Succession season 5 was discussed as an alternate ending plan since creator Jesse Armstrong “was wary of saying good-bye” to the beloved HBO show.
Succession season 5 was seriously discussed since creator Jesse Armstrong “was wary of saying good-bye” to the show. After four successful seasons, the acclaimed HBO series came to a dramatic conclusion this past May. Waystar RoyCo was sold to Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård) and Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) became CEO. The Roy siblings Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Roman (Kieran Culkin), and Shiv (Sarah Snook) end up on the outside looking in, though each of these endings were perfect for each particular character.
However, Succession season 5 was once considered and an alternate ending plan was discussed. In a guest column for Vulture, Armstrong outlined the decision to end the acclaimed HBO drama. In December 2021, a fifth season was on the table since the series creator “was wary of saying good-bye” to the show. However, after convening with his fellow executive producers and writers, they decided to end the show after season 4. Read his comments below:
So once season three was complete and aired, in December 2021, I got my fellow executive-producer–writers together. Lucy Prebble, Tony Roche, Jon Brown, and Will Tracy joined me at my office in Brixton to look at the alternative future-season shapes I’d written up on the walls: one final season of ten episodes, or two of six or eight episodes. My sense was that we should do one last full-fat season rather than stretch it out. But I was wary of saying good-bye too fast to all the relationships and opportunities, of leaving creative money on the table, regretting all the subplots that would go unwritten, the jokes left untold.
We went round the room, this little committee on whether to whack the show. Will, the coldhearted killer, voted over Zoom for just one more season. Jon thought two more. He had always imagined that five seasons was the right shape. Tony said that what he wanted for us, for himself, was to keep making the show, but in his heart he thought the creatively wise thing might be to end. Lucy, I think, put the question to bed: We could, if we wanted, keep going with a show that became increasingly rangy and fun — a climbing plant grown leggy but still throwing off beautiful blooms now and then. But the ten-episode season was the muscular way to go out.
Succession Season 4’s Ending Was Perfect
Armstrong does make an attractive argument for why Succession should have continued into season 5. There were many more subplots and relationships that could have been explored further in two more eight-episode seasons, as opposed to the one final 10-episode season that audiences got. However, it’s ultimately for the best that Succession ended after season 4. Instead of risking joining the regrettable list of shows that dragged on for too long, Succession ended when it should have, and its finale was heralded as one of the greatest in the history of television.
Though he was wary about ending the show after season 4, Armstrong and company ultimately made the right decision. The show’s impetus is the conflict revolving around the succession at Waystar, and once Logan Roy’s permanent successor was named during the series finale, it was fundamentally the end of the show’s story. Though Kendall, Roman, and Shiv’s lives will go on, the Succession season 4 finale saw them lose what they wanted most, to succeed their father, and thus should be the end of their story.
