The ‘Boar on the Floor’ episode: ‘Brian did a phenomenal job. Everyone on set was terrified.’ Succession, season two. Photograph: Landmark Media/Alamy Roche: I suppose we often thought about it from the media element, but essentially, it’s a family story, and it turns out a lot of people have families, so it’s quite relatable. It is worrying when people say, “Oh, my dad is like Logan,” because you think: “That’s not good.” Roche: There’s something quite British about that, like, “Oh look at this amazing view … but look at the bins over there.” One of the things Jesse wanted to think about was that while great wealth can insulate you from a lot of life’s problems, there are some things that are just inescapable. You can’t make everything pretty all the time.

Writer/producer Lucy Prebble & Kieran Culkin, who plays Roman, on the set of Succession, season one. Photograph: Ursula Coyote/HBO Pritchett: After the finale of season two, Kendall gets to be Meghan. He’s putting himself outside the family. He doesn’t get his Oprah interview, but some other stuff goes down … Ted Cohen (writer) : I love writing for underdog characters. And they’re all underdogs, except for Logan, which is probably why it’s so much fun. Tom and Roman are just so heartbreaking. As an American, I always want to create a happy ending and you’re never allowed to do that on Succession. I’m a frustrated optimist. 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. So I don’t think it’s done because we’re all sadists or anything like that.

The stage direction in question was nestled in the script for Season 4, Episode 3, Strong said, shortly after the larger-than-life Logan dies. In the show, Kendall stands aboard a yacht that had been rented for his brother Connor’s wedding, peering out at the Statue of Liberty and registering the news about their dad. In the script, though, his gaze represents so much more: The writers slipped in an existential question about Kendall’s whole deal.

Pritchett: One of the writers was getting divorced this season, and went to the loo and accidentally weed on his divorce papers. We thought maybe Kendall could do that, but we never got it in. ‘There’s a civil war coming ’: season three The scripts will be accompanied by previously unseen extra material, which will include deleted scenes, alternative dialogue and character directions. Such is the dense world-building in the series, much of the material that the writers pore over doesn’t even end up making it to TV. In the wake of an ambush by his rebellious son, Kendall, Logan Roy is in a perilous position, scrambling to secure familial, political and financial alliances. A bitter corporate battle threatens to turn into a family civil war. 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!)Kendall Roy is dealing with fallout from his hostile takeover attempt of Waystar Royco and the heavy guilt from a fatal accident. Shiv stands poised to make her way into the upper-echelons of the company, which is causing complications for Tom, which is causing complications for Greg. Meanwhile, Roman is reacquainting himself with the business by starting at the bottom, as Connor prepares to launch an unlikely bid for president.