Succession

Worth every minute of the excruciating two-year wait between Seasons 2 and 3. ... This is cutthroat corporate theater played at a Shakespearean level, King Lear with a bracing shot of bawdy farce. [25 Oct - 7 Nov 2021, p.8]

Armstrong and his writers channel gloriously profane prose through each of them, ensuring that even the meanest, Roman, has a trickster's charm about him while the least – that would be Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) and cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) – retain their humanity.... [Cox] lights the stage to give viewers a clearer view of his castmates' glow – and they're delivering true excellence in these episodes.

Succession somehow only gets better in its third season, giving us more relentless nastiness, ridiculous humor, and remarkable performances. This is the stuff great TV is made of.

It’s just as good as you remember it, if not better. ... Season three swaggers with a new level of confidence. As the series itself so thoroughly explores, staying on top is no easy feat, but this new season manages to do just that.

Success hasn't spoiled Succession, as the Emmy-winning drama returns with all its Shakespearean and Murdochian overtones intact, with a bruising father-son battle over its fictional media empire. Stripped of that, the HBO series remains enormously fun, filled with cringe-inducing moments and the kind of vicious insults that would make the writers of "Veep" blush.

“Succession” is the best show on TV. Which makes it a particular pleasure to report that Season 3 lives up to that superlative.

Scabrously funny. ... You can only hope to see a terrible person do something terrible to a more terrible person. This makes “Succession” both an addictive spectator sport and one of TV's great horror stories.

The “Veep” vibe is stronger and sharper, with characters gnarling out insults that seem to turn common obscenities into metrical poetry. ... The scripts are [chef’s kiss]. ... In real life, these ethical crimes are sickening; on “Succession,” they are satire at its most stinging, as power mongers dismiss a possible candidate for his nervous lip-licking tic.

The writing drips with more poison, and the cast seems to relish more than ever the opportunity to disseminate its toxins.

The good news is “Succession” remains the same show it was two years ago. The great news is it made the most of that time away to amplify all its strengths. Really, the best advice I can give is to get ready.

Cox's performance is staggering but then so is the performance of everyone else. Prepare to be staggered. Triumphant return of TV's best.

Each early scene seems to take place either in a dusty boardroom or inside a vehicle, with every second conversation taking place over the phone. That Armstrong and his writers make this the stuff of edge-of-seat intrigue is very impressive indeed. ... Armstrong has also reined in the florid language (though not the swearing), which stops this third series from being a pastiche or a greatest hits package. The writing is still the smartest on TV, however.

If this season happens to be more frenetic than the last, it is also uproariously funny, painful and delightful in its skewering of this family, faithful in its continued adherence to each character’s design.

This is the same Succession you know and love: crude, uncomfortable, deplorable, indulgent, and the kind of smart that is both obnoxious and inspirational. But where season 2 was all about letting that manspread with reckless abandon, now we’re seeing what happens when it’s time to bottle it all up again. ... It’s a truly visceral viewing experience. ... I can’t think of another show for which we’re so excited for new episodes.

The writing – though there is in this particularly plot-heavy, season-setting opener less room for the delicate characterisation that customarily leaven the script and make you wring your hands with their deftness and intelligence – remains immaculate. The performances ... remain unimpeachable.

“Succession” is crisper, funnier, and more confident than ever. ... It may be rocky waters for the Roy family, but it’s smooth sailing for the show about them.

Well, the first few episodes of the new series have been released for preview — and I can assure you that Succession easily leaps to its own very high bar.

The show’s presentation remains impeccable; Mark Mylod and the other directors capture the bizarre largesse of the characters’ lifestyles while keeping the focus squarely on the high-intensity dialogue.

After a two-year break, the new escapades of the über-rich, ultra-entitled but brilliantly funny bellends at Waystar Royco make for even more extraordinarily entertaining and incisive TV drama than ever.

Propelled by the best ensemble cast you’ll find anywhere—Nicholas Braun and Matthew Macfadyen are a dream team of lacerating laughs— Season 3 is the funniest, fiercest ‘Succession’ yet. It’s a perverse pleasure to ogle the rich abusing their ill-gotten privileges.

Focus on the characters brings to the fore the show’s dark humor. There are more laughs to be had watching “Succession” than most TV comedies, a testament to the show’s writers who imbue the Roy children with specific foibles and a general lack of self-awareness.

It’s worth the wait. What struck me first as I dove back in was not how thrilling or dramatic this show can be, but how laugh-out-loud funny it is. ... At the same time, though, those family tragedy elements feel rawer and more intense than ever before. ... The politics stuff, definitely. Like you, I don’t think it totally works. ... God, it looks miserable — and God, am I glad to be back, raising a glass once again to the best worst family on TV right now.

Perhaps the show’s most sharply observed run so far. ... And much of the way through a glimmeringly brutal season, the greatest challenge “Succession” has posed for itself is, once again, pulling insight and enjoyment out of staring into the heart of darkness.

Mostly, though, this is a bold and original work, with great acting and razor-sharp writing. And it’s among the best series in the world right now.

Succession continues to be one of the best shows about royal in-fighting on TV. It’s the Wars of the Roses, it’s Machiavelli, it’s the last days of Rome. It’s addictive, but it’s also depressing. Because even in its most grandiose comedic moments, there is truth to Succession’s cynical world that makes us realize yes, these idiots are absolutely in charge of our world and no, there’s not really anything we can do about it.

The first two episodes, written by creator Jesse Armstrong, deliver satisfying doses of fan-favorite dynamics. ... It's a season of stellar performances.

It’s not as if the Roys are coming back to a world of rainbows and lollipops. Their show remains a key fictional text explaining how we got into these various messes, but also a marvelous occasional reward for all of us stuck living through them.

This season stalls in the same storylines that the series began with, relying on a top-tier cast—from Matthew Macfadyen as Shiv’s husband to Strong as Logan Roy’s bitch—to make it work. ... Season three doesn’t feel safe as much as it feels conservative—a bit fearful, lacking guts.

The third season of “Succession” spends an awful lot of time waiting for something to happen and in the seven episodes (out of nine) offered for review nothing much does.