HBO's Famous 'Succession' Ends With Upcoming Season 4

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Who will be boy number 1?

The answer may be closer than you thought. Succession creator Jesse Armstrong announced in an interview Thursday that the forthcoming fourth season of the hit HBO series will be her last.

“We went through different scenarios,” he told the New Yorker. “We could do a couple of short seasons or two more seasons. Or we could go on forever and turn the show into something completely different and be a more racy, freewheeling type of fun show that would have good weeks and bad weeks. Or we could do something more muscular and complete and kind of come out strong.”

“Succession” follows the developing dynamic of the Roy family, fictional media moguls who are clearly inspired in part by the Fox News Murdochs. The Roys are cutthroat in their competing quest for power, with backstabbing patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox) and his three youngest children Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Roman (Kieran Culkin) and Siobhan (Sarah Snook) rife.

The Roy family from HBO’s “Succession” have a unique way of interacting with each other – and with the outside world. (Video: Allie Caren/The Washington Post, Photo: Jackie Lay/The Washington Post)

Armstrong, a British author who co-created Channel 4’s ‘Peep Show’ and received an Oscar nomination for the film ‘In the Loop’, brings a satirical twist to ‘Succession’. The comedic-drama burned slowly at first, but picked up steam again with its second season, earning dozens of Emmy nominations (and winning 13 in total). Season 3 received the show’s highest ratings to date, according to Variety, including more than 1.4 million viewers across all platforms for the premiere.

That season ended with a shocking betrayal in December 2021; the fourth, which premieres on March 26, continues in the episode. HBO teased “existential angst and family divisions” as the Roys moved closer to selling their media conglomerate Waystar Royco to the tech billionaire played by Alexander Skarsgard.

How Succession composer Nicholas Britell captured the seriousness and absurdity of the HBO series

While Armstrong was the first to officially confirm that “Succession” would end soon, Cox had already hinted at it. He told Britain’s The Times newspaper last year that “no one has renewed their contracts” and, in typical Logan fashion, also interjected an insult: “We don’t want it to exceed his welcome, like ‘billions’; that has passed its expiry date. That’s not going to happen on our show,” the actor said.

Saying goodbye will be harder for others. Strong, the Emmy-winner whose deep commitment to the role of the sinister Kendall was immortalized in a viral New Yorker profile, said in a recent interview with GQ that stepping off the character “is going to feel like death in a way “.

“When I was younger, I saw the future in the crosshairs. I don’t feel that anymore,” he said. “There’s a feeling of ‘Now what?’ to which I have no answer.”

Armstrong could find himself in a similar position. He told the New Yorker he felt “deeply torn” about the show’s ending and had “that circus-has-the-town feeling that anyone who works on a good production gets, and this one especially.”

“I imagine I’ll be a little bit lonely and I’ll wander the streets of London and I’ll ask myself, ‘What… have I done?'” he said. “I’ll probably call you in about six months and ask if people are ready for a reboot.”