Season three of hit drama Succession begins Sunday, Oct. 17 on HBO. There are nine episodes. Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin are in the cast.
The show explores themes of power and family dynamics through the eyes of Logan, patriarch of the obscenely wealthy Roy family.
Season three finds Logan, played by Cox, scrambling to secure alliances after he was ambushed by son Kendall, portrayed by Strong, who exposed a family scandal. Tensions rise as a bitter corporate battle threatens to turn into a family civil war.
Jesse Armstrong created Succession and is the showrunner. He spoke a bit about the new season during a TCA Summer Press Tour session. “We had that bomb dropped, the narrative bomb at the end of the season, so it felt like, let’s just pick up the pieces. There‘s a bit of a documentary-derived thing from the way that Adam McKay shot the pilot we‘ve always kept with. And I think we were just interested to see what would happen after that so we just followed those strands.”
During that session, Cox was asked about how his character is similar to King Lear, who he has played on stage. He mentioned “the idea of somebody dividing up their kingdom” in both works.
“In Lear, he does it with his three daughters,” Cox added. “He’s hoping for someone to emerge that would be a worthy successor. So far we have no comers. And I think that the classical element is present. Whether we like it or not, we are influenced by archetypes, and Logan is an archetype. He does represent those kinds of things of authority. And also the downside is that he is a white dinosaur, so therefore he is near the end of his sell-by rate. He’s really coming to the end of it. And so that is very similar to Lear.”
Armstrong executive produces the show, along with Adam McKay, Frank Rich, Kevin Messick, Jane Tranter, Mark Mylod, Tony Roche, Scott Ferguson, Jon Brown, Lucy Prebble, Will Tracy and Will Ferrell.
Season two debuted in summer 2019.
