Do the Credits of Succession Season 4 Hold Clues?

The Succession theme music will go down in historical past as one of many best of all time. Nicholas Britell was on another aircraft when he got here up with that observe, and its beat-drop each week has had followers in a Pavlovian chokehold since 2018. Along with Cristobal Tapia De Veer’s menacing-but-danceable tackle “Dies Irae” for The White Lotus, Britell’s instrumental is an immediately sticky trendy basic that plunges the viewer into the present’s anxious, lavish, humorous, darkish temper. But it merely wouldn’t hit the identical with out the imagery. Each season, Succession opens its episodes with slight variations on the identical parts: outdated house footage of a rich household doing rich issues alongside shiny New York cityscape B-roll and winking headlines from numerous Waystar media properties.

Let’s begin with element primary, the retro house movies. There’s some debate as as to whether the household is canonically the Roys as a result of the oldest son seems a lot too shut in age to his youthful siblings to be Connor. Let’s settle that proper right here: This confusion is probably going because of an inconsistency between the primary season’s and later seasons’ opening credit. In the primary, solely two sons are depicted within the credit. My concept is that the one who would later be recognized as wrong-Connor was meant to be Kendall in season one. He’s received that severe, hangdog face. That would make the youthful brother, who I’ve by no means thought seems like Kendall in any respect, Roman. And within the last shot, there are two women and two boys on the desk. Wouldn’t it’s such a wonderfully Succession second to depart Connor out of the opening credit altogether? In later seasons, they retrofit the older boys to be Connor and Kendall and add a youthful brother with a really Romanesque smirk. They additionally recast the teenager sister to appear to be a useless ringer for Shiv, and so they change the desk format to the three brothers and one sister. It all maps onto the Roys. Am I treating this faux household footage just like the Zapruder movie? Yes.

The solely new household footage in season 4 comes round a minute into the title sequence, exhibiting a bit of boy in an expensive-looking knit turtleneck driving an old style toy automobile, whereas an identical pink sports activities automobile might be seen within the background. Does the toddler signify a brand new inheritor threatening the Roy youngsters’ declare to the throne, courtesy of Kerry? Or does it recommend that Kendall will discover himself in one other tragic automobile crash, mirroring the occasions of the season one finale?

Contrasting the grainy house video clips is chilly, trendy imagery of skyscrapers, helicopters, and the assorted media holdings of Waystar Royco that simply scream govt producer Adam McKay. It’s the HBO drama equal of when a photographer says, “Now let’s do a silly one!” The fictional headlines and broadcasts proven all through the credit are suffering from Easter eggs that change each season, satirical chyrons that poke enjoyable on the lobotomy-core state of mass media underneath company homeowners like Waystar Royco. The contents of those aren’t simply Fox News parodies; they trace at motion to come back within the season.

On the brand new screens, we see ATN broadcasts with section names like “America Decides” (photographs of the White House, polling maps), and “The Breakdown” (present affairs). Season three centered on the upcoming presidential election, and Logan Roy’s kingmaker standing as the pinnacle of a serious media firm. Unfortunately, these new graphics give us precisely no particulars about how that’s going.

A broadcast of “ATN News Live” exhibits the headline, “CHINA HACK COULD SEE 40M AMERICANS ENTOMBED IN THEIR ELECTRIC CARS.” As the TikTok hearings are underway in our actuality, this doesn’t appear far off from the standard conservative spin on issues.

A large display on the outside of the Waystar Royco constructing broadcasts the information merchandise, “DEEP STATE BLUNDER: CLASSIFIED DOCS DISPLAYED ON NBA JUMBOTRON.” The docs are largely redacted, so no clues there.

The ticker, then again, is simply pure silly-billy: “MANY WITH BIRD FLU CAN’T STOP THINKING OF DUCKS.”

Next, there’s a close-up on a smartphone with the app STARGO on the display. It guarantees, “All your favorite Waystar movies and TV in one place.” It additionally offers us a style of what sort of content material, precisely, Waystar Studios has been kicking up. There are icons on the app for channels like “WSP,” “Voila!” and most delightfully, “Gourmando.” There’s a glimpse of a film poster that appears prefer it may very well be a Marvel film set in area; one other seems prefer it may very well be a sci-fi model of Oppenheimer; the one getting top-billing is none apart from, Kalispitron: Destroyer of Moons. This isn’t the primary sighting we’ve had of Kalispitron; final season, posters for the blockbuster made their means into a number of Tom and Greg folies à deux. Is this proof that the Waystar-GoJo merger goes by?

We’re gonna miss this present driving us crazy.

For extra, be a part of us for Succession Club, our subscriber-exclusive publication obsessively chronicling all the most important twists of the ultimate season. Existing subscribers ought to verify their inboxes for extra data. If you’re not a subscriber but, click on right here to get began.