What we know about ‘Succession’ ahead of the final season

The end of a series like succession, created by Jesse Armstrong, is a television event. It is inevitable after winning a total of 13 Emmy Awards, including two for best drama series, three for best script and a statuette for Jeremy Strong and another for Matthew Macfadyen for his performances. And when does this farewell tour start? This Monday when HBO Max uploads the first episode of the fourth season, announced as the last, which will be broadcast weekly on the content platform.

Where do we stay?

In the first season, the children of Logan Roy found themselves in an unexpected position: the unexpected succession in the company due to their father’s health problems. The cognitive resurrection of the man, however, left everyone confused but aware that he had to start maneuvering to take the reins of the company in the event that his father wanted to retire, which they suddenly saw as more likely.

After keeping them on tenterhooks for three seasons and promoting them to stab each other, and after Kendall’s (Jeremy Strong) push to usurp power from him, they finally figured out Logan’s ultimate, unforeseen plan: sell Waystar Royco to Lukas Mattson. (Alexander Skarsgard), a businessman with a psycho profile like him.

This left Kendall, Roman (Kieran Culkin) and Shiv (Sarah Snook) in a situation of disappointment and brotherly solidarity never seen before. And who stayed close to Logan? Greg (Nicholas Brown) and Tom (Matthew Macfadyen), after Shiv’s husband was the one to inform Logan of his sons’ moves to wrest control of the company from him.

How does the new season start?

Without going into excessive spoilers, here is the starting point of the fourth season. It’s Logan’s birthday and at his party there’s only one of his children, his eldest son Connor (Alan Ruck), who’s having a hard time keeping his political career alive. The polls predict him 1% of the vote and, if he wants to maintain this ridiculous voting intention, he needs to invest another 100 million in his campaign. And Logan acts like he hates celebrations (which he does) to cover up the real reason he’s in a bad mood: the absence of his favorite Kendall, Connor and Shiv.

Where are they? Gathered to decide how they channel their heritage, their contacts, and their hatred of their father into their own joint legacy. One of the ideas on the table is to launch The 100, a new concept of communication media, although they have the option of betting on a more conventional idea that allows them to annoy the father who kicked them out of the line of succession. Logan is also 48 hours away from definitively selling control of Waystar Royco to Gojo.

And, on Logan’s boat, Greg and Tom stay, who tries to win the favor of his father-in-law and above all wants to know his position in the family in the event that he divorces Shiv, with whom he is more in crisis than ever. .

the trailer

Why does ‘Succession’ end?

As Jesse Armstrong sat down in the writers’ room to plan the season, he wondered where the Roys’ story could take him. He realized that he had few options. One was to write two short seasons and thus delay this important work for HBO, after winning the Emmy for best drama series twice.

There was also the possibility of “turning the series into something quite different”, betting on longevity and having a good time writing about these characters as rich as they are despicable: turning succession in Dallas. The problem is that then it would be necessary to assume that “there would be good weeks and bad weeks” and that there would be more or less successful plots.

Finally, he set about writing this comedy (yes, it can compete as a drama but it’s an acid comedy) without telling anyone if it would be the final season. “Before, we’ve discovered potential storylines and character dynamics that required us to explore them,” he said. However, after seeing where the story was headed, he assumed that in the fourth season he was writing the final outcome of the play.

This created confusion in the cast and Sarah Snook got mad” upon discovering in the script reading of the last episode that he really was at the end of the stage. “I felt a great sense of loss, disappointment and sadness. It would have been nice to know at the beginning of the season, but I also understand that they didn’t say it until the end because there was always the possibility that this would not end up being the end, ”she revealed in an interview.

The viral dance of ‘Call me maybe’

And, after this production process of the fourth season, in which they did not let the cast think about the end of this stage, the viral images of this week can be understood. In the premiere in New York, the images recorded by Nicole Ansari, Brian Cox’s wife, with the actors dancing to the sound of call me maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen. And who appears in the images? The patriarch with Kieran Culkin, Sarah Snook, Alexander Skarsgard or Justine Lupe. The video is priceless.

Could the ‘Succession’ universe continue?

Casey Bloys, president of HBO, says that a spin-off of successionAt the moment, it is not on the table. “I don’t think there is something in succession that you say “let’s go follow this boy” or whatever,” he explained in an interview with Variety. It doesn’t strike him as the type of fiction for which it would be natural to write spin-offs. However, this is also up to Jesse Armstrong, as was the decision to end the series.

And it is that the creator has been unclear as to the possibility of continuing this fictional universe. “Perhaps there is a part of this world that we could return to, if we wanted to?” He said of the characters he had created and that, after developing with an exceptional team, he regretted having to leave behind. Therefore, time will tell.