Every Succession episode – ranked!
39. The Disruption (season 3 episode 3)Even a show as good as this has to have a worst episode. Luckily, picking one wasn’t a particularly tough decision. The Disruption was a largely pointless episode of ping pong between Kendall and the rest of the Roys, notable for how uncharacteristically heavy-handed it was. Shiv published a damning open letter about Kendall’s mental state; he played Nirvana’s Rape Me while she was making a speech. A bewildering outlier for such a good series.
38. Lifeboats (s1 e3)Aside from the pilot, Succession’s first season took a few episodes to fully hit its stride. Nothing really happens here – some characters get nudged around the board to little consequence – which isn’t a great thing to say about a show’s third ever episode.
37. Honeymoon States (s4 e4)The big gimmick of season four, according to Brian Cox, is that every episode takes place on subsequent days. In retrospect this might have been a slightly silly thing to announce in public because, while Connor’s wedding was a masterclass in depicting real-time grief, Honeymoon States (the next episode) was basically back to business as usual. Less than 24 hours after the death of their father, little of what the siblings did here rang particularly true.
36. What It Takes (s3 e6)Succession has never had the easiest relationship with politics. A general election has long been brewing here, with Connor announcing himself as a candidate and a shady populist Trump alike angling for office, but it often got relegated to background chatter. What It Takes was the show’s attempt to put politics front and centre for once (if ever there was an episode with Something to Say About the World, this was it), but the lack of prior focus meant it landed badly and disrupted the season as a result.
35. Sad Sack Wasp Trap (s1 e4) There are signs of the show Succession would become here, but they are few and far between. This is the episode where Tom first learned he had inherited a world of problems as head of the Parks and Cruises division, but a lot of it comes off as meaningless busywork given the bombshells to come.
34. Mass in Time of War (s3 e2)The season two cliffhanger was so vast it seemed to even destabilise Succession’s own writers. Unsure where to go after that, they offered up this choppy, fragmented episode. The biggest plot point revolved round the delivery of some doughnuts.
33. Secession (s3 e1)Season two ended with Kendall Roy’s loud attempt at regicide, and viewers had spent two agonising years waiting for the fallout. What they got, however, was a lot of people muttering in a lot of airports. In truth, nothing could have met the rabid expectations of fans at that point, but this deliberate anticlimax nevertheless felt a little deflating.
32. DC (s2 e9)Much of this episode takes the form of a senate hearing committee, which would have been incredibly novel if The Thick of It (which shares much of Succession’s writing staff) hadn’t got there earlier and better seven years before. Still, it did give us the line “You can’t make a Tomlette without breaking some Gregs”, which is one of the standout quotes of the entire series.
31. Tailgate Party (s4 e7)This largely existed to build the stakes for the big election episode, moving all the characters into place for what was always going to be a showstopper setpiece. However, it eventually kicked into gear with Shiv and Tom’s fight. Four seasons of resentment exploded at once. It was worth the wait.
30. The Summer Palace (s2 e1)Now that we’re able to view the series as a whole, it’s clear that Succession’s favourite pattern is to end each season with a bang then begin the next with a whimper. This was the first instance: a quietly tense episode where Kendall leaves his expensive rehab to do some menial tasks for his dad.
29. The Munsters (s4 e1)Another careful reentry into the world of Succession. The Roy siblings are united for once, overreaching in their efforts to scupper their father. Meanwhile Logan mopes around his mausoleum of a house on his birthday. Exciting enough at the time, although given what we all know happens in episode three, this retrospectively seems a little like deliberate sleight of hand.
28. Shit Show at the Fuck Factory (s1 e2)The best episode title of the series is also a chance to see who these horrible people really are. Logan’s stroke puts him out of action for the majority of the episode, and those around him essentially become a pack of grieving vultures; worried about their father, but eager for the spoils of his death. When people said they found the Succession characters too hard to like at first, they were almost definitely referring to this episode.
27. Chiantishire (s3 e8)The gang travel to Tuscany to watch their mother get married, and their behaviour disintegrates accordingly. You may remember this as the one where Roman accidentally sends a “dick pic” to his father, but really this episode belongs to Shiv. She is torn apart by her mother (who tells her she never wanted children) then takes it out on Tom in the cruellest way imaginable.
26. America Decides (s4 e8)Had it landed anywhere else, the big election episode would have been a very good episode of Succession. The fullbody dread of watching the 2016 Trump victory play out again – aided by the show’s protagonists, no less! – represented some of the most stressful moments of a programme full of them. However, America Decides was let down a little by the fact that it was the antepenultimate outing. At this point in its run, Breaking Bad stunned us with the searing finality of Ozymandias. This, meanwhile, was a good episode of Succession that could have slotted into almost any previous season.
25. Lion in the Meadow (s3 e4)The one where Adrien Brody’s Josh Aaronson, an outerwear-clad Jack Dorsey analogue, was wily enough to test the stamina of Logan Roy by basically walking him around until he collapsed.