The Guardian Weekly

Succession

HBO ★★★★☆

We open at a sumptuous gathering. A white-haired man is moving through the crowd – a nod here, a smile facsimile there. It can only be Logan Roy’s birthday party and it can only be Succession. It’s back for the fourth and final season to a mix of lamentation and relief among even – possibly especially – the most devoted fans, who hardly have the strength to survive one more round of the cleverest, most emotionally pulverising dramas on TV.

Logan (Brian Cox) is 48 hours away from signing the sale contract, possibly in his children’s blood, that will hand over his media empire. This not being enough to keep a man of his appetites satisfied, he is also scoping out a large acquisition.

Three of his children (or “the rats”, as Daddy calls them) are busy elsewhere, creating The Hundred – “a one-stop info shop” that gathers the brightest minds in various fields and offers them as a resource to anyone who can pay for them. The stage is set once more for a corporate battle Roy-al

The opening episodes of each season tend to subsume the family dynamic in the corporate intrigue, because there are so many pieces not just to set up but to explain to a lay audience. This season seems to have opted for a more equal balance, perhaps to personalise the tragedies to come. It even gives Logan a dark night of the soul.

Succession is a drama set in the heart of darkness, with comedy set round to illuminate its eternal depths. Gather your strength for one last look into the abyss. Lucy Mangan Succession is on HBO in the US and Sky Atlantic and Now in the UK and Foxtel in Australia

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2023-03-31T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-03-31T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://theguardianweekly.pressreader.com/article/282406993609383

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