Spoiler alert! Sneak peek at first episode of Season 3 of Succession reveals less Shakespeare, more brothers (and sister) grim

Logan Roy may just be enjoying all this.

Yes, he and his company are under siege from his own treacherous son; yes, he may be getting the cold shoulder from POTUS and, yes, he may even end up going to jail, but internecine warfare seems to suit the invigorated corporate titan.

Or should that be fairy tale giant?

"I'm going to grind his f------ bones to make my bread," the ageing patriarch, played by Brian Cox, smoulders in the return of Succession, HBO's classy series about wealth, family and power.

As season three kicks off on Foxtel and Binge in Australia, Logan is nothing if not liberal with the f-words (and we're not talking fee-fi-fo-fum) but it's the deployment of a strategic c-bomb - CEO - which really sends shockwaves through the ranks of those would take his place as the head of Waystar Royco.

High in the clouds above the beanstalk, as sleek, expensive flying machines whisk Logan and his entourage of advisers and loyal (for now) offspring to various havens which, by chance, choose not to share an extradition treaty with the US, a solid plan must be hatched to counter Jack's clambering attack.

Jack is disgruntled scion Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Logan's son who has declared war against his father and is determined to breach the castle walls of his family's empyrean empire and, if not steal the goose that laid the golden egg, leave it bloody and dying in the moat.

At the climax of season two of Jesse Armstrong's slow-burn, Emmy-Award-winning creation, Kendall had refused to take the fall - or be a "blood sacrifice" - to placate the public and soothe spooked shareholders after a scandal in the company's cruise division. Instead of doing his father's bidding, Kendall (who has form in the betrayal stakes) told the world during a press conference his dad was up to his neck in the controversy, that he was a bully, a liar and he should step down from leading the New York-based media/entertainment conglomerate.

Our new episode kicks off in the immediate aftermath of Kendall's sneak attack and centres on each Roy camp as they gather allies.

As opposed to his raging father, isolated Kendall soon realises his support base is lacking in numbers and quality. Counted among his magic beans is bumbling cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) and maybe Greg's mum.

Slippery Kendall hits the phones while never taking his eye off the optics. He demands his endeavours be communicated via "cool tweets"; he wants to be informed of his "cultural temperature" and to be drip-fed "the metadata".

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Meanwhile, Logan has the opposite problem, he's spoiled for talent, so can even take time to consider the practicalities of civil war.

"No local food! If I get the shits, we're f-----."

An army does march on its stomach, after all.

Knowing this, chief financial officer Karl Muller (David Rasche) is desperate for a sandwich. In the jet on the way to ... where is it, this time? Sarajevo? ... it's obvious he has the munchies when trying to fathom the company's perilous situation. It's the "12-foot sub of poisonous tree frogs ... the full Baskin-Robbins; 31 flavours of f--- right there."

Meanwhile, the brothers are grim, as is the sister, not that you can ever tell with Siobhan (Australia's Sarah Snook). 'Shiv' is inscrutable as ever, her vulpine grin inching across her face as she enlists husband Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) to establish where she stands in the perpetually shifting Logan family pecking order. Uncharacteristically, however, Shiv does lose her cool when blindsided by a purported ally.

Snarky younger brother Romulus ('Roman', played by Kieran Culkin) makes a telling, if not misjudged, call to his father, while poor old Conner (the eldest Roy child, played by Alan Ruck) literally gets left on the tarmac, asked to "hold the fort".

Ouch.

Yet, amid all the jostling, the raw ambition of youth, it is old warhorse Logan who continues to pull the strings and it is Logan who sets the tone for the coming season and the coming bloodletting.

"We'll go full f------ beast!" he bellows.

Fee-fi-fo-fum, indeed.