Season 3 of the hit HBO series Succession kicks off first on Showmax today, with new episodes coming express from the US every Monday.
Succession scooped the 2020 Best Drama award at both the Emmys and Golden Globes with its saga of four very rich siblings behaving very badly while trying to win their father’s approval – and control of his company, a global media and entertainment empire.
Altogether, the show won seven 2020 Emmys, including Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series, and Outstanding Writing for series creator and showrunner Jesse Armstrong, already an Oscar nominee for In The Loop and a multi-award winner for his work on shows like Veep, Peep Show, and The Thick Of It.
Succession’s Emmy coup last year included Best Actor for Jeremy Strong as Kendall Roy, winning out over his nominated co-star, Brian Cox, who won the 2020 Best Actor Golden Globe as Roy patriarch, Logan. Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin, as Kendall’s siblings, and Matthew Macfadyen, Nicholas Braun and James Cromwell, as his extended family, were among the show’s 11 further Emmy nominations.
Season 3 is ready to up the game, adding Oscar winner Adrien Brody (The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Pianist) and Emmy winner Alexander Skarsgård (Big Little Lies, The Stand, True Blood) to its already impressive cast, which also includes Israeli Film Academy Award winner Hiam Abbass (Gaza Mon Amour, Ramy, Blade Runner 2049) and Alan Ruck (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off).
Skarsgård, whose run of terrifyingly villainous roles has ensured that even his most ardent fans get nervous anytime he shows up on screen, plays powerful tech founder and CEO Lukas Matsson this season, while Brody guest stars as billionaire activist/investor Josh Aaronson, who’s set to become pivotal in the battle for the Roy empire.
In addition, Emmy nominee Hope Davis (Your Honor, Captain America: Civil War) comes in for a multi-episode arc as Sandi Furness, the daughter of Logan’s long-time rival, Sandy Furness. Newcomers to the cast also include Black Reel winner Sanaa Lathan (The Affair, Love & Basketball) as high-profile lawyer Lisa Arthur, and singer Jihae (Mortal Engines) as public relations consultant Berry Schneider.
“Succession Is About to Kick the 2022 Emmy Race Into High Gear,” Variety recently headlined, saying, “You thought the 2021 Emmys race was stacked? That was nothing. Get ready for a 2022 awards traffic jam. And yes, it all starts with the Roy family.”
Season 2 ended with a breathless finale in October 2019, exiting on the bomb-drop of Kendall’s impulsive decision to go public on the company’s sprawling scandal and throw his father under the bus in the process, making Daddy Dearest at once very angry and kind of proud – it was Logan, after all, who told Kendall, “You have to be a killer.”
…And then, in the real world, the pandemic hit, keeping fans and critics alike champing at the bit for a full two years.
The brand-new nine episode season opens with Logan in a perilous position, scrambling to secure familial, political, and financial alliances as tensions rise and a bitter corporate battle threatens to turn into a family civil war. Early reviews are glowing: S3 has a 98% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes – Succession’s highest score yet.
Watch Season 1-3 of Succession on Showmax: https://www.showmax.com/eng/tvseries/yous6pmy-succession
RogerEbert.com says it “was a long wait, but the payoff is glorious… It’s just as good as you remember it, if not better. … Season 3 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.”
“If Season 2 was a significant step up from the first,” Empire Magazine says, “this third series is so miraculously funny yet mind-blowingly intense, Succession feels like it’s now well on its way to reaching Sopranos, The West Wing, Mad Men-levels of excellence.”
“Success hasn’t spoiled Succession,” CNN.com says of the series, which, “returns with all its Shakespearean and Murdochian overtones intact, with a bruising father-son battle over its fictional media empire…. The HBO series remains enormously fun.”
Locations for the new season – shot with strict Covid-19 protocols in place – included Rome, Florence and Tuscany, so there’ll be plenty of scenic gorgeousness to frame the vileness and vitriol that’s guaranteed to ensue when the Roy children are forced to take sides, not to mention when Logan gets that knife out of his back … and comes for blood.
