Every Season Of Succession, Ranked

This article contains discussions of addiction and domestic abuse.

Because "Succession" began its run in 2018 in the shadow of HBO juggernauts like "Game of Thrones," which was drawing to a close and ultimately ended in 2019, I feel like it didn't get a ton of attention while everyone was laser-focused on Westeros and who would end up atop the Iron Throne. (The answer to that long-simmering question was ridiculous, by the way — but that's a different article.) As "Succession" continued, though, Jesse Armstrong's show about an evil, super-wealthy family who also happen to be fighting over a seat to a throne — though it's a bit more metaphorical than the one in "Game of Thrones" — picked up traction, and before long, it became yet another massive critical and commercial success for HBO.

Armstrong and his talented team of writers and directors introduced the world to the powerful Roy family, the patriarch of whom — Logan, played imperiously by Brian Cox — runs a massive media and entertainment company called Waystar RoyCo. (As we learn, the company oversees everything from cruise ships to movie studios to news networks.) In a modern take on William Shakespeare's "King Lear," where an aging king's daughters (and a few of their husbands) try to convince their father in turn that they should wear the crown in his stead, Logan suffers a health setback in the show's pilot, sending his kids Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Roman (Kieran Culkin), and Siobhan (Sarah Snook), the last of whom goes by "Shiv," scrambling. (Alan Ruck's Connor, the elder and oft-forgotten half-sibling of Kendall, Roman, and Shiv, is also there, but he's never a real contender for the CEO role at Waystar Royco; more on him later.)

So, where does each "Succession" season rank if we're going from "worst" to "best?" Before I keep going, let me make one thing abundantly clear: there are no bad seasons of "Succession," in my humble estimation. With that in mind, here are all four seasons of "Succession" ranked from "least incredible and glorious" to "holy sh**, this is an unimpeachable masterpiece."

The only reason that season 2 of "Succession" falls last in this ranking is because, compared to the bombshell moments we see in other seasons, it's a little slower in its pacing and plotting ... even though it still builds to a fairly explosive finish (and, again, is brilliantly crafted, written, and performed). At the start of the season, Kendall, who has just left a rehabilitation center after a public incident involving drugs and alcohol (which I'm only being vague about because it happens in the season 1 finale, so I'll circle back), gives up on his planned hostile takeover of Waystar Royco, and Shiv and her new husband Tom Wambsgans (a ridiculously excellent Matthew Macfadyen) aren't exactly having a blast in the early days of their marriage. While Logan "promises" the role of Waystar CEO to Shiv (an offer he'll retract when she majorly stumbles later in the season), he also sends Roman to do his dirty work with the Pierces, a rival media family and empire.

Again, season 2 of "Succession" is really good; midway through the season, the Pierces and Roys converge in the episode "Tern Haven," leading to an all-out war of attrition, and in the eighth episode "Dundee," Kendall performs one of the most cringey raps ever committed to film for his father's birthday. During a deposition in Washington D.C. about impropriety on the Waystar Royco cruise lines, the downtrodden Cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) fumbles even the simplest of questions — and Tom's bizarro 3 A.M. correspondences to Greg, his punching bag, are revealed, giving us the bon mot "You can't make a Tomlette without breaking some Gregs." This all builds to a season finale that sticks the entire Roy company on a yacht in Croatia as they decide who should be the scapegoat for the cruise scandal; even though Kendall ultimately solves this issue by holding a press conference and revealing that his dad always knew what was going on, the finale lets side characters like Tom and Connor's paramour Willa (Justine Lupe) act out in increasingly funny ways. (Specifically, Tom eats a chicken leg off Logan's plate in a deeply strange act of defiance, and Willa tosses an entire iPad off of the yacht when her play gets bad reviews.) Season 2 is great! It just falls behind the rest by a tiny bit.

Whenever I tell people they should watch "Succession," they say that they had trouble getting past the pilot because all of the characters are so insufferable; even Kieran Culkin has said something to that effect. "As we were shooting, I was like, 'I might not watch it, this isn't for me.' And then something clicked," Culkin told the Los Angeles Times. "The first few episodes, they're good, there's quality there, but I just don't care about the characters. And somehow after a few episodes, I started to care." If you can stick it out, though, you'll be richly rewarded.

Yes, the pilot is a little janky and even off-putting (plus, you'll have to make yourself forget that Roman has a wife and kids in said pilot that disappear immediately afterwards), but as season 1 progresses, you get a sense of every single character's pathos and damage ... and you also realize that the show has an incredible (if dark) sense of humor. Kendall, who tries to force his powerful father out of the CEO position by force, is ultimately fired from Waystar — along with some supporters, although Kendall swiftly sues his own father in return — and we learn some genuinely distressing things about the Roy family, including that Logan was abused by his father as a child. (In one of the show's most sobering scenes, a befuddled and confused Logan, whose illness is affecting him more than he'll admit, slaps Kendall's son at a Thanksgiving celebration.)

