The Return of the “Succession” – The New York Times

What will we watch when it’s over?

This question has come up lately every time I meet another fan of “Succession,” which begins its fourth and final season tomorrow. We confess the anticipated grief, pre-missing the despicable and irresistible Roy family, only 10 episodes to go.

I wonder if this intensity of emotion is not only related to our love of the narration of the series. The two years between the end of Season 2 (October 2019) and the start of Season 3 (October 2021) roughly coincided with the first two years of the pandemic, when we acutely felt the absence of our pop-cultural security blankets. The start of a new “Succession” season feels like an expiration, a reprieve.

The spectacle as an “event”, as a cultural phenomenon, a mixture of real public enthusiasm and publicity hype, is a curious thing. You can buckle up and go for a ride – mark premiere dates on your calendar, set the DVR or plan a viewing party, dissect each episode to group texts – or you can, through an iron will or all just don’t worry about the show at hand, sit down.

When you’ve opted out, the fuss seems fun but insignificant. I skipped the current event which was “Game of Thrones” and was unmoved by the distant din of “can you believe this person defeated/slept with/killed this person/dragon? ” that followed each episode. It was comforting to be indifferent, to retain my curiosity and my energy.

When you’re all into it, it’s a different story. I now bask in the electricity crackling between me and another “Succession” enthusiast as we discuss our predictions for the new season. I love reminding people that the premiere is this weekend and hearing their sighs of relief, of “Finally!” I’m a completist, vacuuming all profiles and behind-the-scenes gossip and podcast interviews. (I recommend this video of 10 things actor Jeremy Strong can’t live without from GQ and Hunter Harris’s on-location dispatch from Tuscany ahead of last season, from New York Magazine.)

Of course, there will be other great shows to watch. (“Couples Therapy,” a really good show that isn’t what you think if you think it has to be cheesy or vulgar like I did before I was totally enthralled, returns April 28.) by compared to the nutrient-rich stew of “Succession,” we’ll find something else to feast on before long. Mourning the impending end of a show is a bittersweet part of being a fan, as nurturing as the excitement of preseason and post-episode brooding.

And if the prospect of saying goodbye forever seems too painful, there’s always that. In a recent interview with The New Yorker, “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong remained hopeful, “I warned the end of the show, when I spoke to some of my collaborators, like: Maybe to be that there is another part of this world we could come back to, if there was an appetite?” he said. “Maybe there is something else that could be done, which exploits what has been good in the way we worked on it.” A spin-off? A reunion? A one-time holiday special sometime in the future? A fan can dream.

For more

• Catch up with a final recap of Season 3.

• “It’s a weird thing, grief when you finish a job. It’s sort of awful and heartbreaking, but at the same time there’s a slight relief – a complicated mix of feelings. Sarah Lyall spoke with Matthew Macfadyen, who plays Tom Wambsgans.

• “They’re both interested deep down, and neither of them needs to be the center of attention in a room, and no one is smarter than either of them in a room. .” J. Smith-Cameron’s husband, writer and director Kenneth Lonergan, on what his wife has in common with his character, Gerri Kellman.

• As of 2021, how Nicholas Braun raises Cousin Greg.

THE WEEK IN CULTURE

CULTURAL CALENDAR

📺 “Yellow Vests” (Sunday): The first season of this series – which traveled back and forth in time between a team of high school female soccer players whose plane crashed in the Canadian wilderness and their present-day traumatized selves – was a minor sensation. That was partly for its stellar cast (Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis, and Christina Ricci, among others), partly for its nostalgia-overdrive ’90s soundtrack, and partly because it was scary as hell. Season 2 begins this weekend on Showtime.

📚 “Crying in H Mart” (Tuesday): Michelle Zauner, lead singer of Japanese Breakfast, is now probably as well known for her critically acclaimed memoir, released in paperback after two years on the bestseller list, as she is for her music. As David Marchese wrote, “H Mart” is about “food and memory, the confusion that can come with biracial identity, Zauner’s strained relationship with his hyper-demanding Korean mother, and then his grief over ‘losing his mother to cancer’.

RECIPE OF THE WEEK

Spring minestrone with kale and pasta

There’s no better way to evoke spring at mealtime than by piling green things on your plate — or with this soup, in a stock pot. It’s the time every year I go wild with asparagus, kale, peas, dill — anything that banishes the jaded gray of a New York winter. Kay Chun’s Quick Spring Soup does it brilliantly, with the exciting addition of fresh ginger.

REAL ESTATE

What you get for $250,000: A Craftsman bungalow in Kaukauna, Wisconsin; a townhouse in Philadelphia; or a mid-century ranch house in Florence, Ala.

Cost calculator: Where is it cheaper to build than to buy?

The hunt: A couple wanted to swap their house in Pennsylvania for a rental in California. Which did they choose? Play our game.

LIFE

Luxury gymnasiums: When the exercise requires an approval process and a monthly fee of up to $2,750.

WIRECUTTER TIPS

Storage Container Sanity

It’s spring cleaning season, which can be as daunting as it is inspiring. I recently finished some house projects and my garage looked like it had been swept away by a tornado. The solution was simple storage containers. In Wirecutter’s guide, our experts threw 32 bins down the stairs, soaked them in the rain, and filled them to find the best ones. I used a mix of Iris Weathertight Totes and HDX Tough Storage Totes, but our guide includes additional options for dealing with your messes. — Daniela Gorny

For step-by-step advice on how to keep everything in your home spotlessly clean, sign up for Wirecutter’s Clean Everything newsletter.

WEEKEND GAME

March Madness: By Monday night, the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments will be down to their final four teams. The UConn women’s team, which had struggled with injuries this season, is back in full force and looks set to win it all. UConn plays Ohio State today (4:00 p.m. Eastern on ABC). On the men’s side, Florida Atlantic, a small school from Boca Raton that had never won a tournament match before this year, faces Kansas State tonight for a berth in the semifinals (6 p.m. on TBS).