‘Succession’ creator hoped he would be “argued” out of ending the show

Succession creator and show runner Jesse Armstrong has revealed his thoughts on his initial pitch to end the show with season four.

Speaking to Variety at the Succession premiere earlier this month, Armstrong shared that he had secretly hoped he would be talked out of ending the show so soon while maintaining that the hit HBO series has come to a “natural” end.

“The word that comes to mind for me is ‘natural.’ I hope people, when they see this season, will feel that it has a natural shape to it. That’s how I pitched it to my writers’ room, kind of hoping I’d get argued out of it so we’d see a way to do more seasons, because I love working with these people. I think there’s a feeling of completeness and rightness to the shape of the show.”

Armstrong also confirmed that though parts of the final season had been reworked multiple times, the show’s ending had always been set in stone from the first draft: “I had the last scene pretty early. We talked about how the show would end a lot, and I never wavered from that. I wavered on what were the best lines, the best way to express it — but that ending from the first draft is the one you’ll see when the episode comes out.”

The first episode of Succession season four is out now, and will air every Sunday for the next 10 weeks until its conclusion.

The final season of the HBO series picks up after events of the season three finale, where Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) tipped off Logan Roy (Brian Cox) about the Roy siblings’ plan to prevent Waystar Royco from merging with GoJo.

With the company now slipping away from them, Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook) and Roman Roy (Kieran Culkin) must continue to plot against their father in an ongoing power struggle.

‘Succession’ is streaming now on Sky Atlantic.