WASHINGTON (AP) Jennifer Gould, an Oregon-based trusts and estates lawyer, thinks the premise of HBO’s hit series Inheritance chronicling a billionaire media mogul and his children fights to take over the family business is a little imperfect.
The idea that they wouldn’t have a firm succession plan in place is ridiculous, Gould said.
Yet she set aside Monday to cry and cry after watching the highly anticipated The series finale broadcast on Sunday evenings.
With the critically acclaimed drama fourth and final season ending, dedicated Succession fans plan to watch the massive 88-minute finale while turning online for endless emotional support, memes and theories about how the show might end and who will win.
No one I know in real life watches the show, Gould said, adding that the emotional toll of season four led her to seek support online, which is how she landed on the site. Social news web Reddit, where a chat dedicated to all things Succession has over 456,000 members.
In preparation for Sunday, Gould is also re-reading King Lear, among Shakespeare’s darkest tragedies, about a declining monarch and his children’s battle for the crown. Gould thinks the piece could offer clues to the end of the series.
It’s pretty obvious that this is a loose account of King Lear, Gould said of Succession. I watch him obsessively. I don’t think there is any other way to look at it.
Succession has always been about the makeup of its audience, not its size, and its popularity among the coastal media and agenda groups the show portrays and attracts means the finale is expected to leave a cultural mark.
The more recent prestige TV finales are a better analogue for Succession than those of the network juggernauts of decades past. For example, The Sopranos suddenly cutting to black the song “Dont Stop Believin’ in 2007 set the standard for both conversation and inscrutability.
Pamela Soin, a management consultant in New York, said the end of the monumental New Jersey Mafia saga was the only finale that generated more excitement than Succession for her, because it was after seven years of investment.
Care and a group of friends have watched every episode of Succession this season with serious ritual.
We turn off all the lights, theater style, turn on surround sound and watch in complete silence, Care said. Then we have a debrief.
But Soin said she would be alone for the final episode because of the Memorial Day holiday weekend in the United States.
Across social media platforms including Twitter, Reddit and gamer-popular chat app Discord, Succession fans are sharing countless memes and swirling theories about members of the Murdoch-esque Roy family, leaders corporate and hangers will prevail in the final. Fans searched for clues in past episodes, character names, the series’ opening sequence, and elsewhere.
Show creator Jesse Armstrong said the new yorker earlier this year, there’s a promise in the title of Succession, which some took as a sign that the series’ central question will be answered.
Care believes the finale will leave many storylines unresolved and questions open to interpretation.
I love how they handle a lot off-camera, Care said of the show’s writers, who throughout the series have peppered essential backstories of the main characters in later scenes and passing conversations.
Just like in real life, you find out about things that happened when you weren’t there, Care said.
Conclusions to hit TV shows can be hit and miss. Walter White’s bloody 2013 ending to Breaking Bad, and Don Drapers’ more zen ending to 2015’s Mad Men, generally satisfied their finicky fans. The conclusion of Game of Thrones in 2019, the last big finish of an HBO show, generally hasn’t been. Endings are difficult to achieve and disappointment tends to be the norm, which the creators of Seinfeld and Lost can attest to.
HBO was able to increase the suspense ahead of Sunday’s Succession finale, in part by only airing one episode a week, a decision fans who grew up in the age of streaming may be too young to remember was once the standard for television series.
Suraj Nandy, a 20-year-old student from Bangalore, India, said he was counting the hours until Sunday’s final, which airs at 6:30 a.m. local time.
I will snuggle up, grab a blanket and some snacks and sit there in awe, Nandy said.
An economics student at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, Nandy said he was disappointed with the conclusion of Game of Thrones and also watched all of Breaking Bad, but considers Succession easily, by far, my favorite show. of the group.
As for his final plans, Nandy said he would join friends online for a virtual watch party. But it won’t stop there.
I will probably cry for a few days and then watch it again, Nandy said. I would like to relive the whole thing in one sitting.
AP entertainment writer Andrew Dalton contributed from Los Angeles.
