TELEVISION: Battle lines drawn in final season of ‘Succession’

Everyone is expendable. Even top dogs, who have the benefit of consoling themselves with massive exit packages. Some chief executive officers hang on longer than most, but not forever — retirement or death comes for us all — which is why, when money and power and legacies are in play, you need a plan of succession. The rich comedic conceit of "Succession" has always been rooted in one irascible billionaire's inability to do this simple task: name your replacement.

The fourth and final season of the HBO series opens by tacitly asking if any of that matters, now that patriarch Logan Roy is selling off his media empire. It seems like a done deal, but you never know with this crowd.