Emmys: Succession Wins Outstanding Drama Series for Final Season
Succession went out with a bang at Monday’s Emmys ceremony, winning Outstanding Drama Series for its fourth and final season. This brings to three the number of times the HBO drama has scored Emmys’ top drama prize, following wins in 2020 (for Season 2) and 2022 (for Season 3).
Succession prevailed over fellow nominees Andor, Better Call Saul, The Crown, House of the Dragon, The Last of Us, The White Lotus and Yellowjackets.
It was a big night overall for the Roys. In addition to the Drama Series trophy, the show netted wins for Outstanding Lead Actor (Kieran Culkin), Outstanding Lead Actress (Sarah Snook), Outstanding Supporting Actor (Matthew Macfadyen), Outstanding Writing and Outstanding Directing.
Succession‘s epic Emmy showing comes roughly seven months after the show aired its series finale (read recap here). The episode found Matthew Macfadyen’s Tom Wambsgans winning the Waystar CEO derby, an ascension series creator Jesse Armstrong said was always in the cards.
“The idea of Tom being the eventual successor, that had been something I had thought was the right ending for quite a while now,” Armstrong revealed in a post-finale HBO featurette.
As for the Roys, Armstrong offered fans a peek at where they might be headed. “They’ve lost what they’ve wanted, which was to succeed their father,” he pointed out, noting that “Roman ends up exactly where he started,” i.e. “a playboy jerk with some slightly nasty instincts and some quite funny jokes,” drinking at a bar and chalking this up as merely “a bit of a detour in his life.” Shiv, he cautions, is “in a rather terrifying, frozen, emotionally barren place” with Tom. “She’s got this sort of non-victory, non-defeat… It feels like it’s going to be hard for them to progress emotionally, given the things that they’ve said to each other.”
For Kendall, last seen wandering through the park in a daze after his stunning defeat, the battle to run Waystar was “the central event of his life,” Armstrong said. “Maybe he could go on and start a company or do a thing, but the chances of him achieving the sort of corporate status that his dad achieved are very low, and I think that will mark his whole life.”
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