Succession Season 4 Finally Reveals What Happened To Logan's Sister Rose

This post contains spoilers for "Succession" season 4, episode 9, "Church and State."

A funeral can be a last chance for closure. In the penultimate episode of "Succession," the series finally answered a lingering question about Logan Roy (Brian Cox).

Logan was not the type of man to open up, but since season 2, episode 8, "Dundee," we've known that he once had a little sister named Rose. Some of sort tragedy befell her and Logan blamed himself for it. Logan's brother Ewan, (James Cromwell), feels that his brother's feelings of responsibility were misplaced; Rose's death is one of the few things that Ewan doesn't hold against Logan. And now, we know that Logan's will included a request that he be buried with a picture of Rose in his coat pocket.

Fans of "Succession" had latched onto the mystery of what happened to Rose, and how it might have shaped the Logan we've come to know. How did Rose die, and why did Logan blame himself? Did she commit suicide? Did she die in an accident when Logan was supposed to be watching her?

"Succession" is not a mystery box show; in fact, it often prefers to leave things mysterious. With only two episodes left and Logan gone, viewers were doubting we would get any further hints of Rose Roy's fate. But in a surprise bit of exposition, Ewan shed some light on what happened to Rose during his eulogy.

Ewan explains how he and Logan were sent to live with their Uncle Noah in Canada during World War 2. Noah (who was once referred to sarcastically by Kendall as "evil Uncle Noah") and his wife, who had "a little money," sent Logan to a boarding school. According to Ewan, Logan hated it and, after falling ill, he was allowed to come home. He recovered once he left school, but after Logan came back, Rose contracted polio and died from it. Logan believed that he'd brought the disease back from school and passed it on to his sister. Ewan has his doubts, but apparently Noah and his wife "did nothing to disabuse [Logan]" of the belief that he was at fault.

We know from season 1, episode 7 "Austerlitz" that Noah whipped Logan, and that the Roy patriarch never swam in front of his children due to the scars on his back. It's unclear if Rose's death was what motivated this physical abuse, but it does seem plausible. It's just as much a question mark if Ewan suffered the same abuse as Logan. He does call his uncle "a character" in his speech, but that could simply be his disapproval of how Noah treated Logan.

Rose's name evokes another story about a media baron with a troubled childhood: "Citizen Kane," when Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles) dies with the words "Rosebud" on his lips. As you may know, "Rosebud" was the name of Kane's childhood sled and he died wishing for the feelings of love and innocence that it represented.

Welles himself would eventually dismiss Rosebud as "dollar book Freud." There's no single keystone to explaining a person's life, but is "Succession" suggesting otherwise with Rose's importance to Logan? The show has pulled from "Citizen Kane" before, but I don't think so. Rose's death and Logan's guilt help explain why he kept people at arm's length and hurt those he loves, but they can't paint the whole, 80-year-long picture. Even Logan himself dismissed the idea, directly referencing "Citizen Kane." In "Dundee," when asked by Connor to share a story from his youth, Logan scoffed at the idea that there was a "Rosebud" in his past. "Rosebud is a dollar bill," he said. "It's whatever it took to get me the f*** out of here."

The episode doesn't dwell on the revelation about Rose, and Ewan admits he doesn't know when his brother "stopped trying" to be a better man. Ewan's eulogy is followed by two more from Kendall and Shiv. As they speak, they both try to make sense of who Logan was and can't quite explain the contradictions between their love and resentment for him. "Succession" is smart to not present Rose's fate as a twist or bombshell, but as just one other facet of who Logan Roy was.

"Succession" airs on HBO and streams on HBO Max at 9:00 p.m. ET.