This week on Succession … Ken makes a pitch, Lukas sends a tweet, and Roman takes some heat. And now, the Power Rankings:
1. Kendall Roy (last week: T-3): All the ingredients were there for one of your patented flameouts. The vibes that screamed “three day coke binge.” The elaborate stagecraft. The minions nervously agreeing with your requests. The costuming. The siblings’ skeptical looks. Hell, you even got dressed down by Karl right before you went onstage. And yet, when the lights shined brightest, you finally came through. You wisely decided against the eleventh-hour Potemkin village with faux clouds and went with a more conventional pitch. Sure, the flight jacket looked ridiculous, but your hokey patter with video Logan struck just the right tone. And when Mattson tried to rattle you by live tweeting your presentation, you rose above it, walking off stage to applause from the company’s deep pocket investors and the grudging admiration of the Waystar leadership team. One problem. You are taking that proverbial tightrope walk on a straight razor. You browbeat poor Pete into accepting your wildly unrealistic growth expectations so that he could make a colorable argument to investors about this new venture’s potential all while knowing the numbers are hinky and being made up for the sole purpose of making Waystar’s acquisition price higher than Mattson can afford. A bill will come due one day, but for now, go ahead and carve that number one in the sand, you have earned your spot atop the board.
2. Shiv Roy (last week: 1): You were right to be skeptical when your brothers promised your partnership would remain equal even though they were taking the title of co-CEOs. While Mattson might be an unreliable narrator, when he told you that Ken and Roman melted down during their negotiation with him, that added to your own suspicion that they wanted to tank the deal, cut you out, and run the whole company themselves. So you called them out when they tried to sell the management team on a story about Mattson being erratic and got them to admit the whole thing was a lie. You have seen this movie before. Whether it was getting blamed for spilling chocolate milk in the Range Rover or mud on your confirmation dress, your siblings always seem to gang up on you. Now, with the power dynamics shifting, you are moving beyond keeping your options open and getting sucked into Lukas’s gravitational orbit. You know the idea of getting out clean and buying Pierce will only happen if Waystar is sold, so you got Roman to bail on Ken, kibitzed with Lukas about slipping a stick in the spokes of Ken’s bike, and hoped he would fall on his face. When your scheme went south, you told Lukas to stand down, fuming quietly while everyone patted Ken on the back, and chose to fight another day.
3. Lukas Mattson (last week: 2): You made it clear to Shiv you did not want any part of running senior living facilities and even floated an idea or two about how she could torpedo the whole idea, but when she balked, you took the bait and fired off an ill-advised tweet that ended up blowing up in your face. First rule of Nazis - only compare Nazis to other Nazis, don’t compare a company’s idea for a retirement community to Nazis. In doing so, you validated one of Kendall’s critiques about your leadership style, with the added indignity of having to take down the message when he deflected your rant with humor and a shrug.
4. Karl Muller (last week: T-9): You have been a CFO for major companies for more than two decades and so, you know a thing or two about a thing or two. When Pete no doubt came running to you with concerns about Kendall’s ideas for valuing Living+, the red light came on and you took the opportunity to remind Ken that while he may hold the top job, you could eviscerate him if he said anything you did not agree with. It was a completely rational response to what you expected to be a dumpster fire of a presentation that you were not going to be left defending. And yet, when Ken came through in the clutch, got the room on his side, and name dropped you as “legendary,” you reverted right back to being a supportive company man, praising Kendall and calling him "special," all while the dream of retirement on that Greek island remains as elusive as ever.
5. Roman Roy (last week: T-3): Since you just fired the person you used to work out your kinks with, it is not surprising (although a little creepy) that you have a very special humiliation clip from your dad on a loop so you can marinate in all the bad decisions you made while out in La La Land. You misread every situation and overreacted at the slightest challenges to your authority. And yet, your brother had your back. He shrugged off your impulsive firings of Joy and Gerri, speculating that you could spin the whole thing as a couple of young turks shaking up the leadership team to turn things around. The thanks you gave him was letting Shiv convince you to distance yourself from the Living+ presentation, assuming Ken would go down in flames. When he not only made it through in one piece, but had the audience in the palm of his hand, you were left alone to second guess yourself with your dead father’s manufactured words about how you always get things wrong ringing in your ears.
6. Cousin Greg (last week: 8): You may have set a new world record for letting the least amount of power go to someone’s head. Then again, when you have shredded highly damaging company files, made a fool of yourself in front of Congress, and narrowly avoided jail time, browbeating some random sound engineer into doing a bit of light corporate fraud so you get into the good books is not a big deal.
7. Tom Wamgsgans (last week: 4): Perhaps you see it all slipping away or maybe you do legitimately want to mend things with your estranged wife, but instead of scoping out the leggy blondes and tall models Greg had lined up, you finally opened up to Shiv and admitted that the things you love - your career and your money - were at risk and betraying her was a way to ensure you got to keep both. You may be a phony, but that might have been the most honest thing you ever said to her.
8. Logan Roy (last week: NR): You haunt your children from the grave. As if they needed further confirmation of your dim view of their abilities, outtakes from your intro for Living+ left no doubt they were your favorite punching bags. But Ken flipped the script and with a little Hollywood magic, turned you into his co-conspirator in selling a prison camp for grannies as a dynamic experience so exciting they won’t even notice they are being kept drunk on content while Waystar drains every last dollar out of their bank accounts.
9. Gerri Kellman (last week: 5): For a seasoned lawyer who has made a living out of avoiding the ax, you woefully misjudged this situation. You thought you could give Roman a stern lecture about handling human resources, dismiss him as a weak monarch temporarily wearing a crown until the kingdom is taken over by a new ruler, and explain that tech is going to swallow everything in its wake, when what he wanted in that moment was a crumb of validation you refused to give him. He has the pretext of the cruise line scandal to show you the door; for your sake, we hope you kept a file folder of his pervy text messages if he decides to follow through on his threat.
10. Joy Palmer (last week: NR): Just a pro tip, when the latest installment in the Kalispatron franchise is over budget and your new boss sweeps into town offering you a pile of money to fix it, instead of taking that opportunity to editorialize about ATN’s right-wing bent, just say “thank you” and get the franchise pump pump pumping again.
Not Ranked: Connor Roy. Willa Roy. Marcia Roy. Karolina Novotny. Hugo Baker. Shakespeare Frank Vernon. Pete. Denny. Raj. Lana. Dr. Sarcasm. Meme Stock Frothing. Doderick and Friends. The Big Eye. Dad Goggles.
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