Succession season 3 review: Withering, spicy as hell TV is what everyone will be talking about

Forget everything else. For the next two months this is the only TV series anyone will want to obsess over.

For most people, “PJs” translates to pyjamas. In the world of Succession, “PJs” stands for private jets.

And they think nothing of taking two separate PJs from the same airfield to the same meeting attended only by three people. But that world of PJs, helicopters, chauffeured black cars and looking down on your kingdom from glass penthouses isn’t presented as aspirational.

If you watch Succession and the only thing you take away is “geez, wouldn’t it be nice to have all those shiny things”, you’re probably a detestable monster who doesn’t realise everyone in your life hates you.

Because no number of baubles or wealth would be worth the emotional abuse, exhausting power plays and truly awful parenting in the world of Succession. It’s a vipers’ den, where the ever-present jostle to be the worst person possible is necessary to win.

But it sure is spicy as hell for TV – and it’s what everyone you know is going to be talking about for the next 10 weeks.

Scene from Succession season three on Foxtel.

Succession returns for its third season after a two-year Covid-enforced break with escalating Shakespearean drama, stinging writing and an even stronger perspective on the corrosive effect of extreme wealth.

After Kendall’s (Jeremy Strong) season two finale bombshell – instead of playing sacrificial lamb, he publicly accused his father Logan (Brian Cox) of covering up the company’s crimes in the cruise division – the family is more fractured than ever.

Kendall is amassing a legal and PR team in New York while Logan first jets to a non-jurisdictional country with his pack of executives. They both need to avoid prison, win or retain the chief executive position while also ensuring the publicly listed company stays within family hands.

Everyone is at battle stations in the war between Kendall and Logan, but loyalty is a fickle thing, you only side with the person you think will prevail.

Roy siblings Shiv (Sarah Snook), squirrelly Roman (Kieran Culkin) and unwanted Connor (Alan Ruck) are looking for cover, but also looking to be courted. There is only one goal and it’s in the title of the series – who will take over the family’s media and entertainment conglomerate?

Succession streams on Foxtel. New customers get a 10-day free trial and start streaming. Sign up at foxtel.com.au

A PJ in the background. Picture: HBO/Foxtel

No one does anything for any reason other than personal benefit, and every Roy reveals even uglier shades of themselves this season, highlighting there really is no line they won’t cross.

At least the physically and socially awkward dark horse cousin Greg (the comically delightful Nicholas Braun) is naively transparent about his ambitions instead of feigning care for ethics, the planet, women or even Logan’s health.

Logan has been playing his kids against each other all their lives, and the closer they are in the orbit of his very conditional favour, the crueller they become. It’s an abject lesson in the damage wrought by one’s upbringing by emotional abuse and extreme entitlement.

Creator Jesse Armstrong modelled the Roys on dynastic corporate families – and, arguably, royal ones too – and if even 40 per cent of what’s in Succession actually happens in real-life, and they do, god help the rest of us. No one ever had a chance.

There is nothing redemptive about the Roy family or their parasitic hangers-on, suckling at the teat of power and privilege for individual benefit.

That you even think there might be is credit to Armstrong and the writers who tease and play with your empathy – Kendall’s regression into little lost boy, Roman’s near-crippling insecurities, Shiv’s desire to be taken seriously, and the desperate need for their dad’s approval.

Kendall is stirring some s**t. Picture: HBO/Foxtel

But for all the complexity in the characters – none of them are flat, arch villains – Armstrong and co delight in punching you in the face to remind you there’s no humanity here, only self-serving schemes.

The Roys pejoratively refer to non-institutional shareholders as “sh*t-eaters” or “the retired janitors of Idaho”, but barely with any disdain because you’d have to acknowledge them as people to actually be disdainful.

While Succession’s withering writing and primo performances usually attract the lion’s share of praise, all the craft is also dazzling, including the on-point costumes, Nicholas Britell’s dramatic score and its roster of directors including Mark Mylod.

The camera work is particularly kinetic in ensemble scenes – it’s the push-in reaction shots on characters’ faces that really sell the absurdity of everything that’s going on.

Whether it’s Shiv’s incredulous or pained looks as she’s sidelined, or the sheer panic on any of the lackeys’ faces when they’re called to have a position, god forbid they should accidentally disagree with Logan’s dictums.

Roman still can't sit on a chair properly. Picture: HBO/Foxtel

For all of its trappings, the genius in Succession is that it’s a captivating, old-fashioned morality tale, a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah in which the seductions and sins of the wealthy are multidude.

Except in the end, there may not be a righteous force to dole out comeuppance, and that reflects the truth of the real world in more ways than one.

No wonder we’re all so obsessed, hoping to see the mega-rich burn.

Succession season three started on Foxtel On Demand on Monday, October 18 at 12pm AEDT

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Originally published as Succession season 3 review: Withering, spicy as hell TV is what everyone will be talking about