‘Succession’ Season 4 Ending Didn’t Change When They Decided It Was the Final Season
Succession is ending this season. The news came long after Succession Season 4 began production, indicating that it wasn’t originally the plan to conclude the show. But, the ending of season 4 didn’t change when they decided it was the series finale, producer Frank Rich said.
Rich and Succession creator Jesse Armstrong appeared on the Succession podcast on March 26 to discuss the season premier, their last season premiere as it turns out. Rich and Armstrong explained how the ending didn’t change. Succession airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO.
‘Succession’ Season 4 would end the same way regardless
Rich wanted to clear up the notion that they had to change the Succession Season 4 finale when they decided the series was ending. If anything, it was the ending they’d written that felt natural to represent the series finale.
“If you look at the previous three seasons of the show, all of them could’ve been the ending of the show,” Rich said on the Succession podcast. “It’s not like now, spoiler alert, we’re not killing everyone off in an earthquake at the end of the final episode. But I’m also feeling, while people are sad about it, they respect the storytelling. They respect what Jesse has done and they know we’re unlikely to do something silly or stupid or gimmicky. They’ll decide for themselves what they think of how we go out.”
Rich also echoed Armstrong’s statement in his New Yorker interview that the succession has to occur at some point.
“It is called Succession,” Rich said. “At some point, there has to be some kind of resolution to that. I think a lot of viewers understand that.”
Jesse Armstrong confirms the ‘Succession’ ending hasn’t changed
Armstrong concurred that thinking about Succession Season 4 as the final season made it a creative challenge. He didn’t want it to necessarily feel different from a normal season.
Maybe towards writing the end of the season, you start feeling that thing more of what’s an appropriate level of, not sentimentality, but an appropriate level of respect for the story. You don’t want to get so high on your own supply that you think it’s this extraordinary work which everyone is interested in every single detail of. But nor do you want to not pay sufficient respect to the characters who you’ve created and people’s investment in them. In the beginning, it felt like a s*** load more work. Is this going to be any good? I’m always really scared. It was more towards the end when you have to be aware of being self-aware and is that cute? Are we trying to nail everything or leaving things unsatisfactorily undone?”
Jesse Armstrong, Succession podcast, 3/26/23
Avoiding the series finale trap
Rich acknowledged the series finales that lead to complaints. In particular, he alluded to HBO’s Sopranos finale’s ambiguous cut to black.
“You have to be true to the characters and true to what you’ve done before and not overthink it beyond the way you’d normally think hard about where you’re ending up dramatically and emotionally,” Rich said. “So it’s not part of the thinking of the show at all that oh my God, we’ve got to put a gold frame around any episode really and say this is a very special episode or finale. Obviously, I’m not an objective observer but one thing I do feel about what we’ve come up with for the story. There’s no deus ex machina that’s going to come in and say it was all a dream or some stunt where it turns to black. It’s just not even in the thinking of the writers of the show.”
We’ll have to revisit these comments come May 28 when the season and series finale of Succession airs. It sounds like they’re on the right track to deliver a thrilling Succession Season 4. If Logan Roy (Brian Cox) actually picks a successor after the negotiations of the season premiere, that could end things decisively.
