Succession season 4: All you need to know as the satire returns for final season
The fraught family drama enters its endgame
Watch: Succession releases full season 4 trailer
The Roys are back: Succession returns this month for a fourth and final season and Logan's family is as dysfunctional as ever.
With a thwarted coup ending season three, what will the new episodes have in store and when can you see them?
When is Succession season 4 on TV?
Succession is set to return for season four on Monday, 27 March on Sky Atlantic.
As it will air at the same time as the HBO premiere in the US on Sunday night, the series will debut at 2am in the UK.
Read more: All the best TV and movies coming to Sky and NOW in March
It is expected to follow the schedule of other shows such as House of the Dragon and The Last Of Us which Sky airs at the same time as they debut in the US, by repeating the episode at 9pm later in the day.
Succession season 4 reviews
With the return of the Roy's imminent, early reviews of the show's hotly-anticipated final outing have started to pour in. While many critics have only had access to a handful of episodes, their reactions have been unsurprisingly glowing, with Rotten Tomatoes boasting a solid 100% review rating.
Here's what critics have been saying so far...
The Telegraph: TV's most monstrous dynasty approaches the end (4 min read)
Entertainment Weekly: Buckle up, f—leheads, things are getting real (4 min read)
Deadline: Final season of HBO’s media mogul satire has no intention of going quietly (4 min read)
Variety: Succession tops itself again with brisk, brutal and hilarious final season (5 min read)
Who stars in Succession?
The show's star is undoubtedly Brian Cox as the terrifying media mogul and manipulative patriarch Logan Roy but as with previous seasons, he'll be bolstered by a strong cast in the Roy family and WayStar Roy Co staff.
Jeremy Strong plays former favourite son Kendall, Kieran Culkin is loose cannon youngest son Roman, Sarah Snook plays ruthless daughter Shiv who led the coup against her father, and Alan Ruck is sidelined eldest son Connor.
Read more: Jeremy Strong: Brian Cox can say whatever the f*** he wants about method acting
Fan favourites Matthew Macfadyen, who plays Shiv's husband Tom, and his sidekick Cousin Greg, played by Nicholas Braun, are also back.
Other show stars include J. Smith-Cameron as trusted WayStar exec Gerri Kellman, Peter Friedman as her colleague Frank Vernon, and Justine Lupe as Connor's reluctant partner Willa.
Alexander Skarsgard returns to the cast as tech investor Lukas Matsson.
What will happen in season 4?
Fans of the show will remember horribly tense scenes at the end of season three when the Roy siblings finally joined forces and left their mother's wedding to try to stage a coup against their father, Logan.
However, Shiv's disgruntled husband Tom got in first to warn Logan, leaving the younger Roys seemingly cut out of the family company.
A new trailer for season four shows the siblings fighting back by trying to form alliances with some of WayStar's other shareholders, while Logan wields his authority over his employees and gives a rallying speech, ending in them chanting his name.
He also looks set to continue his divide-and-conquer approach to parenting, telling his children that they are "not serious people" while picking off youngest son Roman and telling him he needs him in tackling the threat from tech investor Lukas Matsson.
Other scenes show Roman threatening Lukas on a mountainside, and Connor's presidential campaign looking as disastrous as ever.
This has been confirmed as the final season of the acclaimed drama, so expect more fireworks than usual from the Roy family.
Why won't there be a Succession season 5?
Despite being one of the best shows on telly, this nail-biting drama promised us an answer to its title from the get-go and with the series' newest outing, it looks like we’ll finally get some closure.
As for why the show has decided to bow out after just four series in an age where most successful shows tend to go on for long past their sell-by date, creator Jesse Armstrong cited an urge to end on a high.
“It's all theoretical until this point, and I have tried to keep it theoretical for a whole number of reasons,” he told The New Yorker while discussing the possibility of a fifth series.
“Who knows about the psychological reasons, but the creative ones were that it felt really useful to not make the final, final decision for ages. You know, there's a promise in the title of Succession. I've never thought this could go on forever. The end has always been kind of present in my mind.
"From season 2, I've been trying to think: Is it the next one, or the one after that, or is it the one after that?"
Recalling the route that led to the decision, he added: "I got together with a few of my fellow writers before we started the writing of season 4, in about November, December, 2021, and I sort of said, 'Look, I think this maybe should be it. But what do you think?'
"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.”
Succession returns on Monday, 27 March at 2am on Sky Atlantic, and will be streaming on NOW. Watch a trailer below.