Succession Explained — Episode by Episode

Logan brings the family to his Scottish hometown for what was meant to be a small fiftieth-anniversary dinner, but Rhea Jarrell has expanded it into a two-hundred-person gala to crown him publicly. On the flight in, advisors warn that a cruise-line whistleblower is about to go public after rejecting a buyout. Marcia confronts Rhea about the affair, Ewan corners Greg with a quit-or-lose-the-inherit...

The Roys fly to London to court Caroline, Logan's English ex-wife, for her three percent vote as Sandy and Stewy's hostile proxy fight intensifies. On the jet, Kendall and Roman discover Logan has brought Rhea Jarrell along as a strategy advisor, and that night she ends up in his bed. Logan drags Kendall to the Dodds family's home for a staged damage-control visit after a tabloid plants the Doddy...

At the Argestes media retreat, Logan and his three eldest race to close the Pierce acquisition before a magazine publishes the cruise-line cover-up. Roman trades editorial independence to an Azerbaijani billionaire for emergency cash, Tom realizes he may be the scapegoat, and the article drops mid-meeting with Nan Pierce. The siblings take a panel stage with no aligned message, Shiv improvises a p...

Logan brings the entire Roy family to Tern Haven, the Pierce estate on Long Island, for a weekend designed to convince matriarch Nan Pierce that the Roys are fit to acquire PGM. The performance collapses fast: Marcia tells Logan she's done playing the dignified spouse, Connor and Shiv alienate the Pierces at dinner, and when Nan presses Logan on succession, Shiv blurts that she has already been ch...

Shiv begins shadowing Logan at Waystar while Kendall courts Pierce Global Media CEO Rhea Jarrell on Logan's behalf, and Tom is tasked with vetting ATN anchor Mark Ravenhead over Nazi-sympathizer accusations. A gunshot triggers a building lockdown that sorts the family hierarchy instantly: Logan, Shiv, and Rhea retreat to the secure safe room to reset the deal at twenty-four billion, while Tom and...

Logan Roy announces Waystar's pursuit of Pierce Global Media at a Hungarian hunting retreat, rehiring ousted ally Frank Vernon for his connection to PGM's Nan Pierce. When word leaks that the Pierces already know about the bid, Logan locks the room and stages "Boar on the Floor," a humiliation ritual targeting Karl, Tom, and Greg. Kendall exposes Roman as the back-channel to Naomi Pierce, Logan po...

Logan dispatches Kendall and Roman to audit Vaulter, the digital media acquisition Stewy just attacked on a rival network. Roman uncovers manipulated metrics and a unionizing staff over drinks, and Logan assigns Kendall — Vaulter's original champion — to gut the company. Kendall lies to CEO Lawrence's face, installs Wi-Fi blockers overnight, and fires all 476 employees the next morning. Meanwhile...

Forty-eight hours after the wedding, Logan pulls Kendall out of an Icelandic rehab clinic to read a coached on-camera surrender, ending the hostile takeover and forcing the fight onto a legal track. Kendall confesses he leaked intelligence about Logan's cognitive decline to Sandy and Stewy. After news breaks that Logan plans to sell, the family converges on the Hamptons summer home, where Logan me...

Succession Season 2 turns Logan Roy’s succession crisis into a collision between a proxy fight, the Pierce acquisition, and the buried Waystar cruise scandal. Shiv’s secret CEO offer, Kendall’s obedience, Roman’s humiliation, Tom and Greg’s documents, and Rhea Jarrell’s brief rise all feed into the yacht finale. A clear cause-and-effect recap connects the major power moves, betrayals, and cover-up...

Every episode of Succession Season 2 in one file with chapter markers — plus a season recap and cast & creators bonus. Jump between episodes using your podcast app's chapter navigation. — Part of the Explained Podcasts network. More shows: https://explainedpodcasts.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsaBH_ZOIZkznUpVZieXV_YHhVtMpIZjT Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/u...

At Tom and Shiv's wedding in an English castle, Kendall delivers a formal hostile-takeover bid to Logan on the morning of the ceremony, triggering an emergency legal and political response. Roman watches a satellite launch he moved to wedding day without authorization explode on a livestream, while Logan fires a waiter named Andrew Dodds for spilling champagne. That night, Kendall drives a still-i...

