This week on Succession … Roman plays a trick, Greg avoids getting sick, and America (sort of) makes a pick. and now, the Power Rankings:
1. Roman Roy (last week: 7): The Raisin would not play ball with your dad so ATN chased him out of the White House with a whisper campaign about his diminished capacity. You found a T. Rex in Virginia who keeps you on speed dial and is far more amenable to blurring ethical lines. So, as you saw the tide turning in Mencken’s direction, you were not above a little puppet mastering to make sure he got over the finish line. You slipped Mark Ravenhead some talking points to firm up the right wing narrative and leaned on the data crunchers to call Wisconsin for Mencken even with 100,000 absentee votes literally up in smoke. By the wee hours of the morning you were over the road and into the bar with a guy who cites Hitler casually, but you see as someone who will play ball while you motorboat democracy for kicks.
2. Jeryd Mencken (last week: NR): You were realistic enough to think about shaping a post-defeat narrative as a victory for your insurgent campaign but you over performed in the right places and with a little help from your friends, “won” a narrow, contested victory that catapulted you from obscure congressman to the most powerful man in the world.
3. Kendall Roy (last week: 1): In your heart you know Mencken’s ascension to the presidency threatens your ideal of an America where all different people live together in (relative) harmony or else you would not have a stealth security detail following around your daughter. You were willing to deny Roman the steak he craved provided Shiv could get some assurance from Nate that the Jimenez team would scuttle the Go Jo deal if ATN pumped the brakes on declaring Mencken the winner. You were even willing to be honest enough with her to admit you wanted the kingdom for yourself and worried about whether you were a good person and father. But the reward you got for showing vulnerability was learning Shiv cut her own deal with Matsson. Suddenly, you came around to the idea there is value in having a guy in the Oval Office who will return your calls and give your company privileged access to the West Wing even if he tears the country apart.
4. Cousin Greg (last week: 8): Sometimes being a toady works to your advantage. You are willing to visit some unseemly venues, consume drinks that are not typically drinks, and even cut a rug with a confused old man if it hands you actionable intel you can flip for your benefit. A night out carousing with Lukas and his crew led to your finding out about Shiv’s double game. When the Mencken wind started blowing across the land, Shiv’s threat to pull your insides out of your backside if you spilled the tea felt much less threatening. So you squealed to Kendall, and just for good measure, gave the order to press the button that set off the nuke called President-Elect Jeryd Mencken. Do you feel guilty about any of this? We doubt it. After all, as you told Lukas in a haze of vape smoke, you gotta do what you gotta do.
5. Connor Roy (last week: 9): You fancy yourself a clever political operator when in fact you lit one hundred million U.S. dollars on fire just so you could give a delusional, grievance laden concession speech that confirmed what we all knew – you are a joke, but at least you are flexible. You no longer need to worry about what your wo-man thinks of O-man because you went from “no on the Slos” to “good morning, Dubrovnik!” Enjoy Europe, Con.
6. Lukas Matsson (last week: 2): You may be able to bigfoot people on a mountaintop in Norway and RSVP your acceptance to an exclusive pre-election party four minutes before you show up, but we think the sledding will be a wee bit tougher now that the Roy boys have the incoming leader of the free world in their back pocket while you fend off the inevitable short squeeze that will come after you admit your India subscriber numbers are funky.
7. Tom Wamgsgans (last week: 10): Your head has been on the chopping block ever since Logan keeled over in that airplane bathroom and yet you find a way to avoid the axe. Perhaps it is those solid, Midwestern arches that allow you to dance away from danger or maybe it is the surge of energy you get off that bump of coke, but we know it is because you are, as your estranged wife said, servile. Sure, you paid lip service to Logan’s rules against the bigwigs muscling in on news coverage, but you could not get Greg to wrangle the kids off the electoral battlefield any more than you could fix the glitchy touch screen computers at the decision desk. So you did what you always do, you analyzed the situation and figured out who was most likely to come out on top and acted accordingly. It appears your marriage is finally over, but Roman may give you a stay of execution as a reward for calling the election for his candidate. We shall see.
8. Darwin Perry (last week: NR): Election nights sometimes hold intrigue, but you were not prepared for the literal (or metaphorical) wasabi-in-the-eye experience of Mencken vs. Jimenez. You only agreed to call Wisconsin if it was characterized as “pending” but when the time came for the caveats, the powers that be stuffed you in a locker.
9. Shiv Roy: (last week: 3): You did not need to worry about the bomb in Matsson’s numbers because you were more than capable of having your own decisions blow up in your face. For someone who cut her teeth in the grimy world of politics, you could not have played your hand more poorly. You gambled on your brothers never finding out about your betrayal and napalmed your marriage without realizing when a national election was on a razor’s edge, it might be beneficial if your husband was on your side instead of having him question whether revealing that you are pregnant is a lie or the truth. With no allies left, it looks like you are going to go scorched earth. Color us skeptical.
10. Jess Jordan: (last week: NR): By now, we thought you would have come to terms with the bargain you made. You work for horrible people and they pay you money to look past that fact. If you do not want to do it, Kendall will replace you faster than you can say “no real person involved.”
Not Ranked: Willa Roy. Rava Roy. Sophie Roy. Shakespeare Frank Vernon. Hugo Baker. Gerri Kellman. Mark Ravenhead. Cyd Peach. Karl Muller. Nate Sofrelli. Lemon-flavored La Criox Seltzer Water. Freedom Voice America. VeraNews. Shrodinger's Cat. Microwave Milk and Ginger Shots. Spaghetti and Olive Oil. American Bottled Water. Pontius Pilate. Bodega Sushi.
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