Succession star Alan Ruck explains why now is the right time to end the acclaimed HBO series after four seasons.
It was announced last month that the soon-to-be-released fourth season of Succession would be the last for the HBO series, but the cast has known that for quite some time. Alan Ruck, who plays Connor Roy in the series, told Empire why he thinks it’s the right time to bring Succession to an end.
“The truth is, we’ve all known on the show since June,” Alan Ruck said. “And I think it’s the right time to end it in terms of the struggle to see who’s going to take command of this empire. A fifth season would have been drawn out, and if it just faded away, that would have been a disgrace.” Plenty of shows out there have more than outstayed their welcome, so fans should be pleased that Succession will be going out on its own terms. Ruck also teased his character’s Presidental aspirations in the new season, however unlikely they may be. “I don’t think it’s far-fetched to say that this delusional man with unlimited resources could make it to the highest office in the land,” Ruck teased, before adding, “Not everything is resolved” at the close of the series. “Like life itself.“
Succession explores themes of power and family dynamics through the eyes of patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox) and his four grown children, Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Siobhan (Sarah Snook), Roman (Kieran Culkin), and Connor (Alan Ruck). The fourth and final season finds the sale of media conglomerate Waystar Royco to tech visionary Lukas Matsson moving 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.
Although Succession will be coming to a close, series creator Jesse Armstrong has teased that the world could return in another form if the interest is there. “I do think that this succession story that we were telling is complete,” Armstrong said. “This is the muscular season to exhaust all our reserves of interest…[but] I have caveated the end of the show, when I’ve talked to some of my collaborators, like: Maybe there’s another part of this world we could come back to, if there was an appetite? Maybe there’s something else that could be done, that harnessed what’s been good about the way we’ve worked on this. So that is another true feeling.“
Succession‘s fourth and final season will debut on HBO on March 26th. As I haven’t watched the series for myself, I’ll leave it to you; Is Alan Ruck correct in saying this is the right time for Succession to end, or could you see the series lasting longer?