【Pachinko Angel】

SuccessionSeason 4,Pachinko Angel episode 6 opens with pretty much the last person you're expecting to see: Logan Roy (Brian Cox), seemingly back from the dead.

Is it a flashback? A memory? Nope, it's an old video clip recorded for Waystar Royco's Investor Day before Logan's death, in which he speaks about the company's plans for a new product called Living+, while casually berating the staff members behind the camera ("You're as bad as my fucking idiot kids!" he bellows at one point).

It's not initially clear why interim co-CEO Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) and his team are watching the footage in the present, but it ends up playing a pretty key role in the episode. So what exactly happens, and what's the real significance of Logan's cameo?

SEE ALSO: 'Succession' Season 4, episode 5: Breaking down the GoJo deal

Why is the Logan Roy video so important in the episode?

The whole episode has a mild Black Mirrorfeel to it, with Waystar's Living+ (essentially, a luxury retirement home that aims to prolong the lives of residents through Waystar's health and technology connections) feeling like something straight out of the mind of Charlie Brooker. Logan's cameo is very much in keeping with the Netflix show's dystopian handling of technology, as Kendall and Greg (Nicholas Braun) quickly find an editor to manipulate the footage of Logan to say exactly what Kendall wants him to — basically deepfaking his own dad.

Kendall and co-CEO Roman's (Kieran Culkin) aim in the episode is to continue trying to tank the GoJo acquisition deal, this time by inflating the potential worth of Waystar Royco so much that GoJo CEO Lukas Matsson's (Alexander Skarsgård) $192 per share offer appears no longer good enough. Using manipulated footage of Logan allows Kendall to do this without angering the company's CFO Karl Muller (David Rasche), who gives Kendall a strict pre-presentation lecture about not giving Mattson any numbers he hasn't personally approved.

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Kendall's workaround, therefore, is to get his dad to say them for him, with Logan's comment about a "significant boost to the earnings of our parks division" suddenly becoming "double the earnings of our parks division".

In the audience, Karl doesn't look convinced. But Logan is the one man he'd never question, and Kendall knows this.

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Why does Roman keep watching that deepfake of his dad at the end?

As well as the video of Logan becoming a key weapon in Kendall's arsenal, it's also something Roman turns to at the very end as a strange mixture of comfort and self-flagellation. After abandoning his brother to do the Investor Day speech alone (essentially because he predicts it's going to be horribly received), Roman doesn't know how to handle it when the reaction to Ken's speech is actually largely positive. He's already spent the episode questioning his decisions after being berated by Gerri (J. Smith-Cameron) for firing Waystar's studio exec, and Kendall's speech reception is the straw that breaks the youngest Roy's back.

In the car on his own, Roman watches an edited meme of his father's video in which Logan says, "I'm convinced that Roman Roy has a micro dick and always gets it wrong." Listening to the clip over and over again, he closes his eyes and holds the phone close to his ear. It's an expression of his unprocessed grief, a means of self-punishment, and a way of highlighting the low opinion Roman has of himself — something that's clearly been drummed into him over the years by an abusive father who continues to haunt him from beyond the grave.

Succession is now streaming on HBO Max, with new episodes airing at 9 p.m. ET Sundays on HBO and HBO Max.

Topics HBO