Meaning to type this forever: *****

I hope itrsquos not a spoiler to reveal at the end of bingewatching the third season of Jesse Armstrongrsquos HBO series Succession available in India on HotstarDisney that I simply feel hollow in the head Slightly affectedagitated yes but mostly hollow still processing as it wereNot so much for the cliffhanger of a finale that I feel will keep one hanging on a mental cliff for some time But more so by the end of an almost 29hour drama you wonder what could ever replace its dramatic quality to engage the brain in quite the same way Everything else Irsquom likely to watch hereafter might make me bark like Logan Roy Brian Cox ldquoOhhellip F offrdquoWhat does this series do to achieve this level of engagement through its world story characters and their everchanging arcs Whatrsquos Screenwriting 101 reallymdashas old as the lesson from Aristotlersquos Poetics anyway Or as derived from it screenwriter Aaron Sorkin puts it in his masterclass centuries later To have a conflict in every sceneMeaning a scene where therersquos always a character who wants something and a character opposite who canrsquot give it just yet The hustle that follows often between splintered groups is essentially the relentless tension in SuccessionScene after scenemdashof simply conversations after conversations To a point that if you heard this show on radio instead with no narrator for description it might remain almost as gripping still But of course Succession is not a radio play Itrsquos a massive filmic production with castles on earth private jets in the air and pieces of glass in the sky for homesofficesAnd yet from purely an action point of view the most dramatic thing that happens in Succession 3 is the estranged son Kendall Roy Jeremy Strong walking back into his familydaddyrsquos company headquarters in full public gaze and a phonecamera swiftly following his move Thatrsquos it And thatrsquos all No other crutch of cinematic pyrotechnics or mayhem necessary at any moment For itrsquos the colourful parts their multiple motivations through the dynamic scenes again that seamlessly guide you towards the fundamental question you follow riveting stories for What happens nextThis is how an hourlong episode feels shorter than 15 minutes Those who watched this ninepart third season with a new episode dropping Monday will know better I caught the finale over three instalments just to slow down time and savour the series a little longerMost plot writers will know all of the above that Irsquom saying And yet to pull off highlights of multiple charactersrsquo lives and their circumstancesmdashwith the audience hardly ever knowing which way theyrsquoll blow depending on the unpredictable wind of coursemdashis competing with God albeit on television noSuccession as the title suggests is about a bunch of potential heirs in a massive media empire looking to succeed their selfmade father for the top job Not that the situation is vacantThese children at the coremdashglib but ruthless wholly lacking a moral centre having grown up terribly unloved at home totally obsessed with a public life where nobody trusts anyonemdashcould be a little like their own father But theyrsquore actually more like each other Just so you know what White potentially Right Wing extremeprivilegeentitlement looks like Besides how the lack of the separation of Church and State might be how politicians garner votes Itrsquos the parasitic bridging of the big corporation chiefly big media with the big government that people are ruled Tables in the backrooms are laid Deals will eventually get doneI recently polled on Twitter who the audiences thought was their favourite Succession character playing the actor instead of the other way round ResultsmdashDad Logan 22 per cent Son Roman Kieran Culkin 22 per cent Daughter Siobhan Sarah Snook 15 per cent Son Kendall 41 per centEnough support from outside poll options though for the outsiders Greg Hirsch Nicholas Braun Loganrsquos longlost grandnephew or Tom Wambsgans Mathew Macfadyen Siobhanrsquos husbandThrough whose eyes we also experience this world better And they do really want this world do they Do you the selfsatisfied middleclass surveying these schmucks These outsiders are often equated to the eunuch Sporus who the Roman Emperor Nero favoured castrated and married Only that Tom is as much the Roy familyrsquos Sporus as Greg is willingly TomrsquosEveryone dripping with buckets of sarcasm does what they can get away with The flawed idea of success here is to blindly go up a hierarchy rather than stand outside it ldquoNothing is a line to cross Everything everywhere is moving forever Get used to itrdquo says Logan This is manslaughter among the supposedly civilised Absolutely the only thing they donrsquot do is consciously kill Merely because thatrsquos a bad career moveItrsquos not about the money then is it Which like health you only think of when you donrsquot have enough Even the quasi rich have more than enough Itrsquos about a life in rarefied spaces as the middleclasses might imagine it Succession started off as Rupert Murdochrsquos story Where itrsquos atmdashand I think it should be studied even more closelymdashis quite simply Shakespeare no less Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper