Succession's Sarah Snook Was Surprised By Season 4 Being The End
This post contains spoilers for "Succession."
Everyone knows it's better to quit while you're ahead, but actually doing that can be harder than it sounds. Doubly so when we're talking about "Succession," a show that was already a critical darling before surging in popularity thanks to viewers (like myself) catching up on creator Jesse Armstrong's acidic tragicomedy about the decline of the Roy family's corporate empire during the lockdowns in 2020. Now, the show's become such a defining part of the zeitgeist, all it takes is a certain billionaire's failed rocket launch and suddenly social media is flooded by jokes about Roman Roy (Kieran Culkin) reacting to the catastrophic failure of an attempted satellite launch.
It's to Armstrong's credit, then, that he ended the show at the peak of its popularity in season 4, realizing it had reached its natural conclusion. For everyone else, who had no idea what to expect from the season going in, this was obviously a bit of a shock, not least of all the series' cast. Speaking to Variety in an interview for its August 2023 cover (but conducted prior to the actors' strike), Shiv Roy herself, Sarah Snook, confirmed she didn't know for certain that season 4 was the end until the last read-through. "Which everyone else did as well — everyone else found out effectively then," said Snook. "The sibling in me is like, 'I wasn't the most convinced!'"
Due to her busy schedule, Snook was still reading the season 4 finale script on the ride over to the read-through. "And then by the time I finished, I just arrived and was like, 'That's it. It's done.'" Her co-star and onscreen husband, Matthew Macfadyen, remained hopeful heading in, "But then once we got into the room, Jesse made an announcement saying, 'Yeah. As you can see, this is the last.'"
'It's a different show, I think'
Snook's heavy workload — she only had a month-long break between filming season 4 and shooting her roles for the films "Run Rabbit Run" and "The Beanie Bubble" back-to-back — and time zone differences (she's both from and resides in Australia) were also to blame for her not getting a heads-up before production began. "There was a Zoom that I missed where it was all announced," said Snook. She later clarified:
"But I'm so proud of how it finished up, and just in awe that Jesse had the guts as well to pull the pin on something that was so successful. And it's such a bold move, and it's really paid off."
Adding that she "happily would have done a fifth season," Snook doesn't expect she'll play Shiv again. She also likened the "Succession" finale to the "Six Feet Under" finale, an episode that famously reveals how all the show's main characters die. While the "Succession" finale doesn't go quite that far, the one-two punch of Roy family patriarch Logan (Brian Cox) dying earlier in season 4 and Tom Wambsgans (Macfadyen) beating out Shiv and her siblings to replace Logan as CEO of their company, Waystar Royco, effectively does the same thing, ensuring the show can never return in its original form. In Snook's words:
"In reality, obviously, business keeps going, and the day to day-to-day running of Waystar Royco goes along. But in the world of what the family is, it's a new configuration — Dad's gone. It's a different show, I think. The world exists, but I can't see [Armstrong] doing the world again. Maybe. I don't know!"
Personally, I can't envision a "Succession" spinoff or revival ever matching the high note of the season 4 finale. It really is best to quit when you're ahead.