How Will ‘Succession’ End? This Poem May Hold the Key

Every season finale of HBO’s Succession is titled after a line from John Berryman’s “Dream Song 29,” a poem from the literary icon’s Pulitzer Prize–winning 1964  collection, 77 Dream Songs. The poems follow a tragicomic character named Henry—“a white American in early middle age…who has suffered an irreversible loss,” in Berryman’s words—whose roots appear autobiographical: When Berryman was 11 years old, his father was found outside their home, apparently having taken his own life. Berryman spent his life grappling with this grief in his work. His broad connection to Succession, then, is ostensibly clear: The HBO drama follows the Roy siblings, who are all stunted by their father’s abuse. They are comically, cyclically either at war with him or cozying up to his empire—even after his death. 

“Dream Song 29,” though, is particularly revealing as a thematic twin to Succession. The poem’s initial stanza alludes to an ambiguous “thing” weighing on Henry’s heart—something that, even if he were crying in atonement for 100 years, he could “not make good” on. The guilt, or “thing,” evolves from private sensations—a “cough,” an “odour,” a “chime”—into a visceral image of his sin, described as the “grave Sienese face,” likely referencing austere religious painters such as Duccio or Simone Martini. Henry yearns for absolution, yet “all the bells say” that he is too late to get it. The concluding stanza reads as a paranoid inventory of his sin; his guilt becomes consequential, as Henry reflects on hacking a woman up. The final line, “Nobody is ever missing,” represents a delusional self-assurance that Henry has done nothing wrong. 

“Nobody Is Ever Missing” is also the title of Succession’s first season finale, which culminates in a real death and directly links Henry to one of the Roy siblings, Kendall. As the episode opens, Kendall has partnered with investors to purchase his father’s conservative media conglomerate. Logan interrogates Kendall about the reason behind his betrayal, and Kendall cobbles together a fragmented, Henry-esque reply: he wants to “do some good things.” But he is shaken. That evening, Kendall tries to procure hard drugs at his sister’s wedding from a teenage cater-waiter, only to find himself culpable for the young man’s death when their car plunges into a lake. Kendall manages to escape, leaving the young man behind, then behaves as though nothing has transpired—an act of self-delusion. His father winds up covering for him.

Succession’s next season finale, “This is Not for Tears,” builds to Kendall pulling off the betrayal he’d merely promised a season prior. It centers on the Roys’ attempts to determine the “blood sacrifice” who will take the blame for a scandal engulfing the company. The choice is ultimately Kendall, who’s been manipulated by his father in return for covering up the waiter’s death. Resigned to his fate, Kendall asks Logan if he ever could have risen to CEO. His father responds that Kendall couldn’t, because he’s not a killer, and “you have to be a killer.” Kendall subsequently rejects the sentimentality he displayed in season one—weeping into Logan’s arms, like a child—when he faces the press and accuses his father of being a “malignant presence.” The Berryman line quoted in the episode’s title, “This is not for tears,” also indicates Henry’s rejection of self-pity. 

Kendall’s journey of rebellion in season three proves to be cripplingly lonely. The weight of his depression inspires him to confess his season one sin in that year’s finale, “All the Bells Say.” “I’m not a good person,” Kendall tells his siblings, Roman and Shiv. His vulnerability unites them as they join forces to take down Logan. As they drive to see him, Shiv asks who’s ready to murder their father. Kendall responds, “Pass me the fucking shotgun”—a line explicitly evoking Berryman. But as the siblings are about to pull the trigger, they discover their father is, again, one step ahead of them—“too late,” as the bells tell Henry in “Dream Song 29.”

This oedipal spectacle operates alongside the misogynistic violence that has undergirded Succession from the beginning—and Berryman, too, writes of misogyny unflinchingly in his dream songs. The poet wanted to “pry” himself open for all the world to see, as he says in the poem that opens the book. Despite being an exceptional literature student, he struggled with alcoholism and symptoms of bipolar disorder throughout his adult life. He was a notorious womanizer, and his wife and children endured his neglect and vitriol. 

In the latest episode of Succession, “America Decides,” a right-wing group has torched a voting center on Election Day, giving Roman and Kendall—the newly appointed CEOs in the wake of Logan’s death—an opportunity to call the election early for a fascist candidate and gain his favor. The dialogue, as usual, is colored by male ennui and crude sexism, encapsulated by a blasé Roman declaring, “Dad is dead and America is just a big pussy waiting to get fucked.” Meanwhile, Shiv’s secret plotting against Kendall and Roman’s company takeover is exposed. She’s humiliated before her brothers, Kendall insulting her like Logan would (“You’re a piece of dirt”) and Roman barraging her with sexist insults; she fights back, and he tells her to leave if she’s going to be “hysterical.” Most witheringly, he then tells Shiv she’s “ boring,” an adjective to which Succession returns often—and one that mirrors the sentiment of Berryman’s “Life, friends, is Boring” (“Dream Song 14”).

It’s a testament to both Berryman’s and the show’s genius that this language so expertly tracks how violent, unresolved feelings can shape our perspectives and destroy our closest relationships—and eventually, maybe democracy itself. As Kendall and Roman force their network to prematurely call the election, Kendall emulates Logan just as Berryman followed in his father’s footsteps. 

The episode’s climactic scene holds on a close-up of Shiv staring at her brothers in horror. It’s an ominous detail, particularly knowing that the Succession series finale will be titled “With Open Eyes”—taken from a line from “Dream Songs 29” wherein Henry faces the “grave Sienese face,” the embodiment of his misdeeds. Even as Henry’s eyes are open at this moment in the poem, Berryman describes him as “blind” and “ghastly.” Succession’s visual language and close read of Berryman’s misogynistic motif implies it may be Shiv who must confront the stark reality of the role she’s played in a corrupt, male-dominated family system. 

She’s been effectively expelled from this sphere, and has vowed revenge. But each of the Roy siblings, in the wake of their father’s death, are grappling with what he’s left behind—the guilt they’ve carried and repressed over decades. Succession’s incisive portrait of white male blindness suggests a reckoning is coming. The big question remaining is who’s staring it in the face.