Last week brought some bad news: Succession’s forthcoming fourth season will be its last. On one hand, in an age of endless spinoffs and revivals, it’s good to be reminded that some things can just come to an end, before they slide into a sad decline. On the other, Succession is really freaking good and it will be sorely missed. Among the many people sad about the news is its creator, Jesse Armstrong. He’s even open to some kind of spinoff. Problem is, HBO brass is not.
In the same New Yorker interview in which Armstrong confirmed the show was ending (in a bit caught by The Guardian), he also lamented the idea. “I feel sad, and I have the circus-has-left-town feeling that everyone gets who works on a production that’s good, and this one particularly so,” he confessed. “I imagine I’ll be a little bit lonely, and wandering the streets of London in a funk.”
Still, while Armstrong admitted he “never thought this could go on forever,” he’s not against the idea of reviving it in some fashion, saying “there could be something else in an allied world, or allied characters, or some of the same characters.” He added, “Maybe there’s another part of this world we could come back to, if there was an appetite?”
Problem is, should Armstrong one day wish to follow through on this idea, whatever form it should take, he may have to convince the powers that be. When asked by Variety if Succession could get some spinoff, HBO and HBO Max content CEO Clay Bloys wasn’t optimistic.
“I don’t think so,” Bloys responded. He did add, “I always say ‘never say never.’” However, he remained practical. “It doesn’t seem to me that there’s something in Succession where you would go, ‘Let’s follow just this kid’ or whatever. It doesn’t seem like a natural thing to me.”
That being said, Bloys added, if [Armstrong] said I want to do this, then I would follow Jesse’s lead.”
So there you go! There may or may not one day be more Succession in some form. Who’s to say. In the meantime, the fourth season debuts on March 26 on HBO.
(Via New Yorker, Variety, and The Guardian)
