Alternate ‘Succession’ Endings Considered By Show’s Writers

SPOILERS for the final ever episode of Succession. You have been warned. And to the person who petrol bombed our offices for revealing spoilers for the final episode of Gossip Girl last week, despite the fact the series ended in 2012, we will find you.

A thrilling final episode of the hit HBO show has received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics and viewers alike, however Succession creator Jesse Armstrong revealed on the show’s accompanying podcast that a number of alternate endings and plot strands were considered.

Here’s some of what was filmed but ultimately cut from the finale:

“Zombie Logan emerging from his mausoleum to cunt punt Tom out the 44th storey of the Waystar building was filmed but the CGI on zombie Logan wasn’t up to scratch so we cut it.”

“A 14 minute scene in which the camera fixes on Tom’s face in extreme close up eating a sandwich while he watches Mattson and Shiv go to town on each other was cut for time.”

“Greg reluctantly agrees to wear an S&M latex dog suit and be walked around by Mattson as his pet”.

“There was a scene where all the characters talk quickly for minutes on end but actually say nothing”.

“Connor, always dismissed by his siblings, dies via suffocation after they forget about him and leave him locked in Logan’s mausoleum”.

“When Kendall returns to the boardroom he sits down at his chair where he remains for hours, chanting ‘all play and no Waystar CEO makes Ken a dull boy’ over and over. Later he drives an axe through Shiv’s bathroom”. Creator Armstrong indicates that while Kendall going ‘full Columbine’ on the Waystar offices was a fun idea, they didn’t have the budget for the fake blood squibs.

“Frank and Karl had to excuse themselves for the board vote after an ATN news app update indicated they were found to have been on the Epstein flight logs”.

“Increasingly desperate Kendall offers to go down on every board member in exchange for a vote”.

“Alternatively, we thought about letting the siblings win. Distraught at being fired from Waystar, Tom and Greg drive over the edge of the Grand Canyon while holding hands. I regret not including this scene, as we killed the actors for real when filming it”.

“After licking Peter’s special cheese, Roman dies of a rare allergic reaction to lactose”.

“The final scene was originally meant to be the camera closing in on that time Roman masturbated from the window of his office, revealing the series had been entirely dreamed up by his dying sperm”.

“We were all set to have the final scene be Kendal, Roman, Shiv and Connor enjoying a meal together in a diner, don’t Stop Believing playing on the jukebox, wholesome stuff, y’know, but the actor playing Connor took forever to park the car so when he eventually entered the diner we ran out of film”.