Succession writer reveals secret code used to keep huge episode three twist hidden

The writers of Succession used an amusing secret code to keep the big twist in the latest episode under wraps.

Spoilers follow for Succession season four, episode three – you have been warned!

The episode, which debuted on HBO in the US on Sunday night (9 April) – and on Monday on Sky and NOW in the UK – shocked viewers when its central character, the twisted media mogul Logan Roy (Brian Cox), was suddenly killed off.

On Twitter, writer Georgia Pritchett revealed that the writer’s room was tasked with keeping the death a secret after the plotline was first agreed upon in January 2022.

As a means of disguising the twist, they would substitute the phrase “Logan dies” with the words “Larry David”.

David, the co-creator of Seinfeld, is a figure often associated with HBO, thanks to his long-running sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm.

On all the whiteboards around the production offices, “Larry David” was inscribed instead of the actual twist.

“This was a tough secret to keep!” wrote Pritchett on Twitter. “We decided it in the #Succession writers’ room in Jan 22. So nobody found out we used code on the whiteboards.

“Larry David meant Logan Dies. So episode 403 said Connor’s Wedding, Larry David. Mind you, that would also have been a great episode.”

In a five-star review of the episode, Philippa Snow wrote that it had reduced her to tears. “Here there were no zingers, no quotable lines; the transcriptions in my notes, seen altogether, look more like a cry for help than like memorable screenwriting,” she wrote.

Director and executive producer Mark Mylod revealed that the episode almost featured a very different ending.

Cox has spoken out about the twist, comparing it favourably to the widely criticised final season of Game of Thrones. Other members of the cast also offered their feelings on the shock plot development.

Some fans of the show complained that the twist was ruined after the LA Times published an obituary for the character, giving away Logan’s death in the headline.

In fact, the twist may have been coyly teased in one of the promotional posters released ahead of the show’s fourth season premiere.