said Connor’s Wedding, Larry David. Mind you, that would also have been a great episode. pic.twitter.com/VH1HuHCFOC
—Georgia Pritchett (@georgiapudding) April 11, 2023
Last but not least curious: Brian Cox was not on the set of his death. Yes, he filmed some false scenes and he even made the appearance that he was going to filming to mislead the press, but the body he is trying to resuscitate on the plane is a double who was later digitally retouched for the few seconds in which the scene is seen. actor’s face.
What did you think of this episode? Is it already your favorite of the series?
