It’s time to start the “how do you think Succession will end” betting pool, because series creator Jesse Armstrong revealed in an interview with The New Yorker that the upcoming fourth season is also the series’ last. Armstrong said he met with the writers at the end of 2021 and asked what the shape of the series should be, including a “more rangy, freewheeling kind of fun show, where there would be good weeks and bad weeks.” Instead of going full sitcom, though, Armstrong and his collaborators opted for a “something a bit more muscular and complete,” and ending with season four. Good! Too many TV shows go on forever! It’s my number one problem with television, the open-ended storytelling ruins many a good show that just goes on too damn long!
This will mean, however, an end to the sort of accidental feud between Brian Cox and Jeremy Strong, whose acting styles, while resulting in tremendous work on screen, don’t seem to mesh in real life. They’re at it again, talking about each other in the press. I don’t for one second think there’s real heat between these two, but I DO believe Brian Cox is annoyed by Strong to some degree. In a new interview with Town & Country this week, Cox refers to working with an actor like Strong, who is always in character, as “f-cking annoying”, though he does allow that Strong is “a very good actor” and no one else is irked by his way of working.
Meanwhile, Strong is in the March issue of GQ saying that Cox has “earned the right to say whatever the f-ck he wants,” though he disagrees with Cox’s assessment that there is “a certain amount of pain at the root of Jeremy.” Instead, it loops back to Strong’s Method acting: “There’s certainly a lot of pain in Kendall, and I haven’t really met Brian outside of the confines of that.” Maybe when Succession is over, Brian Cox and Jeremy Strong can finally meet and put all this to bed.
Anyway, who do we think is going to succeed, in the end? My money is on literally anyone other than a Roy child. Lukas Mattson, maybe, because he’s the same kind of sociopath Logan is—he’s the son Logan didn’t have but has wanted all along. Or, somehow, it all lands on Cousin Greg, or Tom Wambsgans. Or Cousin Greg AND Tom. I just truly can’t see my way to any of the Roy children winning. Logan can’t let them win, he is incapable of giving his children anything. He’s going to screw them somehow, but they’ll screw him, too, and Waystar Royco will end up outside of Roy control.
Attached- Jeremy Strong and Natalie Gold filming Succession earlier this month in New York.