Season 1 builds to a truly incredible point, though, when all is said and done. As everyone prepares for Shiv and Tom's wedding in England (including Logan, who almost doesn't bother to show up, and Caroline, the domineering mother of Kendall, Roman, and Shiv played by Harriet Walter), Tom and his coterie of debauched gentlemen have a truly weird bachelor party in Budapest, and Kendall, struggling with his addiction, goes overboard at the wedding itself. While Shiv is tucked away in her private quarters already requesting an open marriage from her new husband, Kendall is in a car with one of the party's waiters on a mission to find more drugs; when the two crash, Kendall leaves the server to die. His father, predictably, saves him by covering up the death entirely and sending him to rehab, which is where we find Kendall at the beginning of season 2. Kendall also has to agree to stop trying to take over the company from his father, because in the Roy family, arrangements always come with serious strings attached.

In the aftermath of season 2's finale bombshell (courtesy of Kendall), the Roys, along with assorted Waystar RoyCo employees, are fractured into factions. While Kendall tries to work with non-Roy allies Stewy Hosseini (Arian Moayed) and Sandi Furness (Hope Davis), the rest of the Roy kids are still under their father's weighty thumb alongside longtime Waystar stalwarts like Gerri Kellman (the incomparable J. Smith-Cameron). In the midst of all this, the White House orders the Department of Justice to investigate Waystar, which rattles even the typically unflappable Logan.

Midway through the season, a severe urinary tract infection affects Logan to the point where he stops even functioning (which also leads to his kids making near-constant jokes about Logan's assumed infidelity with his assistant Kerry, played by Zoe Winters), leading to a vote on where the majority stake in Waystar rests that doesn't even include Logan. Irate, the patriarch doesn't consult his children when he decides to back an extremely right-wing and potentially dangerous candidate for President named Jeryd Mencken (Justin Kirk) and also decides he wants to buy a digital media company called GoJo, run by an eccentric guy named Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skårsgard). After Kendall throws an utterly ludicrous 40th birthday party for himself, complete with a giant replica of his own mom's birth canal, the family gathers in Italy for Caroline's wedding, and the war between Kendall and Logan reaches a fever pitch. (In a sickening scene that, again, involves Kendall's son, Logan invites the young boy to try his food while he and Kendall have a private dinner, not-so-subtly suggesting that he was checking the food for poison using his own grandkid.)

Once again, the season finale is juicy as hell. Amidst Caroline's lavish Italian wedding, Tom allies himself in secret with Logan and brings Greg along for the ride, at which point Logan tells Kendall, Shiv, and Roman that he's selling the company and circumventing their shared attempt to take it from him outright. It's an astounding sequence performed beautifully by everybody involved and brings the season to an incredible, suspenseful, and emotionally resonant conclusion. Also, this season includes a scene where Roman actually sends a picture of his penis to his own dad, so based on that alone, it deserved the second spot on this list.

The best season of "Succession" also happens to be the last one. After Logan betrays his children to retain the upper hand at the end of season 3, we find Shiv, Roman, and Kendall aligned for once, even if the company they're trying to start — it's called "The Hundred" and is described by Kendall as being "Substack-meets-Masterclass-meets-The Economist-meets-The-New Yorker" – sounds ridiculous as hell. (No other show will ever get "nonsense business jargon" as right as "Succession" always did; the characters always managed to sound like utter clowns while spouting the wordiest bullcrap you've ever heard.) Naturally, that doesn't work out, so they try to buy the Pierce family's media group out from under their father's nose instead for a whopping $10 billion. Logan concedes but manages to bring Roman back to his side ... although all of this is short-lived since, in the final season's third episode, "Connor's Wedding," Logan abruptly dies while aboard his private plane.

"Connor's Wedding" is, without question, one of the best television episodes ever made — thanks in large part to HBO's in-house grim reaper Mark Mylod, who directed the installment — but the string of episodes that follows is also unimpeachably great. Amidst the dissolution of her marriage to Tom, Shiv discovers that she's pregnant, a revelation that culminates in a knock-down, drag-out fight between the two for the first time on the series (which is, frankly, a masterclass in acting between Sarah Snook and Matthew Macfadyen). Meanwhile, the GoJo acquisition is still happening, so Lukas Matsson is on hand to mess with all of the Roys in turn, and in the middle of everything, Waystar's in-house news network ATN calls the presidential election for Jeryd Mencken after a voting center is attacked and thousands of votes are lost. Then, just as the Roy siblings finally come together again, everything fractures between them one last time.

From the season's penultimate episode — "Church and State," which focuses on Logan's funeral — to its bitter finale "With Open Eyes" — which sees Tom, not "eldest boy" Kendall or anyone else, take over as the CEO of Waystar Royco — "Succession" completely sticks the landing, providing a satisfying if bitter conclusion to the story of the Roys. "Succession" is excellent in every season, and if you want to experience that for yourself, it's streaming on HBO Max now.

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.