All The Very Dysfunctional Adult Children Are Back In 'Succession' Season Two Trailer

Succession confused people when it first premiered on HBO last year—the story of Logan Roy and his family of Extremely Large Adult Children seemed to be the exact midway point between the real life Murdochs and Arrested Development's Bluth family (just with more cursing). But were we supposed to be laughing at these ridiculously privileged people, or horrified at their callous behavior? Where was the line between entertaining schadenfreude and complicit ickiness?

After the initial episodes—which struggled to balance that delicate mix—left some viewers cold, something clicked about halfway through the season, which suddenly turned Succession into a huge critical hit. Succession is now like if the wit of the first couple of vicious, brilliant seasons of Veep were applied to the media industrial complex—think of Cousin Greg as the (slightly nicer) Jonah of the group, and it all starts to make sense.

HBO has now released the first trailer for season 2, which you can watch below, featuring all those beautiful, preening, pathetic characters we have come to love and loathe in equal measure (I still don't know how to feel about Tom, poor sweet horrible Tom). The show will return in August, which gives you plenty of time to catch up on it if you gave up after one or two episodes.

Co-star Jeremy Strong—who plays Kendall, the heir apparent to the Waystar Royko media empire who royally fucked up to end season one—previously told Gothamist that the show explores how the trauma in the Roy family is like poison that then becomes societal trauma. "It's looking at our culture through the lens of this very powerful family and the allure of power and the perils of power," Strong said.

"What if you have a family where the language of that family and the glue that holds that family together is essentially corporate," he added. "The language of this family is business, is commerce. The currency of this family is not love. It's business. And so at the heart of that is, I think, the father-son relationship for my character—and how in a family like that, the only way I think you can earn a father's approval and love and respect is by distinguishing yourself in that field and through the question of succession."

In the meantime, you can go back and read our interview with star Brian Cox, who talked about Logan's motivations and the toxic relationships within the Roy family.