The Roys are almost back, and with more evidence that the final season of Succession will be as dramatic and vicious as ever.
The first full-length trailer for the hit HBO show’s fourth season, which creator Jesse Armstrong revealed last week will be its last, expanded on hints from January’s teaser. The media conglomerate family loosely based on the Murdochs and other billionaire dynasties appears to be deep in a titanic power struggle following the failed coup by three of the siblings in the third season finale, after patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox) sold part of the company to a mercurial Swedish tech mogul Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård).
The trailer for the final 10 episodes suggests that the response of the siblings – feckless Connor (Alan Ruck), wounded dog Kendall (Jeremy Strong), cutthroat Shiv (Sarah Snook) and puerile Roman (Kieran Culkin) – is to partner with rival Sandi Furness (Hope Davis) and Kendall’s erstwhile best friend/tormentor Stewy Hosseini (Arian Moayed) along with the rival media conglomerate Pierce family, whose potential acquisition by Waystar formed the primary story arc of the second season.
According to the official logline for the final season, which premieres on 26 March, the prospect of the sale of Logan Roy’s Waystar Royco to Matsson “provokes existential angst and familial division among the Roys as they anticipate what their lives will look like once the deal is complete. A power struggle ensues as the family weighs up a future where their cultural and political weight is severely curtailed.”
The trailer includes several examples of Succession’s deadpan dramatics – “excited to get into this knife fight?” (Shiv), “let’s blow it up” (Kendall), “there’s a night of the long knives coming” (Logan), “I have it on good authority there is a kill list” (Greg) – as well as evidence of Logan trying to get to each of his children, particularly through Roman’s relationship with Matsson.
There are bits of other plotlines – the longstanding ruins of Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) and Shiv’s marriage, Connor’s presidential campaign, Roman’s relationship with Waystar general counsel Gerri (J Smith-Cameron). The preview ends ominously, with a room full of men chanting “Logan!” on the floor of ATN, the Roys’ fictional news network clearly inspired by Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News.
British creator Armstrong revealed the show’s end last week, and told the New Yorker, “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 two, I’ve been trying to think: Is it the next one, or the one after that, or is it the one after that?”
Armstrong revealed that he laid out potential finale options for the writers while starting the fourth season at the end of 2021 – “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.”
Succession’s finale will end a tentpole drama for HBO. The show’s first three seasons garnered 48 Emmy nominations and 13 wins, including two for best drama series, among numerous other awards.
It will return to HBO on 26 March and to Sky Atlantic and NOW in the UK on 27 March.
