Succession: Jesse Armstrong Reveals HBO Series Ending with Season 4
HBO’s Succession creator Jesse Armstrong explains why the award-winning series is ending its run with the upcoming fourth season.
When HBO & Jesse Armstrong‘s award-winning Succession returns on March 26th, viewers won’t just be tuning into the fourth season of the Roys’ family dysfunction – they’ll be tuning into its final season. “There are a few different aspects. One, we could have said it as soon as I sort of decided, almost when we were writing it, which I think would be weird and perverse. We could have said it at the end of the season. I quite like that idea, creatively, because then the audience is just able to enjoy everything as it comes without trying to figure things out or perceiving things in a certain way once they know it’s the final season. But, also, the countervailing thought is that we don’t hide the ball very much on the show. I feel a responsibility to the viewership, and I personally wouldn’t like the feeling of, ‘Oh, that’s it, guys. That was the end.’ I wouldn’t like that in a show. I think I would like to know it is coming to an end,” Armstrong shared during an interview with The New Yorker when explaining why he was deciding to announce the decision now. “And, also, there’s a bunch of prosaic things, like it might be weird for me and the cast as we do interviews. It’s pretty definitively the end, so then it just might be uncomfortable having to sort of dissemble like a politician for ages about it. Hopefully, the show is against bullshit, and I wouldn’t like to be bullshitting anyone when I was talking about it.”
“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?” Armstrong continued, revealing why now seemed the right time for the series to end its run.
“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. I went into the writing room for Season 4 sort of saying, ‘I think this is what we’re doing, but let’s also keep it open.’ I like operating the writing room by coming in with a sort of proposition and then being genuinely open to alternative ways of going. And the decision to end solidified through the writing and even when we started filming: I said to the cast, ‘I’m not a hundred per cent sure, but I think this is it.’ Because I didn’t want to bullshit them, either.”
The fourth season cast for HBO’s Succession includes Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook, Kieran Culkin, Alan Ruck, Matthew Macfadyen, Nicholas Braun, J. Smith-Cameron, Peter Friedman, David Rasche, Fisher Stevens, Hiam Abbass, Justine Lupe, Scott Nicholson, Zoë Winters, and Jeannie Berlin. The newest additions to the cast this season are Annabeth Gish, Adam Godley, Eili Harboe, and Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson.
Returning cast includes Dagmara Domińczyk (Karolina Novotney), Alexander Skarsgård (Lukas Mattson), Arian Moayed (Stewy Hosseini), Juliana Canfield (Jess Jordan), Annabelle Dexter-Jones (Naomi Pierce), Hope Davis (Sandi Furness), Cherry Jones (Nan Pierce), Justin Kirk (Congressman Jeryd Mencken), Stephen Root (Future Freedom Summit Organizer Ron Petkus), Harriet Walter (Lady Caroline Collingwood), James Cromwell (Ewan Roy), Natalie Gold (Rava Roy), Caitlin Fitzgerald (Tabitha), Ashley Zukerman (Nate Sofrelli), Larry Pine (Sandy Furness), Mark-Linn Baker (Maxim Pierce), and Pip Torrens (Peter Munion).
Created by showrunner Jesse Armstrong, the series is executive produced by Armstrong, Adam McKay, Frank Rich, Kevin Messick, Jane Tranter, Mark Mylod, Tony Roche, Scott Ferguson, Jon Brown, Lucy Prebble, Will Tracy, and Will Ferrell.
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