If you’re sad about Succession coming to an end with the upcoming fourth season (premiering March 26 on HBO and HBO Max), you’re not the only one — but it wasn’t entirely a surprise to the cast.
“We were expecting it while we were making the show, but you don’t believe it ‘til [creator and showrunner] Jesse [Armstrong] says it,” series star Nicholas Braun (who plays cousin Greg) told ET. “We’re all pretty bummed.”
While they were filming, “We had an idea,” he said. “None of us read the script before it came to us. A table read draft came to us, so we didn’t exactly know how it was going to end.”
As for how the show wraps up, all Braun could tease is “the ending is fire.” And when it comes to specifics about where it leaves his character — say, running the company? — “I can’t wait to answer this question because it’s asked all the time,” he admitted. “Just believe in Greg. That’s the main thing. Just believe in him and we’ll see what happens to him.” That being said, it’s not going to be an easy time for him, he continued. “He gets battered around again this season, some fun stuff.”
Courtesy of HBO
When filming wrapped, “I was sad as hell my last day,” Braun recalled. “I finished a couple weeks ago, and it was a really tough day, saying goodbye to everybody. It’s been the greatest working experience of my life, so saying goodbye to those people is really tough.”
It was near the end of February, about a month before what is now the final season premiere, that Armstrong revealed that the Emmy-winning drama is saying goodbye.
“I got together with a few of my fellow-writers before we started the writing of season four, in about November, December, 2021, and I sort of said, ‘Look, I think this maybe should be it. But what do you think?’” he told the New Yorker. “And we played out various scenarios: We could do a couple of short seasons, or two more seasons. Or we could go on for ages and turn the show into something rather different, and be a more rangy, freewheeling kind of fun show, where there would be good weeks and bad weeks. Or we could do something a bit more muscular and complete, and go out sort of strong. And that was definitely always my preference.”
In the remaining 10 episodes of the series, HBO teases, “the sale of media conglomerate Waystar Royco to tech visionary Lukas Matsson [Alexander Skarsgård] moves ever closer. The prospect of this seismic sale provokes existential angst and familial division among the Roys as they anticipate what their lives will look like once the deal is complete. A power struggle ensues as the family weighs up a future where their cultural and political weight is severely curtailed.”
All we know is we agree with Braun: It’s going to be “sad as hell” to say goodbye to the Roys.
Succession, Fourth and Final Season Premiere, Sunday, March 26, 9/8c, HBO and HBO Max
