Mercifully, Succession will return to HBO with new episodes in October. And while it’s difficult to imagine anyone actually wanting every single piece of art for the next few years to deeply address the ongoing pandemic, fans of the Jesse Armstrong-created critical hit shouldn’t expect any of that with the upcoming third season.
Writing for Vulture, Hunter Harris pointed out in a new feature that shooting for Season 3 was initially set to begin in New York City shortly after the beginning of the March 2020 lockdown. On that timeline, new episodes would have launched in the fall of that year. That, of course, didn’t happen.
Armstrong, per Harris, made the call “early on” to not rewrite the season’s finished scripts to bring in the pandemic. Sarah Snook, who plays Shiv, summarized why having a focus on COVID simply wouldn’t be realistic.
“These are really wealthy people,” Snook said. “And unfortunately, none of the world’s really wealthy people were going to be affected by the pandemic.”
This is in line with comments Snook made in a separate interview for Variety’s Big Ticketpodcast in August of last year. At the time, Snook said Armstrong wanted to “be dedicated about it” while also pointing to a larger plan of keeping the Roys busy with Royisms instead of thrusting the family into an ill-fitting pandemic tale.
The continuing Succession story may not be addressing the pandemic, but the cast of the revered series was directly affected by COVID-19. Actor Mark Blum, who played cruise exec Bill Lockhart on the series, died due to complications from COVID-19. Also, Alan Ruck (Connor) and Brian Cox (Logan) both previously tested positive for the virus.
Succession is back in October. Above, revisit a recent teaser showing what fans can expect in the new episodes, which will pick up right where the explosive Season 2 finale left off.
