Brian Cox, the actor who plays Logan Roy in HBO's dark comedy Succession, has shed light on the show's mysterious end of season two's finale.
Warning: This article contains spoilers for Succession's first two seasons of... only scroll down if you don't mind being spoiled!
The second season ended on Monday (NZ time) with Logan smiling slightly, after having just been betrayed by his son, Kendall.
After having been nominated as a 'blood sacrifice' by his father, Kendall appeared ready to take the fall for their family business, Waystar Royco.
But at the press conference he was supposed to sacrifice himself at, he instead points the finger at Logan as the liar who's directly responsible for the company's most egregious cover-ups.
- Game of Thrones: Why Jon Snow's fate was sealed from the start
- Full list of Disney Plus launch content revealed
Rather than flying into one of his many expletive-filled rages, however, a tiny smile appears on Logan's face, as he watches the betrayal on live television.
In an interview with Vulture, Cox revealed that Logan was smiling because his plans had just come to fruition, and he himself was the blood sacrifice.
"Logan knew in order to sacrifice himself, he would have to do it through his family," says Cox. "He figured that the one chance he had was to make Kendall into the killer."
"That's why, at the end, he smiles. He's achieved what he was after. 'My son has come of age. He's now officially a killer'."
All throughout season two, Kendall had been a broken man, after being responsible for the death of a young man at the end of season one.
Logan helped him cover the manslaughter up, but then used it as leverage to control and torment his son. As it turns out, this ultimately appears to not have been done to maintain his own power, but to transfer power to Kendall and transform him into a more ruthless leader.
"It was gratifying to play because once Logan received the death sentence, it was important to him who'd deliver the death," Cox tell Vulture. "He wanted to keep it within the family, as opposed to it coming from outside of the family."
"The smile is him saying, 'Finally, my son is stepping up to the plate, doing what he needs to do to run a business. Finally, he's the heir apparent to Waystar Royco'. In a way, it's a completion."
However, Cox says Logan won't be surrendering in season three, now that Kendall has declared all-out war on him.
"There's life in the old dog yet! We've got quite a journey now. Logan has to reclaim himself. He needs to even the odds."
Succession is available in New Zealand on Neon. Season three will be released in 2020.
Newshub.
