It remains a staggeringly brilliant show; an ice-cold snake pit of ever shifting loyalties, flecked with some of the most giddily baroque dialogue we have heard since Deadwood.
Because, really, what has happened? The season began with the fallout from Kendall’s unexpected public broadside against his father and, well, notwithstanding the GBI investigation, that is still where we are.
My theory is that all this stasis is deliberate, that season three of Succession is testing our patience because a killer blow is about to rocket out of nowhere and leave us all permanently winded.
Remember season five of Mad Men, where Don Draper suddenly found himself surrounded by images of death? Nooses were drawn in margins, lift doors opened to reveal nothing but long dark elevator shafts, record players had the same dimensions as coffins.
If season one of Succession was about overcoming your dislike of these characters, and season two was about feeling sorry for them, am starting to believe that season three is where we are actively supposed to start worrying about their future.
In an interview with the Times last month, the show’s creator Jesse Armstrong noted that “there is a certain promise in the title”, and said that viewers might feel cheated if the show kept spinning its wheels for ever.
I haven’t been given access to the full season of Succession yet, so I don’t know if my theory is right, but I am a few episodes ahead of broadcast.