The problem with end-of-year lists is you can only judge something on the material you have. A couple of years ago, Damon Lindelof’s Watchmen adaptation limped in at number 40 in our list. This is because, at the time the list was compiled, Watchmen had only just begun to air. By the time the finale came around, all the disparate pieces had slammed together in a truly incredible way. Watchmen will be remembered as one of the best shows of the decade, but we missed the boat.
I’m telling you this because, when this year’s list was being compiled, Succession was stuck in a holding pattern. The third series had landed hard, with season two’s cliffhanger ending ramped up to absurd degrees by a Covid-enforced delay. It arrived heralded by several big, weighty profile pieces in big, prestigious publications. Early reviews were breathless. Public screenings were met with something approaching full-blown Beatlemania. Succession was back!
But as the season wore on, you could feel a restlessness setting in. Kendall selling out his father promised explosions, yet none were forthcoming. There was an episode where everyone hung out in an airport. There was an episode where the dramatic highlight was the arrival of some doughnuts. Once the wham-bang of the season two finale had burned off, we were all back to exactly where we always were; a never-ending competition to get a kiss from daddy. Lines were drawn in the sand, then quickly redrawn before anyone could feel their impact. Moments that felt permanent – Logan’s declining health, Kendall’s ambition – were reset without a second thought. To watch season three of Succession was to spend a great deal of time wondering when things would actually get going.
This is when the end-of-year ballots were sent out. And, look, it’s no disaster. It is still all the way up the list. Of course it is. Even at half-power, Succession can still beat the socks off everything around it.
However, in the weeks since the list was compiled, Succession has gone supernova. The season’s final third has found a gear that, even by the show’s own impossible standards, it had never found before. All the storylines that had been humming away in the background have snapped to attention, and the stakes are colossal. Professionally, everything is on fire. Personally, the ground is littered with bodies. If the first six episodes were about sharks circling the water, this is where we get to see them rip each other apart.
In episode seven, we saw Kendall – high on his own hype as the man who “killed” Logan Roy – planning to throw himself the party to end all parties. And yet the sweep of his character arc in that one hour, from carefree singing to the deepest existential despair, was breathtaking. This season hasn’t been without its suicidal foreshadowing, but to watch Kendall’s entire sense of self-worth plummet to zero was to become truly worried for the man.
But Kendall isn’t alone in his despair. Shiv is becoming more monstrous by the second, casually hurting her siblings and husband with the same cold glee, a trait we are beginning to learn blossomed in her teens. Roman’s fledging growth as a person, both in terms of empathy and business nous, was destroyed with a single dick pic. Even Connor, who is around purely for comic relief, has started to wear his unfathomable sadness more openly.
And then there’s Tom, who has emerged as the unexpected heart of Succession – and someone to almost root for at last. Where he was once a power-hungry Jared Kushner-type hanger-on, Tom has spent this year finding the power in his vulnerability. He knows his wife doesn’t love him, because she told him as much. He knows the Roys think he’s a joke. He quaked at the thought of jail after offering himself up as a sacrificial lamb for the family. In one of the all-time great Succession moments he all but outright declared his love for Greg. So when, at last, Tom outmanoeuvred everyone, even his own wife, with his Red Wedding – can we make Red Wambsgans a thing? – it was hard not to feel utterly elated. Perhaps, just perhaps, this was Tom’s season all along.
The third season of Succession has ended with what might be its greatest ever run of episodes. However, those aren’t the episodes we judged it on. Officially it’s the fourth best show of the year. But now that we’ve seen the whole thing, it’s OK if you want to bump it up a spot or two.
