Timeline TV Moment of the Year: Succcession

The third episode of Succession’s final season defied all expectations, with no hints of what was coming – no dramatic exit scene for the Roy patriarch and his demise kept largely off screen.

Rather than attending Connor’s wedding, Logan was on his private jet, where he suffered breathing problems and promptly collapsed in the plane bathroom. As a flight attendant performed chest compressions, Tom placed his phone next to Logan’s ear and the four children were given the chance to speak to their father on his death bed.

What followed was a stunning sequence, which director Mark Mylod has revealed was largely filmed in one near-30 minute continuous take.

The reactions of all four Roy children were revealing and fabulously acted. Kendall demanded the best heart doctor in the world, Roman was in denial and when Shiv finally made it to the phone, she crumbled. Poignantly, Connor remarked that he never got the chance to make his dad proud.

“Every line, every image, speaks to the moment and to decades of family trauma and relationships,” said James Poniewozik in the New York Times, while Emily Baker in The i wrote that “any doubters of Succession‘s place in TV history should be silenced by this”.