Few television moments go on to become the watercooler moment of a generation like Tom Wambsgans’ ascent to the Roy family throne as inaugurated Waystar Royco CEO in the concluding episode of Succession. (Save for the cut-to-black ending of The Sopranos which earned the ire of mob wives and television buffs the world over.)
The fourth and final season of the critically acclaimed drama has received its final bout of accolades at the belated 75th Primetime Emmy Awards, taking home six awards including the most prestigious of the evening, ‘Outstanding Drama Series’ The series culminated with none of Logan Roy’s (Brian Cox) heirs succeeding in taking over his media empire, instead walking away with excessive generational trauma.
But according to Cox, he “always knew” the outcome of this unmerry band of dysfunctional billionaires. Ahead of the ceremony, the 77-year-old actor discussed the cultural impact of his acerbic line, “I love you, but you’re not serious people”, revealing that this moment enshrined Tom’s candidacy in his mind.
“I loved playing Logan, I really did, but I thought he was one of the most misunderstood characters ever,” Cox divulged. “He was rough and he was crude and told people like it is, but all he wanted was for his own family to take over,” he continued.
“None of them were up to the mark except for his son-in-law. I knew that it would be his son-in-law, I always knew that. The son-in-law was the one person who showed him kindness when he had a bad time.”
Cox didn’t reveal whether this assertion was a conclusion he drew himself or one showrunner Jesse Armstrong told him to contextualise Cox’s character choices. Nevertheless, Armstrong did sneak in a subtle clue about Tom’s fate from the outset, specifically in the name choice he bestowed on Matthew Macfadyen’s “weird and wonderful human grease stain” of a character.
For the uninitiated, a fan theory that was cemented in the season finale proposed that Tom had the last name Wambsgans in reference to a former baseball player from the 1920s named Bill Wambsgans. The real Wambsgans was the only athlete in the Major League to complete an unassisted triple play, taking out three players at once and going on to win his team the World’s Championship. Through Shiv and Roman’s decision to vote against the “number one” and “eldest” boy, Tom was able to single-handedly unseat each of the Roy children and take the empire for himself.
After the finale, Macfadyen revealed to Vanity Fair that he didn’t believe Tom was actively campaigning against the Roys in the maniacal way many proposed. “I don’t think Tom was planning for it at all,” he said at the time. We guess we can just chalk Cox’s premunition down to father’s intuition.
Succession received over 75 Emmy nominations in its entire run. Armstrong farewelled the show with an apt acceptance speech: “This is a show about family, but it’s also a show about when partisan news coverage gets intertwined with divisive right-wing politics. After four seasons of satire, as I understand it, it is a problem we have now fixed, so we can now depart the stage.”
A swan song for the ages.
