Closing the Deal: Sarah Snook Sets the Stage for the Final Season of ‘Succession’

Last seen, Succession’s foul-mouthed, power-mad, insanely rich Roy family had a lovely time in Tuscany plotting new and interesting ways to humiliate each other.

Patriarch Logan (Brian Cox) worked out a deal to sell Waystar Royco to tech magnate Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård) of streaming giant GoJo. This brought Logan’s kids Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) together to exercise their supermajority powers — granted to their mother, Caroline (Harriet Walter), in the divorce settlement — to block the sale and oust their father. But Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) tipped Logan off to their plan, and Logan worked out an agreement with Caroline to drop the supermajority requirement. All’s fair in love, war and the Roy family.

A last volume is added to the sordid Succession saga with the fourth and final season debuting Sunday, March 26, at 9pm ET/PT on HBO.

Snook tipped us off on some storylines and more from the Land of Roy:

Watch Your Mouth!
You may find yourself unwittingly adopting the Roy family’s vernacular if you’ve ever binge-watched Succession. Maybe you’ve answered with “@#$% off!” when a simple “No” would’ve sufficed. Imagine saying those words all day long at work and then returning to polite society. “I have to watch myself when I’m around kids,” Snook says. “My husband first saw the show between Seasons 2 and 3. Whenever he would text, it was laden with expletives. He was drinking whiskey and texting terrible messages, and blaming the show.”

Toxic Mix
Shiv and Tom have a peculiar marriage. “It’s chemistry in the bad sense,” Snook says. “The kind you don’t want in a marriage.” Tom has been on the low end of their “unbalanced love portfolio,” but he finally tipped the scale (surprise!) by secretly joining Team Logan. Shiv is keen to Tom’s betrayal, and it might play to her advantage. “It’s an interesting dynamic,” Snook says. “Have they spoken about it? Has she decided to keep hold of the power? Is that a better sort of high status thing for her to do?”

Mum’s The Word
By agreeing to Logan’s terms, Caroline shocked her kids as severely as she screwed them over. Turns out Shiv and her mother have a lot more in common than mutual resentment. “It’s such a competitive streak in Shiv to want to individuate from her mother and also want to be recognized as like her father,” Snook says. “She wants to be CEO. Wants to be top dog. Wants to be as ruthless and as smart as she sees her dad. I think she’s quite similar to her mom, as much as she would hate to admit that, as well.”

Playing Politics
The presidential election will be at the forefront in Season 4, with Logan deciding to leverage his media empire in support of conservative Congressman Jeryd Mencken (Justin Kirk). Shiv’s not onboard, so expect her to use her political experience and savvy to sink Mencken’s bid. “In anything, the Roys want to show where their strengths lie,” Snook says. It would be the ultimate win for Shiv if she could transform her brother Connor (Alan Ruck) from an unqualified dark horse candidate into the president of the United States. Guest star Stephen Root returns as Ron Petkus, the far-right-wing organizer of the Future Freedom Summit. “He was so great,” Snook says. “When he speaks as Ron Petkus, he sort of steps out of the folklore of this show, in a way. I just believe that he is this guy.”

Norse Sense
After basking in the Tuscan sun at the end of Season 3, the Roy family will take an excursion to exotic … Norway. “We went to Norway this season for a couple weeks and shot over there, which was a lot of fun,” Snook says. “The scouting happened at the end of the two or three weeks of summer that Norway gets. Two weeks later, it was cloudy and rainy for the first couple of days. We had some brilliant weather, as well, fortunately when we were shooting at these amazing locations up in the mountains. But it was pretty funny seeing all these locations that had been chosen for their vistas, and they’re just clouds set in, it’s very rainy, very cold, very not summer. But it was beautiful, and the Norwegian cast and crew and everybody were wonderful to work with.”

Reality Check
After thwarting his kids’ plot to depose him, Logan said his move was “an opportunity for you kids to get an education in real life.” Aside from that lesson arriving 30 years too late, is a “real life” even possible for the Roy kids? “I don’t think so,” Snook says. “I think if they were faced with real, real life — the price of milk and the cost of a bus fare, and having to pay to keep a roof over your head or rent and all those kinds of things — I think it would be pretty shocking for them.”