There’s something beautifully still and calm about collections of TV scripts: frozen in time, notionally occupying that sweet spot between the magic of writing and the magic of acting. And, as they’re published after everything’s been shot and cut and aired and watched and reviewed and garlanded, a script anthology is also the last word. It’s a warm glug of methadone after the primo fix of a beloved show has ended for good.
And the highly addictive Succession certainly finished this year on an exquisite low. After four seasons of total, late-capitalist landscaping, creator Jesse Armstrong and his peerless writing team wrapped it up with pitch-perfect bathos: sad prince Kendall Roy all beaten and droopy, watching the river flow, forever haunted by a drowning. We can’t go on with his story, or those of the other characters. But we can go back, and go in.
Read Full Article »