The week in which Succession season opens this weekly section is done alone. Because the week in which Succession season opens, the best series of the week is Succession and if it’s not Succession I don’t know because I’m watching Succession and don’t bother me with nonsense, fuck off.
Fortunately that has happened this week. Unfortunately, it is the last time that will happen. The fourth season of the HBO Max series is the last. The Roys leave.
They will leave, yes, through the front door. We didn’t expect less but maybe we should expect more. HBO’s policy of sending series journalists several episodes in advance has made an exception with Succession. The argument for not divulging material not yet broadcast, even if it includes strict confidentiality contracts, is that the plot of the series is going to give us very crazy surprises. So let’s not rule out that Succession will return to this space next week. And so until the end.
Without being a massive megahit (because almost no series is anymore), Succession is a phenomenon. Much is said and written about her. The first episode of the fourth season, the only one that we have been able to see, has generated articles even about the bag carried by an episodic character who barely has lines. And the photograph that Brian Cox, the iconic Logan Roy of this fiction, took the other day in El Prado before the Saturn devouring his son by Goya is viral.
Needless to say, the return of the Jesse Armstrong series has not disappointed. The most acid sarcasm, the cruelest dialogues and the looks of contempt from Shiv Roy (Sarah Snook) return. The “Fuck off!” are back by Brian Cox and the conversations about money in which, unlike in other series (and in real life), talking about money is not ordinary. Because it is not the same to talk about thousands than millions. And in Succession they talk about billions.
Past the days of The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, adult dramas like The Last of Us or Succession are the kings of serial conversation. This is not a massive shouting but a pleasant atmosphere in which, for a couple of months, the episode of the week is the theme of the week.
I can’t help but think about what will become of us Succession addicts when this series ends. His final season has already begun, so the countdown to the world without Roy brothers has started. Jesse Armstrong knows that his series cannot go away anyway and promises a finale with the orchestra playing at full volume. His portrayal of the despotism, meanness and pathos of one of the world’s richest families is television history. He has also been, for years, the perfect wild card to write this section. When there is a new season of Succession, I don’t even consider that the best series of the week is not Succession. Just like the Roys, they do not consider that ordinary mortals need water, food or shelter. Oh, how we are going to miss those monsters.
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