Creator Jessie Armstrong wants Succession Season 4 to “… go out sort of strong”.
With the latest season of Succession due to land on 26th March, the show’s creator Jessie Armstrong has given an interview to The New Yorker. In it, he confirms what has been a long-held suspicion: the upcoming fourth season will be the show’s last.
The drama, set in the high-stakes world of corporate media, follows the fortunes of media magnate Logan Roy (Brian Cox). Across three seasons, we’ve seen Logan’s four children, Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Siobhan (Sarah Snook), Roman (Kieran Culkin), and Connor (Alan Ruck) battle to succeed him.
As the show returns, we can apparently look forward to a time jump; the new season takes place some time after Logan’s triumph over his power hungry offspring. That, of course, came thanks to the backstabbing actions of Shiv’s husband Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen)
Not outstaying our welcome
With the announcement made, Armstrong talks about providing certainty and not wanting the quality to decline.
“I hope that no one ever thinks that we are outstaying our welcome—that we’re going to do a dud season, or be stretching it out. I hope those concerns never occur to people. I know they do when I’m watching other people’s shows, even ones I admire and like.”
He also discusses why Season 4 is the right time to close the story:
“It’s been a bit tortured, and I felt unexpectedly nervous about talking to you, because it’s all theoretical until this point, and I have tried to keep it theoretical for a whole number of reasons. Who knows about the psychological reasons, but the creative ones were that it felt really useful to not make the final, final decision for ages. You know, there’s a promise in the title of “Succession.” I’ve never thought this could go on forever. The end has always been kind of present in my mind. From Season 2, I’ve been trying to think: Is it the next one, or the one after that, or is it the one after that?”
Going out strong
But it was a decision arrived at by the writing team:
“I got together with a few of my fellow-writers before we started the writing of Season 4, in about November, December, 2021, and I sort of said, “Look, I think this maybe should be it. But what do you think?” And we played out various scenarios: We could do a couple of short seasons, or two more seasons. Or we could go on for ages and turn the show into something rather different, and be a more rangy, freewheeling kind of fun show, where there would be good weeks and bad weeks. Or we could do something a bit more muscular and complete, and go out sort of strong. And that was definitely always my preference.”
The interview goes on to talk about where the characters ended up as Season 3 closed. Additionally, it addresses how time passes in a sort of “weird TV reality” on the show. It’s well worth a read.
Succession returns to HBO in the US on March 26th, 2023. In the UK, it’s March 27th, airing on Sky Atlantic and streams on NOW.