According to Looch, Armstrong also said that he personally drew the line on the piece of paper, designing the perfect trajectory to plant a cruel shard of doubt into Kendall’s brain. As the other contenders for the CEO throne were eager to point out, the paper didn’t actually confer any power on Kendall since the choice of CEO came down to a board vote. However, it was an influential factor in securing the votes for Kendall and Roman (Kieran Culkin) to take over as co-CEOs.
While Armstrong’s words might be seen as the “voice of god” when it comes to “Succession,” the question is still not completely settled. Back in April, writer and co-executive producer Lucy Prebble discussed the line on HBO’s official “Succession” podcast, and described it as the perfect “Succession” story beat, “because that level of confusion is so grounded and human.” As for where she stands on the “underlined or crossed out?” debate:
“I think it’s much more likely to have been crossed out. That’s the sort of thing I can imagine Logan doing. He’s sort of petulant, or was petulant, in that way. Whereas I really can’t imagine Logan sitting down to bother to underline Kendall’s name. That’s just not his style.”
Crossing the name out does indeed fit with the characterization of Logan Roy throughout his rule: a man in denial about his own mortality, who didn’t want to hand over power to any of his children, but also didn’t want to see control of Waystar Royco leave the family. When he died, he was still fully engaged in corporate warfare with his three youngest kids. His final judgment of them, more than any pencil mark, was simply this: “I love you, but you are not serious people.”