TV Shouldn’t Merely Satisfy: Lessons from 'Succession' and 'Barry' Finales

This article contains major spoilers for the series finales of “Succession” and “Barry.”

May 28, 2023, was a special day for prestige TV. Two HBO darlings — “Succession” and “Barry” — both aired the final episodes of their final seasons, giving audiences their last tastes of the Emmy-winning shows. But if anyone was looking for a storybook ending to these two series, they went to sleep that night unsatisfied.

After losing his father earlier in the season, Kendall Roy never gets control of the family company he was once promised. He ends “Succession” staring, dead-eyed, at the horizon. He didn’t lose it all, but he certainly didn’t win it all either.

After years of being chased as a notorious hitman, the titular “Barry” Berkman nobly decides to turn himself in to the police. But before he can do so, he is shot in the shoulder. “Oh, wow,” he says lamely, staring blankly at the gun aimed at his forehead. Seconds later, it kills him.

Although the fans loved them, neither of these endings could be considered fanservice by any means. The two protagonists never got triumphant endings, but they didn’t go out in a blaze of glory either. They faced some comeuppance, but never a reckoning with the full consequences of their wrongdoings. These endings were largely unsatisfying, and yet they were excellent.

Both “Succession” and “Barry” shocked their viewers when they first announced that their recent seasons would be their last. There’s something exciting about a show choosing to end on its own terms, especially now, in the era of streaming services canceling up to a third of new shows in 2021 and 2022, and other cable and broadcast networks canceling more than half.

But what made these shows unique is the intentionally unsatisfying way they ultimately chose to cut ties between their audiences and their protagonists, and, more notably, how much their audiences loved them for it.

The finales each resulted in especially high viewership and rave reviews from critics. It seems that not many minded that their long-watched protagonists ended their runs so abruptly, neither triumphing nor failing completely. The key to understanding why audiences felt so fondly toward these unceremonious endings lies in the typical relationship viewers today have with their television.

Television in the internet age is more tailored than ever. Even as recently as a decade ago, cable was considered a necessity in any TV-watching household; now, every studio seems to host their own platforms with unique shows for viewers to watch via streaming service, making cable more and more obsolete. These streaming services cater to unique audience desires, especially now that they are growing increasingly niche. For instance, fans of curated independent films might subscribe to MUBI, while anime enthusiasts can find their home on Crunchyroll.

This fractured model exist even within a given streaming platform; now more and more shows are being produced for various specific types of viewerships. This isn’t necessarily a replacement of the sitcom with its broad general audiences — instead, streaming services on a subscription model are more incentivized to produce as much content as possible to keep viewers subscribed — leading to a more than two-fold increase of original scripted TV series in the past decade alone.

Because of this high volume, fans can much more easily find content that resonates with their interests, leading to closer engagement and higher satisfaction with the content. Ultimately, shows generate a smaller band of highly dedicated viewers, rather than vast audiences with varying degrees of investment in the content. Plus, rather than waiting for a specific show to air at a certain time, they can search, binge, and rewatch it to their heart’s content. As a result, most TV viewers can get exactly what they’re looking for whenever they want, assuming they know where to look.

To put it simply: The casual viewer is gone. Now audiences are more bought-in than ever, and with these invested communities often comes pandering from the shows they love. In the age of social media, the opinions of the viewers are at the fingertips of writers and TV execs. They can, and often do, choose to customize a show to appeal to their target audience by reading their feedback online and personalizing the content for the viewers. Unfortunately, this rise of perfectly personalized media from specialized shows and audience pandering contributes to a general oversaturation of cookie cutter content, tailored to audience satisfaction.

This phenomenon is also reinforced by the constant stream of reboots, remakes, and sequels common in contemporary TV. Just as niche content gives viewers exactly what they want, these remakes do the same, tapping into easy nostalgia and existing connections with characters that the ready-made audiences already have. These shows are reassuring and familiar to viewers and reliable sources of income for studios. Similarly, successful shows can choose to run for as long as they possibly can, only stopping when they absolutely must upon network cancellation.

That is where the novelty of intentional dissatisfaction comes in. Perhaps in a world of constant reboots and remakes, there’s something simply better about writers cutting off their own series, rather than slowly squeezing the life out of it. Maybe when content constantly specializes in the perfect conclusion for a calibrated audience, it is admirable to have the restraint to withhold closure.

“Succession” and “Barry” are not the first to end in dissatisfaction, but they’ve joined a group of anomalies — alongside “The Sopranos” and a few others — that feed a growing appetite for stories that challenge their audiences’ perceptions of their own needs as viewers. This appetite for restraint is a reaction to the type of TV that today’s viewers have grown accustomed to: TV that always satisfies through specialization and predictability.

In this era of tailored content, it's the unexpected and unresolved conclusions that leave a lasting impression, challenging the viewer to feel unsettled. In doing so, shows like “Succession” and “Barry” elicit a new kind of catharsis — one that fosters a deeper connection to the characters because, like us, their endings don’t feel quite perfect.

—Staff writer Stella A. Gilbert can be reached at stella.gilbert@thecrimson.com.