'Succession' is so good it had us rooting for a group of morally bankrupt billionaires. This is why it's Insider's TV show of the year.

• "Succession" has been named Insider's TV series of the year.
• The HBO show returned with its third season in October, raising the stakes for the Roy family.

When HBO aired the season two finale of "Succession" in October 2019, the world was a very different place.

Of course, the Roys, in their helicopters and high rises, seemed alien to 99.9% of viewers back then, just as they do now. But when Jesse Armstrong's part-comedy, part-drama returned a full two years later, it was no secret that a lot had happened to the little people on the ground below them.

The series creator could have played catch-up, thrusting the Murdochian family into the throws of the pandemic. The change in course might have made them more relatable, more of the moment, more like us.

I'm so relieved that he didn't.

But regardless of the real-world complications that caused it, a two-year gap between seasons inevitably raises concerns: Could the show maintain its momentum after all this time and all those Emmy wins? Would a series about the unapologetically terrible, astronomically wealthy hold the same appeal? Will the show continue to be one of the greatest spectacles on TV?

On the other side of the nine new episodes, I can confirm that the answer to all three questions is yes. The third season of "Succession" was not only worth the wait — it was hands-down the best television of 2021.

Season three opens on the aftermath of Kendall Roy's (Jeremy Strong) bombshell press conference during which he pins a large-scale Waystar Royco cover-up on his father Logan Roy (Brian Cox), the company's founder and chief executive officer.

The heir-in-exile launches a full-throttle take-down of his dad's empire, attempting to reinvent himself as a super woke, Twitter-famous progressive.

Though his siblings — Connor (Alan Ruck), Roman (Kieran Culkin), and Shiv Roy (Sarah Snook) — side with Logan, the intrafamily chasm sits at the forefront of the first several episodes.

As the season progresses, so does its pace.

Viewers are exposed to the scope and ferocity of Logan's power outside of Waystar Royco's headquarters. His team thwarts Kendall's rebellion, evades criminal punishment from the Department of Justice, sways a high-stakes shareholder meeting, and hand-picks the next Republican presidential nominee at an underground political convention.

Each player in the game is, remarkably, more morally corrupt and self-serving than the next. "Souls are boring," says a smiling Greg Hirsch, played by Nicholas Braun, who becomes the plaintiff in a lawsuit against Greenpeace after spending just three seasons inside the Roys' toxic vacuum.

While "Succession" has no shortage of boardroom plot twists and closed-door upheavals, we didn't return week after week for corporate jargon about hostile takeovers or conversations about the GOP's future. We returned for the characters, who are layered, flawed, and fractured in depths rarely captured on-screen, and never more so on "Succession" than in season three.

A big part of the draw is laughing at them.

Between Roman's twisted flirtation with general counsel Gerri Kellman (J. Smith-Cameron), Tom Wambsgans' (Matthew Macfadyen) deep dive into prison blogs about "toilet wine," and Kendall's insistence on playing "all bangers all the time" at the 40th birthday party he throws himself, these people's lives are so ridiculous that it's momentarily possible to forget that they're also astoundingly lonely.

The "Succession" writers have mastered this tonal balance. In season three, they send the characters diving from comedic banter head-first into tragedy — usually pulling them back up for air again right after.

They don't try to tame the Roys' monstrosity, nor do they attempt to hide their vulnerability. And never, at any point, do they try to make them more like us.

Even after showing us the characters' ugliest sides, Armstrong, the writers, and the actors have convinced us to care about what happens to these people, who are all so easy to hate.

But the true testament to the unparalleled excellence of "Succession" is that, mystifyingly, we even root for them.