It’s never fun when one of your favorite shows ends, especially if it’s unexpected. But we all know that the end of Succession has been coming because how long can that family realistically survive each other? There are only so many baseball caps on the market these days, anyway.
Even though the end is coming, the first batch of Succession reviews for its final season are promising a steady flow of drama, wit, and enough family bickering to make your own relatives seem like angels in comparison.
The HBO series will return this Sunday for its season four premiere, but critics have reviewed the first four episodes. While they are mostly spoiler-free, it seems like the build-up for this season will be even more earth-shattering than promised. Check out the reviews below:
Brian Grubb, Uproxx:
This show is fun and preposterously watchable but it’s also a show about broken people walloping each other with the scraps of a personality they have left. Buckle in.
Ben Travers, Indiewire:
“Succession” won’t rest on its laurels. No, the final season is here to annihilate you.
Angie Han, The Holywood Reporter
What I will say is that the biggest difference this year is the knowledge that we’re in the endgame. In earlier seasons, no matter how dramatically the sands shifted, we’d be waiting to see how they’d shift again. This season, though, they’re almost out of runway, at least as far as the viewers are concerned. That raises the stakes just a bit with each passing episode.
In the meantime, though, Succession hasn’t lost any of the hilarity or darkness we’ve come to expect from it. Love the colorful insults? We’ve got some real bangers, including my personal favorite: “I’m going to take you apart like a human string cheese.”
Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
Succession’s forthcoming shocker [still not to be spoiled here!] will undoubtedly be the talk of the entertainment world. In the end, though, it’s both a fitting turn of events for a show on the way out, and conclusive proof that, when it comes to the Roys and their various associates, accomplices, and hangers-on, strategically conspiring for the crown isn’t merely a full-time job—it’s a way of life.
Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone,
Logan knows the end is coming, and so does Succession. Without spoiling what happens in the episodes sent to critics, the way that events unfold, and the impact that they have on Logan and everyone else, never plays like a rehash of what’s come before. Significant choices are made, by both the characters and the creative team, that cannot be taken back. It is full steam ahead to the end. Much of what happens is shocking and/or shockingly poignant, especially since it is a show about the absolute worst human beings alive.
Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair:
The show’s ultimate point may not be a comforting one, nor one with any kind of actionable entreaty. But just as Shakespeare and the Greeks tended to have something heavy to say about their ruinous and ruined royals, so too might Armstrong.
Joshua Alston, Variety:
While the season takes a bit longer to catch fire than its predecessors, once the shady dealing begins in earnest, “Succession” is more intense than ever. And with the series finale in sight, the show has a full tank of gas and an 800-pound gorilla’s foot on the pedal. Better than ever doing business with you, “Succession.”
Bob Strauss, The Wrap:
It all settles into a superb array of the show’s signature strengths: Machiavellian plotting, comic rationalizing and withering put-downs. The whole gang is at their calculating best, with a survivalist urgency to the business and emotional stakes at hand.
Meghan O’Keefe, Decider:
Succession Season 4 also happens to be Armstrong and the writers’ most ambitious season yet. Huge swings are made from the jump and every one of them lands with creativity, nuance, and grace. The most impressive thing about the writing in Succession Season 4 is how major emotional moments are amplified by the smallest of details: a hand tentatively reaching for another hand, a shoulder jerked away, or even a Sudoku game.
Succession returns to HBO this Sunday, March 26th. Good luck holding it together.
