In this week’s episode, Roman takes a call, Shiv and Willa go out for a drink, Connor has some thoughts on the U.S. tax code, and Logan has an unorthodox way of boosting team morale. And now ... the Power Rankings:
1. Logan Roy (last week: 3): Why bother peeing on a tree to mark your territory when you can force one of your top executives, your son-in-law, and your nephew to crawl around on the floor making oink noises while they scramble to grab a withered, phallic-shaped meat product. When you're an 80-year-old man who can cash in his chips to the tune of $10 billion and choose not to, it is obvious why - what meaning does your life have if you cannot belittle everyone in your presence and toy with their emotions on a whim?
2. Kendall Roy (last week: 1): It is easy to forget that when Succession started, Kendall was on the cusp of assuming his father's job as CEO. Indeed, the palace revolt was spurred, at least in part, because Logan decided not to retire. Although the show is a bit murky on the backstory, it seems all of the hoops Logan is now throwing in front of Shiv (the various apprenticeships and tours of duty in far-flung locations), Kendall has already been through. He may be drug-dependent, but Kendall is not a dummy. He understands the business world and now that he is nestled back in his father's chilly embrace, is executing Logan's directions with ruthless efficiency. The only thing stopping him from being the odds-on-favorite to take over one day is his inability to operate a stick shift on a rain-slicked road.
3. Gerri Killman (last week: not ranked): Playing both sides is always a dangerous game, yet somehow, Gerri never seems to get caught short. In Season One she was ready to kneecap Kendall when Logan fell ill only to turn around and join Kendall's coup attempt before abandoning him in the board room. When Shiv threatened to go public about the cover ups in the company's cruise line division, Gerri brokered the peace between Logan and Gil. Now, she is skeptical of the PGM acquisition but it's Karl that ends up on the floor wrestling for pig meat, not her. She also has a weird Mrs. Robinson thing going on with Roman.
4. Jamie (last week: not ranked): If there was one thing Game of Thrones taught us, it is that the Iron Bank always gets paid. Banking is an unemotional profession of credits and debits that has the side benefit of getting you out of the more unpleasant parts of a corporate retreat when your client needs you to shake the money tree stateside.
5. Connor Roy (last week: not ranked): One of Succession's unspoken themes is the characters' sense of entitlement. Their ids make up approximately 99.8% of their psyche because there are never any consequences for their actions. Money does solve all their problems, from covering up a murder to the more pedestrian needs of renting living space for your nascent presidential run that is also in close proximity to your rent-a-girlfriend’s theater. If you want to run for President, not only is there nobody telling you "that's a bad idea," you can hire some real deal political consultants who will suction cup their bank accounts to your wallet and drain $10 million before you know it. But why worry about that when in 10 seconds your hyper-decanting system ages wine 5 years and you can go on Instagram and threaten to evade paying taxes.
6. Shiv Roy (last week: 5): I'm bearish on Shiv for two reasons. First, are we sure she's good at her job? Last week, her attempt to stir discord between Logan and Kendall fell flat and she burned her bridge with Gil *after* wavering on her dad's three-years-and-then-you-get-the-job offer. This week, she fails at the simple task of getting Connor to put the kibosh on his bananas IG vid (even failing to appeal to Willa's grifter nature by intimating that the money given to Connor's political flunkies might jeopardize the production of her (surely, off Broadway) play) and sending Tom into the lion's den against her father was ill-advised. Second, it is hard to see her as anything other than a contingency plan for Logan. All of the seasoning she requires Kendall already has and her more liberal politics are not simpatico with her pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps father. Maybe that romp with Willa's friend cleared the cobwebs ...
7. Cousin Greg (last week: 6): How did Greg finagle his way onto that private jet and weekend in Hungary, anyway? Instead of butchering defenseless hogs, Greg would have been better served putting the same time he did in cultivating drug dealers into a tutorial on the basics of Journalism 101 (on the record, on background, on deep background, etc.) Also, amusing that he thought that a few random observations of Logan that could have been provided by basically anyone who had come into contact with the old man over the last 50 years might come back to bite him in the ass. Trust no one Greg, especially any latte sipping douchebags!
8. Roman Roy (last week: 7): It takes a certain amount of hubris to think that you can negotiate a multi-billion dollar takeover by placing a casual phone call to one of your opposite numbers in the Pierce clan who is pals with the girlfriend you never have sex with (um, what is that about?) I *almost* felt bad for Roman when his subterfuge was exposed and Logan called him a moron, but if anyone deserved a comeuppance, it was Roman. He is glib and his instincts are sometimes good, but his general dickishness, entitlement, and too-cool-for-school attitude will only take him so far. Instead of trying to fuck Gerri, he would be better served heeding her advice and getting some actual experience under his belt.
9. Chris a/k/a Shiv's Fuck Toy (last week: not ranked): You know this guy. He doesn't own "screens" and he might tell you it's because they poison your mind but you know it's because he's scraping by on a stage actor's salary and can't afford them. He's the kind of guy who knows how to stretch his weed budget by getting high off the resin in the bottom of his bong. He's handsome but aimless and catnip for bored women who want a meat puppet who will fuck them without making their already complicated lives more so. Rock on, dude.
10. Tom Wamgsgans (last week: 9): Life in the big city is dealing our Midwestern social climber a never ending series of kicks to the sausage ... err, groin. Shiv hands him an assignment to torpedo her dad's acquisition of PGM (he fails). Logan dismisses him as a (literally!) impotent man whose mouth should stay shut until a grandchild is produced (ouch). He is tossed into the humiliating "Boar on the Floor" game (and loses). Cyd casually dunks on him the following morning (oh, the humanity!) And when he comes home, teary-eyed and exhausted, the first thing his wife tells him, in so many words, is that while he was off being treated like a doormat, she fucked a random peasant. I'm not sure there are enough “skulls” at ATN to make this pain go away.
Not Ranked: Marcia Roy; the as-yet-to-be-introduced Pierce clan; Willa; Cyd "Will Eat Tom's Sausage" Peach; Karl; Frank; Eric Schulman and Bud Henry, Connor's piece of shit political consultants; Ratfucker Sam; Michelle Pastil; the waiter getting sucked off in Palermo by Frank's trophy girlfriend; the pastries served at Waystar Royco HQ; Stewie; Sandy Furness; Ray, the Red Shirt Waystar executive who was about to piss in the ice bucket.
Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy
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