Succession: The 10 best insults from hit HBO series
It’s been a long time coming, but fans of HBO’s hilarious and often foul-mouthed Succession had something to celebrate on Tuesday as the network released the first teaser trailer for the show’s third season and confirmed that new episodes will arrive this autumn.
Judging by the explosive trailer, this year things are set to come to a boil at media conglomerate Waystar Royco. The show ostensibly follows the Roy family as various siblings manoeuvre to take over control of the company from patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox), but one fly in the ointment is that daddy may not be prepared to relinquish the reins just yet.
What can be said for certain is that whoever ends up on top, we’re guaranteed to be treated to some spectacular barbs along the way. Here are 10 of Succession’s greatest insults:
“You tell him, I’m gonna grind his f***in’ bones to make my bread”
There are few better deliverers of a demeaning threat than Brian Cox as Logan Roy, and the trailer for Succession Season 3 show him still very much at the top of his game. The hapless assistant charged with passing on this message to son Kendall (Jeremy Strong) gets caught in the cross-fire, while Kendall can only respond with the weakest of comebacks: “Okay, tell him that I’m gonna run up off the f***in’ beanstalk.”
“They call Gil meth-head Santa because he so rarely delivers.”
Waystar Royco's Hugo Baker (Fisher Stevens) matter-of-factly delivers this superbly crafted and utterly devastating putdown of Bernie Sanders-esque Senator Gil Eavis (Eric Bogosian).
“The ‘Logan Roy School of Journalism?’ What’s next, the ‘Jack the Ripper Women’s Health Clinic?’”
Logan Roy’s brother Ewan (James Cromwell) generally keeps himself at a distance from his sibling’s media empire, and on the basis of what he thinks of their journalism it isn’t hard to see why.
“You look like a dildo dipped in beard trimmings.”
There’s little love lost between rebellious younger sibling Roman Roy (Kieran Culkin) and Kendall’s old friend and investor Stewy Hosseini (Arian Moayed). Fortunately their relationship did at least produce this gem of a put down.
“What is that? ‘Date Rape’ by Calvin Klein?”
Succession set the tone for its venomous family feuding right from the very first episode: This was Shiv’s (Sarah Snook) line on embracing younger brother Roman. Dumbfounded, he can only respond with a particularly creepy: “You wish.”
“He said that to be nice. I think what he meant to say is that he wished that mum gave birth to a can opener because at least then it would be useful.”
With their father in a hospital bed, Roman lets Kendall know exactly what he thinks of his chances of stepping up to take the big chair.
“He’s like a sweaty corpse.”
Shiv’s opinion of brother Kendall’s television appearance is brutally accurate, although maybe not as poetic as her husband Tom Wambsgans’s (Matthew Macfadyen) assessment: “He looks waxy, like an unshaven candle.”
“It’s a fungus, they think. Benign fungus.” “Great title for your memoir!”
The deeply unhealthy relationship between Tom Wambsgans and junior Roy family member Cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) has given us some of Succession’s most memorable lines - and as here, Wambsgans never misses a chance to belittle young Greg.
“You look like a divorce attorney from the Twin Cities.”
Tom isn’t always the one dishing out the insults, he’s on the receiving end of his fair share too. This was Roman’s opinion of one of his particularly egregious and ill-cut suits.
“I’m thankful that I am going to be marrying into one of the most kind and loving families in the world.” “Are you not going to be marrying Shiv anymore?”
To end with, a catch-all insult for the whole family. Roman responds wittily (and accurately) to Tom’s blatantly obsequious opinion of his new in-laws.
Succession season three begins on Sky Atlantic and NOW this Autumn. Seasons one to two are available to catch up now on Sky On-Demand and NOW.
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