All the talk about Kendall and his recurring water motif today just made something click in my brain, and I finally understand what that symbolism is all about.

In the "western literary canon," very often, water is a symbol of rebirth. A character being submerged in water (or sometimes even just drenched in the rain) is a metaphorical baptism. It's a symbolic way of wiping away past sins and starting anew. And I don't think there's anything Kendall wants more than to be reborn.

Kendall is constantly trying to reinvent himself to be new and better. He wants so badly to be a force for his idea of good and to be free from the oppressive influence of his father, but he can't do that while he's still an addict weighed down by old baggage and the misdeeds of his past. His attempt to buy the company in s1 is an attempt at this very glorious reinvention. So is rehab after the car crash. So is his betrayal at the end of s2, going onward into third season.

The water imagery isn't even the only allusion to his rebirth! He's shown with references to Jesus multiple times. He does the Judas kiss before sacrificing himself, and he was going to crucify himself at his birthday. Between that and the baptism, he is constantly coming back to this very Christian idea of being reborn. The show does it through imagery, and sometimes Kendall even engineers these images himself! He wants to have his old sins wiped away and become something good and better and new. And if he can martyr himself Jesus-style as part of his glorious rebirth, that's even better.

The problem with this, though, is that each and every one of his rebirths is a failure. His crusade for women crumbles into a narcissistic mess, which then crumbles into a possible attempt at suicide. He's pulled out of the hot tub prematurely to do his father's bidding.

At the core of Succession's writing is the idea that, now matter what happens and no matter what choices you make, you can never escape the person you are inside. People in Succession do not fundamentally change, which means that Kendall's dream of rebirth will always be impossible. His attempts at reinventing himself into a wholly good or successful man will never work because he still has all the same broken pieces down inside. He can never not be Kendall Roy.

Kendall's water motif is the symbol of his constant pursuit of a rebirth he cannot have, but he cannot understand this. He always thinks that it's going to work this time, but every reinvention is just the same as him lying in his empty bathtub. The baptism he dreams of does not exist.