Collected here for the first time, the complete scripts of Succession: Season Three feature unseen extra material, including deleted scenes, alternative dialogue and character directions. They reveal a unique insight into the writing, creation and development of a TV sensation and a screen-writing masterpiece. Writer/producer Lucy Prebble & Kieran Culkin, who plays Roman, on the set of Succession, season one. Photograph: Ursula Coyote/HBO The scripts will be accompanied by previously unseen extra material, which will include deleted scenes, alternative dialogue and character directions. In the end, we’ve been left with just 39 episodes of Succession, but reading through the book of scripts feels like finding a trove of more. Sometimes it’s a scene that didn’t make the cut, like Shiv and Rava passive-aggressively planning a lunch. Sometimes it’s an idea that didn’t make it past infancy in the writers room. (Prebble writes that “for a while there, for a playful couple of hours, we were a show where Tom went to jail.”) Sometimes it’s a proposed song that was excised. (Imagine a version of Succession that contains a “Walking on Sunshine” needledrop, as Armstrong originally proposed to conclude the series’ third episode, rather than Nicholas Britell’s iconic score!)

Jesse Armstrong (creator and executive producer): When we were starting the show, it was that great period when we all thought it was hilarious that Trump was doing what he was doing – he was a joke candidate whom the establishment would never let happen. We started shooting when the conventional wisdom was still that Hillary would win. Any similarities to the family in the show are coincidental – that was us putting our aerial into the general political and cultural ether, rather than trying to reflect it. It starts with what Armstrong calls alts. “For each day’s filming, a day or two ahead, I select a few lines—sometimes none, sometimes 10 to 15—where we might find a spot for something funnier or better or truer,” Armstrong writes. “Usually funnier. These go out to a group of three to five fellow writers” who ultimately yield between five and 10 possible lines, some or all of which are then fed to actors for alternate takes.The ‘Boar on the Floor’ episode: ‘Brian did a phenomenal job. Everyone on set was terrified.’ Succession, season two. Photograph: Landmark Media/Alamy While there’s some true improv involved, too (“typically via a ‘freebie’ take” at the end, as Armstrong calls it in the book), he encourages that largely for the vibes. “To my mind, more important than the occasional improvised lines we capture is that this improvisational method infuses all the takes, on-script and off, with a spirit of freedom and collaboration,” he writes. (Still, some of those extemporaneous lines pop off, so to speak!) The result is scripted lines that sound off-the-cuff, with the occasional actual ad-libs blending seamlessly into the show’s tone. They reveal a unique insight into the writing, creation and development of a TV sensation and a screen-writing masterpiece. With an exclusive introduction from creator Jesse Armstrong. But often, it’s something tiny, easy to miss, a minor detail that makes so much else make sense; a shred of lore that twists the knife or unscrews the cap on the poison that was already so potent; something that the actors were privy to all along. Like, in the third episode of Season 1, after Logan has survived an early health scare, Kendall looks around his dad’s office: He looks at the chair behind the desk. Sitting in it would be too much, right? Instead he sits on the desk like it’s a park bench. Closing his eyes he breathes in, as much as anything, to calm his own nerves. Contrast that with the show’s finale, in which Kendall has no such compunction about occupying the seat, even putting his feet up—an action that revolts his sister and helps set into motion her change of heart and vote. And speaking of his sister, she, too, has a stage direction that foreshadows the events of the finale. Succession: Season One will include an exclusive introduction from creator and showrunner Jesse Armstrong. Season Two, Season Three and Season Four will also include exclusive introductions by other screenwriters on the show including executive producer Frank Rich and executive producer and writer Lucy Prebble. Seasons One, Two and Three will be published on 18th May, with Succession: Season Four shortly following the end of that series.

Carragher: One of our writers went to a wedding where they named the tables after TV characters that they liked, and Cousin Greg was one of them, which was a sign of how things had tipped over.

Success!

Bowler said: "The writing of ’Succession’ has consistently been among the best of the era, in any form. It is a privilege to be able to collect and publish it in this way, for any lover of the show, and any reader who values outstanding writing, to treasure." In the first episode of Season 2, just before Logan calls Shiv into his office to give her the “slant of light” razzle-dazzle, she spots him making a gesture that would, in most families, be insignificant. Kendall is right there, Armstrong’s script explains. Logan gives him a supportive squeeze on the shoulder. But the Roy family isn’t most families, which is the whole frame around Succession. And so the stage directions continue: Their dad doesn’t touch them much—the sight suddenly and inexplicably enrages Shiv. It shoots a hot bolt of resentment through her heart. Nothing shows though as she heads in. Season two marked out Succession as the show that everyone was watching, with the series winning big at the 2020 Emmys, with prizes for acting, writing, best drama, and directing. The writers were also starting to see a marked change. Prebble: Someone in New York put on an off-off-Broadway production of Sands, the play which Willa writes in our show. That sort of thing makes you go: this has gone bonkers. If you’re a member of a family like the Roys, it’s like being a royal: you don’t get to leave. You’re addicted to the pain