The Roy family converges on an English castle for Shiv and Tom's wedding eve, and the negotiations begin before Logan's helicopter lands. Kendall is in a nearby pub finalizing the mechanics of a hostile takeover timed to hit on the wedding day itself. Tom, rattled by the appearance of his bachelor party guest as Roman's girlfriend and a pointed introduction from Nate, asks Shiv directly whether sh...

Tom's bachelor party is rerouted by Roman to an underground venue in New York, where Kendall arrives high and coerces his minder Greg into taking drugs, and Tom acts on a hall pass from Shiv without telling her. Stewy presents Kendall with a half-billion-dollar buyout offer from Sandy Furness; Kendall turns it down and proposes a hostile takeover with himself as CEO. Across town, Shiv manages a li...

The Roy family convenes at Connor's New Mexico ranch, Austerlitz, for a PR-managed therapy weekend following Logan's firing of Kendall and the fallout from the failed shareholder vote. The sessions collapse immediately — Logan's opening claim that everything he has done was for his children goes unchallenged by Roman and Connor but dismissed by Shiv, and the therapist is hospitalized after diving...

Kendall's boardroom coup against Logan reaches its vote in this episode, following weeks of quiet assembly since Thanksgiving. He secures a last-minute commitment from ailing board member Ilona Shinoy, but a terror threat grounds flights over Manhattan and leaves him stuck in traffic, calling into the vote by phone while Logan stands in the room. One by one the commitments dissolve — Stewy and Law...

Thanksgiving at the Roy penthouse brings Logan's estranged brother Ewan down from Canada, a dinner table confrontation over World War I medals that becomes a full indictment of Logan's empire, and a memory game that ends with Logan striking his grandson in the face. While the family fractures upstairs, Tom has dispatched Greg to shred cruise division documents in an empty office building — and Gre...

In "Sad Sack Wasp Trap," Logan Roy makes an unexpected return to Waystar headquarters, and his children misread his erratic behavior as cognitive decline while he quietly reasserts control. At the annual Roy foundation gala, Kendall's carefully prepared speech signaling his father's step back from public life is undermined when Connor inadvertently warns Logan, allowing him to take the stage himse...

Kendall manages his first real crisis as acting CEO: Waystar's stock slides toward the $130 covenant floor that would trigger immediate repayment of $3 billion in hidden debt, his call to the creditor bank collapses, and he ultimately secures a $4 billion lifeline from college friend Stewy Hosseini in exchange for voting stock and a board seat. Meanwhile Shiv, locked out of her father's recovery b...

With Logan unconscious after a hemorrhagic stroke, the Roy siblings converge on a Manhattan hospital to find their succession architecture already broken: the board's contingency plan names Frank Vernon as COO, but Logan fired him the night before. Kendall claims acting CEO, Roman insists on a verbal COO promise, Shiv countermands everyone, and Marcia — as legal next-of-kin and medical proxy — shu...

Logan Roy's eightieth birthday was supposed to be the day he handed Waystar RoyCo to his son Kendall. Instead, Logan reveals he tricked Kendall into signing trust documents that give his wife Marcia two succession board votes, announces he is not stepping down, and tells Kendall plainly he is not ready. Roman negotiates his own deal, trading his signature on the trust for the COO role and costing...

Every episode of Succession Season 1 in one file with chapter markers — plus a season recap and cast & creators bonus. Jump between episodes using your podcast app's chapter navigation. — Part of the Explained Podcasts network. More shows: https://explainedpodcasts.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsaBH_ZOIZkwKsfxVEKVbLrfkdFhotByg Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/u...

Succession’s cast and creative team came together from British political satire, American film comedy, classical theater, indie drama, and international stage work. Jesse Armstrong’s media-dynasty origins sit alongside the varied paths of Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong, Kieran Culkin, J. Smith-Cameron, Alan Ruck, Matthew Macfadyen, Sarah Snook, Nicholas Braun, and Hiam Abbass. The result is a compact gu...

Succession Season 1 tracks Logan Roy’s refusal to surrender Waystar RoyCo, Kendall’s failed rise, the hidden debt crisis, the no-confidence vote, and the hostile takeover that collapses after the wedding-night accident. A clear end-to-end refresher on the season’s major power shifts, family betrayals, corporate maneuvers, and character trajectories, with the key context needed to understand where...