When it comes to pandemic-induced production delays, perhaps no small-screen casualty was more upsetting than Succession. Coming off a god-tier second season that deservedly won seven Emmys, including Outstanding Drama Series, the HBO series hasn’t aired a new episode since October 2019—a void that can be fed by rewatching “Succession’s Coldest Insults” on YouTube only so many times before you’re begging for new, even colder insults.
Thankfully, the wait is almost over. Succession isn’t fully back in our lives just yet, but HBO has confirmed that Season 3 will air this fall (specific date TBD). Better yet, the network dropped a one-minute teaser on Tuesday confirming, in mostly vague terms, that our ensemble of sociopaths and sycophants are as awful and conniving as ever. Let’s see what everyone’s been up to since Kendall turned on his father/finally made him proud.
Kendall
“You are Kendall Roy, you are fucking Kendall Roy,” Kendall Roy (my father Jeremy Strong) says to himself in the opening seconds of the teaser. Definitely not the words of a guy on the verge of another existential crisis:
To be fair, Kendall has good reason to be feeling himself a little. Rather than become Logan’s “blood sacrifice” for last season’s cruise lines scandal, Kendall turned the tables on his dad at the end of Season 2 with a mic-drop-worthy press conference, setting up a family battle royale for control of Waystar Royco. And whenever Kendall’s in a good mood, the business bro/techno Gatsby side of the character tends to emerge from the shadows. There is nothing more emblematic of Kendall getting his insufferable mojo back than the sight of a garish jacket that looks like the spiritual cousin to the one Ryan Gosling wore in Drive:
He is Kendall fucking Roy all right.
Logan
So, how does Logan feel about his son double-crossing him? While the ominous smirk right before the Season 2 finale’s credits may have implied that a small part of Logan was proud of Kendall for having a killer instinct, he sure as hell won’t be taking it easy on him. “I’m gonna grind his fucking bones to make my bread,” Logan says over the phone to Kendall’s tireless assistant, Jess, who quickly relays the message to him. (Logan also cackles over the phone like a cartoon villain, surprising no one.)
Publicly, at least, it appears that Logan will be feeling pressure from protesters calling for his resignation:
But don’t let the mounting pressure on Logan—or the fact that he’s still prone to childish bursts of anger—lead you to believe that his downfall is imminent. This is America—a place where rich guys get away with awful stuff all the time. The only time Logan should ever be underestimated is when he kicks the bucket, and even then I wouldn’t be surprised if he pulled a Jigsaw and set up some kind of torture device at his will reading.
Shiv
Shiv is in a similar position to where she was in Season 2: caught between loyalty to her siblings and to Logan. It’s unclear where Shiv’s allegiances stand this season, but she does tell an off-screen character—likely Kendall, but maybe Roman?—that she’ll side with them only if she’s allowed to become CEO of the company. This might spell bad news for Logan; the look Shiv gives her dad on a private jet certainly makes her worthy of her name:
Shiv also spits into a notebook:
As a writer, I’m both offended and disconcertedly turned on.
Roman
Roman is largely passive in the teaser, but he still makes for a reliably solid source of snarky reactions to his conniving siblings. The lack of tasty teaser moments notwithstanding, expect a meatier role for Roman in Season 3. If Succession’s freshman outing focused on Kendall’s (failed) attempt to ascend the corporate ladder, and Season 2 was about much of the same for Shiv, it stands to reason that the third season will spend a bit more time in Roman’s orbit.
Will Roman make for a more capable CEO than his siblings? Probably not, but hey, people change when they’re inadvertently caught in a hostage situation.
Tom and Cousin Greg
“Logan’s gonna fire a million poisonous spiders down your dicky,” Tom Wambsgans says—yep, “dicky”—to which Cousin Greg responds: “That sounds, like, kinda dramatic.” These bumbling buffoons look to be as bumbling in their buffoonery as ever. (If it ain’t broke!) Tom is once again exerting his dominance at the workplace, this time by flipping over a desk:
I’m not saying I would allow a million poisonous spiders to be fired down my “dicky” in order to get access to Season 3 right now, but I’m not not saying that, either.
Gerri
Gerri isn’t in a single second of footage in this teaser, which is downright criminal. Whoever spliced this footage together is a Slime Puppy—#ReleaseTheGerriCut—though, yes, I will slurp up whatever Succession content is released between now and the fall.
