This week on Succession … Roman takes a call, Shiv cuts a deal, and Connor gets a job. And now, the Power Rankings:
1. Sandy Furness, Sandi Furness, and Stewy Houssani (last week: NR): Your financing was wobbly and your leader even more so, but you kept pushing and the other side kept folding. At the end of the day, you benefited from two things. First, you understood that while the shareholder vote was teeter-tottering, losing the family business was simply not a gamble the Roys were willing to make when their odds of winning were slightly worse than a coin flip. Second, you got a small bit of good luck. Logan is a worthy adversary who smelled something fishy in all the back and forth. After all, why agree to the same deal Stewy walked away from in Greece? But when he left the field, the terrain became more favorable. As Sandy and Stewy learned early on, the Roy kids are that unique combination of insecure, incompetent, and inexperienced, making them easy prey for savvier negotiators. By the time the old man came to and started grumbling to Shiv about the terms of the deal, it was too late. Is there another shoe to drop? Color us expectant. While nothing much in Ken’s performance suggested he is pulling many strings, that he is ready to serve up Greg to the DOJ suggests something else is afoot.
2. Shiv Roy (last week: 3): For someone who resisted coming into the family business for so long, you have certainly made your presence felt now that you are there. We cannot fault you for making concessions when the shareholder vote looked like it was going the wrong way. A leadership vacuum existed and you stepped in to fill it. Were you too cute by half in coughing up that fourth board seat in exchange for an extra one you expected would be yours? Perhaps, but that type of horse trading comes naturally to someone steeped in the grimy world of politics. You triaged a bad situation the best way you knew how, but inevitably, you came up short in your father’s eyes. Lots to mull over while Tom is waiting for you to fill his commissary card so he can load up on goodies from the kosher vending machines at the federal penitentiary in Otisville.
3. Roman Roy (last week: 5): We are not sure which compliment turned your head more, when Gerri called you Bootleg Logan or a visionary, either way, she sure has a weird way of flirting with you. Your concern for your father was a nice touch and you (mostly) kept your wits about you while the negotiations dragged on. We just have a hard time getting a handle on you, Roman. On the one hand, you are smart enough to know you can’t tell the President “blow me” but on the other, you will hand a cool mil to a formerly homeless man for the sole purpose of embarrassing your older brother. Pick a lane, dude.
4. Logan Roy (last week: 1): Your penchant for secrecy and compartmentalizing information stops making sense the moment you go from Master of the Universe to Piss Mad King of England. The inopportune timing of your collapse resulted in an agreement you knew you got chiseled on as soon as you were feeling better. That, plus the news that your pivot on the Raisin did not have its intended effect put you in a foul mood, but taking out your frustration on Shiv when you have no one to blame but yourself is a very bad look.
5. Connor Roy (last week: NR): For someone who flushed one hundred million American dollars down the toilet on a quixotic quest for the White House and nine tons of sand for his sugar baby’s failed off-Broadway play, you played this hand remarkably well. You had leverage and a reasonable ask. Instead of a no show gig at Gourmando and an eponymous wine tasting show, it’s off to Europe to polish your CV. Before you leave, you may want to do a quick check in with the Conn-Heads at the Institute For A Competitive America, just to let them know to keep their powder dry for your next run at the presidency.
6. Karl Muller (last week: NR): Every office has a Karl. You know, the guy who assiduously avoids doing the shit work like vamping in front of the shareholders while a deal is worked out only to elbow everyone out of the way to announce the good news when the deal is done. That you interrupted a video presentation featuring the three highest-ranking female executives at Waystar talking about how women are valued in the company was just the icing on the cake. Well played, sir.
7. Tom Wamgsgans (last week: 9): There was a time not so long ago when life was pretty good. You have fond memories of that nature walk at Argestes and who could forget when your wife dangled a no-guilt threesome in front of your face? Unfortunately, it has pretty much been downhill since. That odor coming off you is not the aroma of fruit and ketchup you are experimenting with for your prison toilet wine, no, it is desperation. You feel it all slipping away – the cushy job, the chilled white wine, and most importantly, your marriage to a woman who has not only zoomed past you on the org chart but is totally creeped out that you are tracking her menstrual cycle to calculate the most opportune time to impregnate her with Baby Wamgsgans.
8. Greenpeace (last week: NR): Thanks to Greg’s fuck up (see below), you are in line for a $250 million bequest, just ignore the irony that your enrichment is due to the market value of a company whose leader your donor described as a “whore for the climate deniers.”
9. Cousin Greg(ory): (last week: 7): It is easy to forget that you were once the family black sheep, catching a buzz in your beat up old Subaru before bombing out of your first (and only day) of employment at a Waystar theme park. But, as the saying goes, your eyes got too big for your stomach. You thought you were a player in this game of chess, but it turned out, you were simply a pawn that could be burned (by Ken), disinherited (by Ewan), and ignored (by Comfry). Grandpa Grumps is right, it is time to take yourself seriously, kid.
10. Kendall Roy (last week: 6): Speaking of someone we cannot take seriously … it is hard to look at you as some Machiavellian puppet master scheming from up on high in your eagle aerie when you might have accidentally killed your daughter’s pet rabbit and then tried to solve the problem by sending a doctor who treats people, not pets, to fix things. You could not even crash the shareholder meeting properly. Your mic got cut, your virtue signaling was met with crickets from the audience, and in a final bit of humiliation, you were left stranded in some dumpy windowless hotel room while your dad ghosted you. The only reason we have not bumped you off the Power Rankings is our perhaps (?) unrealistic belief that you are back channeling with your old college pal Stewy, the documents you turned over to DOJ are damaging, and Greg’s reevaluation of his position might get you back in the game.
Not Ranked: Marcia Roy. Ewan Roy. Willa. Gerri Kellman. Shakespeare Frank. Hugo Baker. Karolina. Jess Jordan. Kerry. Roger Pugh. Cyd Peach. The Raisin. Michelle-Anne, the Pantsuit Barnacle. Maya. Sophie Roy. Bianca. Megathump. Comfry. The Tabasco Suppository. Belligerent Zucchini. The Sermon On The Marriott. What Moscow and Washington Are Thinking.
Complete Season Two Power Rankings
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