Here’s Why Roman’s Wife & Kid Disappeared After The ‘Succession’ Pilot

The final season of Succession has to answer plenty of questions, and not just who “wins.” Today we finally got an answer to one mystery, and that’s what happened to Roman’s wife and child, who the audience hasn’t seen since the first episode.

Turns out they’ve been M.I.A. because the writers wanted to make room to potentially explore Roman’s sexuality.

Speaking with Variety, actor Kieran Culkin who plays Roman, first set the record straight on who the woman and child were in the first episode. Looks like we had it wrong all along. “Not his kid. Not his wife, either,” he began. “It was in the pilot, and after it was picked up, it was his girlfriend, and she had a child. I’m wearing my real wedding band in the episode. I was excited about the idea of having a kid, and the kid was like 7 or 8. It was a little disappointing, but I think the idea was that it would just give them more freedom to play with the character.”

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By exploring the character, what Culkin means is that the writers wanted space to potentially delve into Roman’s sexuality — and hangups — which was something they were considering from the very beginning. “They had mentioned to me, even before we shot the pilot, about questioning what Roman’s sexuality is — and we don’t know what it is,” recalled Culkin. “But it put something in my brain, and I was like, ‘OK, but I’m married and have kids?’ They were toying with the idea that she’s aware that you have sort of hangups sexually when it comes to monogamy and might be more fluid, but we don’t know what that is yet.”

Hmm, that's an interesting way to put things. Perhaps it means we will get an answer to that in the final episodes, but we’ll just have to wait and see.