Will there be a Succession Season 5?

Is there going to be a Succession Season 5? Following the Season 4 finale, fans aren’t ready to say goodbye to the Roys – so, will Succession return for a fifth chapter?

Succession is a tough sell from the outset, especially now: here’s a show about the rich, nasty, out-of-touch corporate elite who regularly betray the public’s trust to nourish their pockets and egos, woven with fast-paced business speak and abhorrent characters.

And yet, it’s one of the best television shows ever made, a credit to showrunner Jesse Armstrong and co.’s peerless writing and storytelling – it’s a constant cycle of empathy and regret. Four seasons in, its acclaim has never faltered, and it’s already primed to sweep the next Emmys ceremony.

With the Season 4 finale hitting screens this week, fans may be left wondering: is there going to be a Succession Season 5?

Will there be a Succession Season 5?

No, there will not be a Succession Season 5 as the show is officially ending with Season 4.

The sad we’ll be without it will definitely be more than the sad we get from watching it, but Succession’s endgame was inevitable: how much more can we dance around the show’s promise?

In an interview with The New Yorker, Armstrong was asked if he shot the fourth season with the possibility of a fifth season in mind. “I don’t know whether that’s a psychological trick on myself, to stop being sad about stopping doing something which I really, really enjoyed,” he said.

“Or it’s a creative trick to not make us get lachrymose or sentimental, or to kind of do it differently than we have done before. And a certain percentage of not definitively saying early on that this was the last season was also a feeling that sometimes on the show, previously, we’ve discovered plot avenues, character dynamics, which have demanded we follow them.

“And therefore not wanting to definitively close off the possibility of that happening this season – at least until it got weird to not say, ‘OK, I think this really is it.'”

Why is Succession ending?

As Armstrong said, “there’s a promise in the title of Succession” – it was never meant to 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?” he added, explaining how he weighed up the idea of extending the final arc of the show in two shorter 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,” he added.

HBO

Brian Cox praised the decision to close the series before it reached its “sell-by date”, comparing the finale to Game of Thrones’ infamous ending. “They didn’t know what they were doing at the end, and they had an ending which was not really satisfactory. And the audience was furious,” he told The New York Times.

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, the problem with a lot of television, particularly American television, is it goes past its sell-by date. And the great thing about Jesse and the writers is they wouldn’t do that.

“It was difficult for them because it wasn’t easy to bring this to an end. And I think Jesse found it sad — at the premiere, somebody shouted out, ‘Well, if it was so sad, why did you do it?’ But I think there are lots of reasons for Jesse finishing it. And I applaud the fact that he did that. It was courageous because everybody loves the show. Always leave the party when it’s at its height, not when it’s going down.”

Will there be a Succession spinoff?

We’ll learn to live without the Roys, but could Succession find another life in a spinoff? Well, it’s a possibility – but don’t expect it any time soon.

Armstrong has stressed that the story is “complete” by the end of Season 4. “This is the muscular season to exhaust all our reserves of interest, and I think there’s some pain in all these characters that’s really strong,” he said.

“But the feeling that there could be something else in an allied world, or allied characters, or some of the same characters – that’s also strong in me.

“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 Seasons 1-4 are streaming on HBO and Sky now. Check out our other coverage below:

Season 4 cast | Season 4 release schedule | Season 4 runtimes | Is Succession based on a real family? | What time does Succession drop? | Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4 | Episode 5 | Episode 6 | Episode 7 | Episode 8 | Episode 9 | Episode 10 | Ending explained | Finale runtime