Jesse Armstrong (creator and executive producer): When we were starting the show, it was that great period when we all thought it was hilarious that Trump was doing what he was doing – he was a joke candidate whom the establishment would never let happen. We started shooting when the conventional wisdom was still that Hillary would win. Any similarities to the family in the show are coincidental – that was us putting our aerial into the general political and cultural ether, rather than trying to reflect it. Armstrong: I was keen to get across the correspondence between some of these moguls and authoritarian regimes. I’d been reading a bit about Stalin, and how he would do these dinner parties where he would encourage everyone to get drunk, but he wouldn’t drink. Then he would make horrible jokes to Molotov or whoever about their potential torture or the murder of their colleagues. 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. 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. I wonder if the sad I’d be from being without you might be less than the sad I get from being with you?

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.” But often, it’s something tiny, easy to miss, a minor detail that makes so much else make sense; a shred of lore that twists the knife or unscrews the cap on the poison that was already so potent; something that the actors were privy to all along. Like, in the third episode of Season 1, after Logan has survived an early health scare, Kendall looks around his dad’s office: He looks at the chair behind the desk. Sitting in it would be too much, right? Instead he sits on the desk like it’s a park bench. Closing his eyes he breathes in, as much as anything, to calm his own nerves. Contrast that with the show’s finale, in which Kendall has no such compunction about occupying the seat, even putting his feet up—an action that revolts his sister and helps set into motion her change of heart and vote. And speaking of his sister, she, too, has a stage direction that foreshadows the events of the finale.

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 …

The beloved HBO series hit viewership highs with its fourth season, bringing in 2.3 million viewers to its premiere and reaching a record 2.6 million viewers for its fourth episode.The scripts will be accompanied by previously unseen extra material, which will include deleted scenes, alternative dialogue and character directions. In the same way, one of my favourite moments in the episode just happened, too,” Myold told GQ “Right at the end of the episode when Sarah’s character has just done the press briefing, and the three of them fall into this three-way hug before going their separate ways. That wasn’t in the script.” Brown: I was tasked with researching Tom’s bachelor party at the sex club [for the episode Prague]. Initially it was going to be a full-on sex party, but we decided to make it more grotty. At one point I got an invitation to go to a swingers’ party on a boat along the Hudson River, and it did feel like an insane moment. I was at a gig with Tony and Jesse at Madison Square Garden, then I get an invite to join a waterborne orgy … ‘Probably nobody’s watching it ’: Succession airs 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. While there’s some true improv involved, too (“typically via a ‘freebie’ take” at the end, as Armstrong calls it in the book), he encourages that largely for the vibes. “To my mind, more important than the occasional improvised lines we capture is that this improvisational method infuses all the takes, on-script and off, with a spirit of freedom and collaboration,” he writes. (Still, some of those extemporaneous lines pop off, so to speak!) The result is scripted lines that sound off-the-cuff, with the occasional actual ad-libs blending seamlessly into the show’s tone.

Earlier this week, following Succession’s series finale, lead actor Jeremy Strong participated in a handful of interviews in which he praised the twisted minds responsible for the show. “This is a moment where there’s a writers strike, right?” Strong asked CNN’s Anderson Cooper after the anchor played a clip of Kendall Roy. “And so it feels important to say that none of this show—this show doesn’t exist—that the writing is everything.” In another conversation, with Deadline, Strong was asked why Succession resonated like it did. “The answer lies in this moment and the writers strike,” he said. “The answer is writers. It’s Jesse Armstrong’s writing. It’s his insight.” 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. Bowler said: "The writing of ’Succession’ has consistently been among the best of the era, in any form. It is a privilege to be able to collect and publish it in this way, for any lover of the show, and any reader who values outstanding writing, to treasure." Tony Roche and Georgia Pritchett on set: ‘This big American drama was written by a group of scruffy, shambolic British comedy writers.’ Succession, season one. Photograph: Colin Hutton/HBO

In the first episode of Season 2, just before Logan calls Shiv into his office to give her the “slant of light” razzle-dazzle, she spots him making a gesture that would, in most families, be insignificant. Kendall is right there, Armstrong’s script explains. Logan gives him a supportive squeeze on the shoulder. But the Roy family isn’t most families, which is the whole frame around Succession. And so the stage directions continue: Their dad doesn’t touch them much—the sight suddenly and inexplicably enrages Shiv. It shoots a hot bolt of resentment through her heart. Nothing shows though as she heads in. The ‘Boar on the Floor’ episode: ‘Brian did a phenomenal job. Everyone on set was terrified.’ Succession, season two. Photograph: Landmark Media/Alamy 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!)