The Roy family’s lowest lows make for “Succession’s” highest highs.
The Jesse Armstrong-created drama hit a series high of 2.5 million viewers on Sunday night, when HBO aired Episode 3 of the fourth and final season. The ratings bump was certainly helped along by the episode’s shocking twist, which will dramatically impact the way the series ends. (Read Variety‘s recap here.)
Provided by Warner Bros. Discovery, that figure represents a combination of Nielsen’s measurement of the audience that tuned into the episode live on HBO’s cable channel and WBD’s own data regarding streams on HBO Max through the night.
This marks a 7% improvement on the previous series high, which was the Season 4 premiere’s 2.3 million viewers, and a 22% improvement from Season 4 Episode 2, which brought in 2 million viewers. Additionally, WBD reports that the Season 4 premiere has reached close to 7 million viewers across platforms in the three weeks since it first aired.
In an interview with Variety, “Succession” director Mark Mylod said that Sunday’s big reveal has been in the works since the team was in pre-production for Season 3. “That’s when [Armstrong] first told me about this idea, that it should happen early in the season in an episode slot that you would not necessarily expect, and this idea of actually creating, hopefully, great drama out of mundanity — you know, the inconvenience of it all,” he explained. “Which just seemed wonderful to me.”
Armstrong serves as showrunner of “Succession” and executive produces alongside Mylod, Adam McKay, Frank Rich, Kevin Messick, Jane Tranter, Tony Roche, Scott Ferguson, Jon Brown, Lucy Prebble, Will Tracy and Will Ferrell.