Succession Season 4: Fans Are Heartbroken For Connor

"Succession" is full of rich sadsacks, but perhaps the saddest of those is Connor Roy, played with perfect specificity by Alan Ruck. The eldest Roy child and half-sibling to Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook), and Roman (Kieran Culkin), Connor never has any power or real standing within his powerful family, and things only get worse for him on the eve of his wedding.

In Season 4, Episode 2, "Rehearsal," two huge things loom on the horizon: Connor's upcoming marriage to the clearly hesitant Willa (Justine Lupe) and the sale of the Roy family company, Waystar Royco. When Willa disappears into the night during their rehearsal dinner, though, Connor's sad state of affairs gets very sad, to the point where he demands that everybody go to a karaoke bar.

Fans definitely felt bad for Connor in this episode. On a Reddit thread discussing the episode, u/SerDire remarked, "This episode just goes to show how alone Connor is. It's so sad." U/calicocat1013 agreed, quoting Connor saying that not feeling the love from his family means he can live without it and saying, "Connor is so often used as comic relief in the show but he was so f*** ing heartbreaking tonight with lines like these ... his siblings so blatantly ignoring him and making fun of his wedding right in front of him really nailed it home for me..."

Some fans on the thread, like u/LittleLisaCan, pointed out how Connor never truly gets support from anybody, invoking a scene from the Season 3 finale where Roman and Shiv comforted an anxious Kendall: "When Kendall was having a breakdown, Shiv, and Roman were there for him. Nobody is there for Connor except for a smidgen of Roman." Others highlighted Connor's monologue about not needing love, like u/lovetheblazer, who wrote, "Of all the characters in this ensemble, I never expected it to be Connor to break my heart the most this week. This was a true role-defining monologue, expertly delivered by Alan Ruck."

All's well that ends well for Connor, ultimately; he gets home to find Willa in their bed, so we can safely assume the wedding will happen as planned. That doesn't change the fact that Connor spent "Rehearsal" getting kicked around by all of his loved ones, though — especially his siblings — who show up hours late to his rehearsal dinner, make fun of him when Willa runs away, and then just completely ignore him the rest of the time. Connor is a seriously wounded person, despite his protestations about not "needing love," and this week's episode showed just how damaged he is. "Succession" airs on Sunday night on HBO and HBO Max at 9 P.M. EST.