Previous Power Rankings:
This week on Succession … Logan gets sick, Tom goes for a walk, and Greg needs some coke. And now, the Power Rankings:
1. Nan Pierce (last week: 2): It turns out there was a limit to the amount of fumbling you would tolerate from the market before you closed your skirt and went back to your funny little house. Your head kept trying to justify a “yes” but your heart was screaming “no” long before you found out Mo(Lester) was playing Mr. Fiddle Sticks with cruise line dancers and blackballing those who did not submit to his advances. You’re not going to wear a lanyard around your neck and you’re certainly not going to get in bed (metaphorically) with a crazed man who claws at the locked door to your Mercedes as you speed back to Tern Haven, where Rosa is waiting with a fresh Break Bumper and a bill for at least one new set of bed linens while you consider candidates to serve as CEO.
2. Logan Roy: (last week: 1): We here at the Power Rankings take our cue from the godfather of the art form, Mark Lisanti, whose rule of thumb when it came to this feature when writing about Mad Men was that Don Draper got the top spot unless something drastic happened. We think both literally and figuratively vomiting all over yourself meets that standard and that is not even taking into account smacking the hell out of your son. Maybe it was the altitude, or perhaps Kendall was not as diligent with the pills as he should be, but our hairy old newsman was off his game this week. With the PGM deal now dead, bad publicity about the cruise line division in the news, and Stewie and Sandy still circling, the Waystar Gulfstream may not be the only thing running out of gas. A temporary demotion is in order.
3. Kendall Roy (last week: 3): There were some clear signs of life this week for our number one boy, I am just not sure they were all channeled in the right direction. Dressing down the suits Logan has tasked with hashing out the fine points of the PGM acquisition seemed gratuitous and Ken’s opinion on how to handle the New York magazine piece left a bit to be desired, but he did have the canned corporate response to it down cold until Shiv kneecapped him. The more she tries to force her way into the conversation, the closer the old man pulls Kendall into his orbit, but did Logan shake loose Kendall's dormant humanity when he cold-cocked Roman? Kendall's instinctive defense of his younger brother would suggest there once again appears to be a human being lurking in that body, not just a robot with skin and a coke habit he is (sort of) managing.
4. Shiv Roy (last week: 8): Shiv revealed all of the things that make her both Logan’s logical successor and not-ready-for-prime-time. Her instincts when it comes to crisis communications are strong and she is the one person the Pierces view as palatable even as the New York magazine story breaks. But she also has a tendency to try and bigfoot things. As she put it in Safe Room, “clumsy old Shiv stomping all over it in my work boots.” Making a public pitch to do a dinosaur cull of your own family’s company so fresh eyes and clean hands can take over is not going to go over well with the old man, regardless of how it plays in the room, and swooping in nine minutes before your brothers go onstage to gum up the scripted explanation they are going to give ended up as a Tern Haven redux of dueling-banjoes sibling rivalry. She may be going with a “fuck it” strategy of antagonizing her dad as a means of standing up to him, but this one-foot-in-one-foot-out power play can only take her so far.
5. Tom Wamgsgans (last week: not ranked): When you are up on that stage and the lights are bright, you cannot see the smirks on the faces of audience members as you stumble through a presentation any competent executive could do in his sleep. In that moment, it is easy to imagine the best version of yourself - not the one who gets cock blocked by his own wife when he is trying to close the deal at a nightclub or the one whose Airbus Culture and Leadership Walk is interrupted by an underling telling him the tag line he assiduously poll tested can no longer be used. No, with the mic looped comfortably around your head and your wife telling you how turned on she got from seeing another woman trying to get into your puffy vest, you imagine getting both the nut and fruit box and the champagne and paper weight.
6. Cousin Greg(ory): (last week: not ranked): A nice bounce back week for Greg. Just getting an invitation to the ultra-elite Argestes conference would have been enough, but when your chalet is stocked with cashews the size of boomerangs and you may have touched Bill Gates, you know you have arrived. Sure, you still lack the experience of carrying your own powder for that little boost of confidence needed in the company of tech titans and super models, but at least you and Tom came up with a clever tag line. Be Best, Greg(ory).
7. Gerri Killman (last week: 6): On the one hand, there is a future for you as CEO (or Chairman, whatever) of Waystar Royco sitting atop a pile of fuck you money that would allow you to ignore the existential threat of climate change because you will own a swath of land in New Zealand guarded by a small army, on the other, all that dirty talk with Roman got you was a backhanded compliment as a competent filing cabinet who will play Mole Woman to his Tarzan. You’re better than this, Gerri.
8. Rhea Jarrell (last week: 4): Playing both sides is a dangerous game (just ask the woman right above you in the Power Rankings). You need to be deft and nimble, always vigilant for shifting tides, but you got caught short. Maybe it was the vision of a huge payout dancing in your head or maybe you thought once the Roys took over PGM there would be a spot for you; either way, you now have to update your LinkedIn profile.
9. Del Simmons (last week: not ranked): Things were going south between Nan and Logan before you stepped onstage to emcee the Argie Awards, but a few zingers at Waystar Royco finally pushed her over the edge. Kudos Del, a few minutes of lukewarm comic roasting torpedoed a $25 billion media merger. You have earned what will surely be a one and done spot on the Power Rankings.
10. Roman Roy (last week: 6): Maybe you were better off swirling caramel apples at Brightstar amusement park because all your old habits - the smarminess, the immaturity, the overt attempts at manipulation - are back with a vengeance. While it is comforting that your siblings rode to your rescue after you spent the weekend belittling and mocking them, that they had to do so because you tasted the back of the old man’s hand is not a good sign.
Not Ranked: Marcia Roy; Connor Roy; Stewie; Sandy Furness (who may or may not have syphllis); Hugo Baker; Leah; Jess; Karolina; Shakespeare Frank; Willa; The Quarterly 10-Q Meeting; J. Alfred Prufrock; The $75 Cobb Salad; Toxic Masculinity Monthly; the new Jonathan Franzen.
Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy
No comments:
Post a Comment