REVIEW: Succession – Season Three [2021]

Rating: TV-MA | Episodes: 9 | Runtime: 60 minutes
Release Date: October 17th, 2021 (USA)
Studio: Home Box Office (HBO)
Creator(s): Jesse Armstrong

They’re picking the next President.

It might be a chicken/egg situation, but it’s difficult to watch season three of “Succession”—while knowing season four will be the last—without feeling as though it’s little more than a bridge. Even at only nine episodes (all others are ten), the narrative finds itself grasping at straws as it looks to both puff up the first half finally tying off what Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) initiated in season one and manufacture a new conflict in the back half that can push us into the endgame.

That’s what’s happening. Jesse Armstrong is sewing all his threads together so he can deliver the finale we all want, one that finally lets the cracks in the Roy family consume them all. Because the fate of Waystar/RoyCo is inconsequential. It’s merely a setting for Kendall, Shiv (Sarah Snook), and Roman (Kieran Culkin) to take out their knives.

As such, season three is the weakest yet. It lacks the panache of season one and the sturdiness of season two, yet “Mass in Time of War” might end up being my favorite episode of the entire series because it actually focuses on the kids. Big Bad Daddy Logan (Brian Cox) is sidelined so Ken can pitch his siblings the objectively good ideas he has to yank their family’s legacy out of the fire.

He had it right in season one when he called a board vote only for Roman to screw him. He had it right a few episodes later initiating the “bear hug” only to screw himself (Logan publishing rumors about his addictions to hurt him ultimately causes him to use again, but saying Logan is the reason for everything becomes a cop out once his “kids” turn thirty and still grab at his shirtsleeves). Ken realizes he can’t do it alone, but his bridges may already be burned.

So, it’s up to subsequent episodes to quell the flames he started. Half are burning at the hands of rivals attempting a hostile takeover (season one). Half arise from the Department of Justice threatening fines and jail (season two). It’s all pretty monotonous. Ken screams louder and louder until he realizes his complicity in the destruction. Shiv and Roman whine louder and louder until they realize they don’t have what Ken has and Dad didn’t even want to pick him.

The result is a game of checkers where Logan manipulates them around the board to better galvanize his own position to either lead or cash out—whichever seems right at the time is right for him. He sits on his phone while the kids spin around chasing their tails thinking they’ve been playing chess and we’re supposed to believe something of substance is happening. It isn’t.

Not all is lost, though. Because while the plot itself is rushed to get everyone in place for season four (I’m an Alexander Skarsgård fan, and he’s good here, but did the Emmys really nominate him for playing the role of cardboard pawn sounding board?), the comedy has never been better. I probably laughed more during this season than the previous two combined.

Strong just keeps getting better with a beautifully layered performance of kicked puppy in a peacock suit that never fails to make us want to laugh at him when he’s not utterly shattered. Snook’s legitimately on-point delivery of sarcastic remarks that everyone in the room would guffaw at if she were a man and had any experience in the company land with a brilliantly cultivated thud that earns an effectively awkward air of queasiness. And Culkin stunned me a bit. He’s always been the comic relief, but Roman’s insecurities are never more prevalent than when he believes he’s doing good. It leads to a devastating final episode performance.

The rest is mostly fluff. Harriet Walter’s Caroline is dragged back for decent deflection. Nicholas Braun’s Greg has less to do than ever before as he’s trotted out to worry about getting arrested while being leveraged by everyone like a poker chip.

Matthew Macfadyen is the exception. He conversely gets the meatiest arc Tom has secured yet, although I wonder if perhaps it’s too subtle insofar as its impact on the overall plot (but that could be a testament to the writing and him since we’ve been conditioned to believe we, like the family, know him). His trajectory is a nice straight line through the otherwise mix of twists and turns that are really just dead-ends and red herrings filling out the runtime. Because while the Roys themselves have believed this was a four-way fight (sorry, Connor), it’s always been the Us vs. Him season four has finally been set-up to become.