This week on Succession … Willa bails, Connor fails, and Kerry flails. And now, the Power Rankings:
1. Logan Roy (last week: 2): You don’t do apologies. Divide and conquer is more your jam. Sure, over your 50 year business career you have learned more than a few tricks. You know how to play the little head games like denying access to the company chopper or floating a list of pit bull lawyers to your son-in-law so your daughter is denied top shelf legal representation, but you do not get to the top of the heap by being a glorified prankster. No, you see the world in three dimensions and you understand people. That birthday text from Roman gave you the faintest glimmer of a crack in the kids’ united front and that was all you needed to start driving a wedge between them. You played along with their impromptu therapy session and even coughed out the word “sorry,” but you quickly tired of their well-worn list of grievances. Were you attempting some of your own negotiating 101 in claiming the GoJo deal is a good one and sealing it will allow everyone to start a new chapter? Of course you were. You know that Ken, Shiv, and Roman can tank the deal by siding with Sandi and Stewy, so you dismissed your own children as unserious people while cracking open that back channel to Roman, playing to his vanity, and offering him a welcome mat back into your orbit.
2. Lukas Mattson (last week: NR): We still don’t have a great read on you. Are you a social media panty flasher or a serious businessman? Lounging around in your undershirt while you shovel potato chips and soda in your mouth suggests all the sturm und drang around your acquisition is starting to bore you. We know you are afflicted with that unique form of Nordic ennui, but you also show a casual disregard for rules. Whether you are tweeting out non-public information and risking an SEC slap on the wrist or leaning on a Waystar board member to support the deal, your behavior certainly codes as aggressive but we don’t know if you are bluffing or ready to launch your nukes.
3. The Rebel Alliance (last week: 1): That did not take long. It is easy enough to hang out in one of your many homes hate-watching PGN, bemoaning the lack of on-air eye candy, calling its shows dookie and fantasizing about the programming you are going to replace their current watching-paint-dry debates about NATO membership with, but to borrow from Tyrion Lannister, you’re in the big game now. The Next Gen Roys may think they have a song to sing, but you’re being moved around a chess board you do not fully understand by actual grandmasters. Tom pulled a move Shiv should have seen coming a mile away since, you know, Logan did the same thing to her mother in their divorce and Ken’s head is turned by a one-sheet comp document from Stewy. It is no wonder Roman is reconsidering his options. After all, he pitched a new version of ATN to Jeryd Mecken in Virginia that would be light on actual news and heavy on e-girls vaping and spinning conspiracy theories while Ken is throwing out ideas for a foreign report melatonin news hour and shows about sub-saharan Africa. If the GoJo merger goes kablooey so does your chance at Pierce, but unless you agree on a strategy and stick together, your father’s assessment of you will again be proven right.
4. Tom Wamgsgans (last week: 5): We like what we see Tom. Sure, your hype man skills leave a bit to be desired, but your ability to play the inside game at Waystar is much improved from when we first met you. When Logan complained about the size of the new election center and the air conditioning bill for it, you saw it as an opportunity to toss Cyd under the bus, casually mentioning how much she likes it and slipping in a comment about her less-than-stellar work ethic (“she doesn’t tend to stay late”). When Logan asked for your assessment of Kerry’s on camera abilities, you politely, but clearly messaged that she was not ready for prime time. And when Logan tasked you with breaking the bad news to her, you avoided getting your hands dirty by outsourcing the job to Greg. Depriving your soon-to-be ex-wife of quality representation was just the cherry on the sundae.
5. Sandi (with an eye) Furness and Stewy Houssani (last week: NR): When you tried telling Logan about your concerns with the GoJo deal, he pawned you off on Karl, so you were resigned to a symbolic protest vote against selling Waystar until Shiv ran into money trouble and Stewy convinced Ken the offer price was a little light. Now, you may have the ability to scuttle the deal, but what is the end game? You are corporate raiders, not media moguls. Are a few extra zeroes going to make that much of a difference when you cash in your chips?
6. Cousin Greg (last week: 6): Your diplomatic skills leave a lot to be desired. Of course, when handed a task that is harder and more important than the one between Israelis and Palestinians, it is no surprise you wound up screwing the pooch. Naive twenty-somethings may be susceptible to your unique brand of awkwardness, but if you try to BS your way through a meeting with Logan’s current paramour who expects to parlay her position beside him into an on-air anchor gig, you cannot be surprised when she sees right through your sham focus group lie and threatens to pull you apart like string cheese.
7. Connor Roy (last week: NR): You were not wrong about your siblings. They are needy love sponges who want dad’s approval, but painting yourself as a plant that grows on rocks and lives off insects is a bit much. You are every bit as desirous of his approval as they are, which is why you gave him your location and the deets on their 180 on the GoJo deal so he could try and talk them off the ledge. But doing your dad a solid cannot mask the odor of desperation that surrounds you. Warbling out Famous Blue Raincoat while you cyberstalk your runaway bride suggests your superpower is a bottomless ability to be humiliated, not living without love.
8. Kerry Castellabate (last week: 4): We get it, Kerry. When the Power Rankings were doing grunt work for ~ very important people ~ in Washington, D.C. we too expected a glow up in the form of a well-earned promotion. Your mistake appears to have been trusting Logan to honor your request, which is surprising considering how many times you have been in a room when he has gone back on his word. But hey, congratulations on getting your betrayal cherry popped.
9. Willa Ferreyera (last week: NR): This all must have seemed much simpler when you and Connor met. The Power Rankings are not the morality police and so we never judged your sugar baby hustle. The City is full of starving artists looking for a deep pocket to help make their dreams come true. But when your play tanked and Connor decided to drop nine figures on a quixotic quest for the White House that required the imprimatur of marriage to obscure the more sordid details of how you met, this whole thing became a bit too real. Fortunately for you, Connor does not actually care whether you love him or not, but is this the way you want to spend the rest of your life?
10. Jess Jordan (last week: NR): Yours is one of the more thankless jobs out there and this week was no different. Limited screen time focused exclusively on cleaning up messes and massaging egos cannot be worth whatever Ken is paying you.
Not Ranked: Gerri Kellman. Shakespeare Frank Vernon. Hugo Baker. Karolina. Cyd Peach. Karl Muller. Colin Stiles. Cyrus Tellis. Eyeballs Emoji. Homework, The Show. Desperado. Billy Ray Cyrus’s Kentucky Fried Sh*t Shack. Jaws, If Everyone In Jaws Worked For Jaws. The Maghreb.
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