Along with the thrill of seeing what happens to the most dysfunctional family on television comes the sadness of knowing that they’ll soon be gone forever, and the question of whether the show did the right thing by ending after just 39 episodes.

But days before Season 4 premieres, now is the time for hype and prognostication, so, like Dr. Alon Parfit, let’s dive headfirst back into the fucked-up world of the Roys.

Baker: Greg’s beef with Greenpeace (I hope); Shiv’s wardrobe choices; Stewy’s mere existence; Traitor Tom; the competent and clownish machinations of the Gerri-Karl-Frank brain trust …

A few years back, the New Yorker writer Helen Rosner tweeted one of those random things that will forever stick in my brain: “The secret to writing a good short story is to end it with a minor plagal cadence.” I’m absolutely no music theorist—I’ll leave the IV-iv-I analyses to minds like Rosner and Nicholas Britell —but I can’t wait to see what chord progression, so to speak, Succession goes with, considering it’s a show that has always used its tone as a tool.

Khal: I hate to sound like the guy who edits the pro wrestling content over on the Ringer dot com, but with everything that’s happened with Vince McMahon over the second half of 2022, I imagine something from that mess could find its way into this series.

If Succession remains a more modestly sized hit whose Twitter virality and critical acclaim exceed its mass appeal, then how it ends could affect its place in the prestige pantheon—especially because cutting it off after fewer than 40 episodes raises expectations for a well-crafted climax.