A show about the insanely wealthy squabbling over power might seem like a hard sell in an age of precipitous income inequality, but consider: What if it were also really funny? While HBO’s Succession is technically a drama, it excels most as a farce. In the show, wealth and those who wield it aren’t particularly exceptional. In fact, they’re often idiots — and I can’t wait to catch up with them all in season 3.
For the uninitiated, Succession is a series about what happens when Logan Roy, the powerful CEO of the WayStar media conglomerate (think of him as a Rupert Murdoch type, and WayStar as Fox News Corp.) is about to announce his retirement — and then changes his mind, throwing his family’s power-jockeying into disarray. There’s palace intrigue, double-crossing, and lots of very inventive swearing, all culminating in the second-season finale where (spoiler!) Kendall Roy, Logan’s favored son at the start of the series before a steep fall from grace, decides to turn against his father and accuse him of financial crimes, instead of taking the fall as planned.
In the trailer for the new season, this naturally leads to war, as the already-antsy Roy family are now the subjects of a criminal investigation that can put all of them in prison, instead of just one of them.
Also, Tom Wamsgams (Matthew Macfadyen) tells Cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) that someone is going to “fire a million poisonous spiders down your dicky,” which is honestly the kind of thing I come to this show for. Also, the memes are good.
Succession season 3 premieres this fall on HBO.