Our final Succession power rankings
You asked for it, we answered: here’s where Kendall, Shiv, Roman, Tom, and the rest of the key players wound up in the wake of the series finale
TV Features Succession
Photo: David Russell/HBO
If you thought that our power ranking heading into the final episode of Succession would be the last one ever—surprise! We’re back to do it one last time. The truth is, we weren’t planning on ranking the characters after the finale at all. The thinking was that the show had said all it needed to say in that episode about power—who had it, and who didn’t. But our readers spoke up and requested a final counting of the heads. Far be it for The A.V. Club to disappoint, so here’s one more trip around the carousel to see who got the brass ring and who had to go back to the end of the line.
You can probably guess who landed on top, but the middle gets a little fuzzier. As with all the previous rankings, we based this one on how each character fared within this single episode, “With Open Eyes.” Where they go from there will now be permanently open to speculation (unless we somehow get a reboot years from now that spells it out). So here they are, by popular demand, the final power rankings for Succession.
37 Comments
Greg isn’t going to end up as the next Tom. I think that’s the opposite of what we were supposed to learn about his character.Greg’s whole thing is that he doesn’t care who’s on top, or what they want, or what they’re doing, or whether he’s doing his job well, or what his job even really is. He just wants to stay close to the power and keep his cushy status. That’s why he feeds information to both sides throughout the final season.Greg’s role is to be the lifetime #3, doing the dirty work no one else will, because that’s the only thing he has that will keep him close to the power. He isn’t smart or hardworking like Tom is, so he has no value otherwise.
I feel like Greg was a character who was sort of screwed by the writers because in the first 2 seasons he was a semi main character. Then as the writers fell in love with the siblings they sort of shafted Greg for more focus on the siblings. Compare Season 1 Greg to Season 4 Greg. Greg gets way more screen time in season 1-2 than 3-4. The problem is Greg got more attention in the earlier seasons so the audience expected more from him but yeah if he was supposed to always be the number 3 then his early focus in seasons 1-2 sort of send mixed messages.
He’s street smart, but hopeless in pretty much any corporate role other than the one he has – personal assistant.The whole “Greg will come out on top” thing made for amusing conversation but good lord, this is a publicly traded global company and it wasn’t that long ago he was baked out of his gourd and puking out the eyeholes of a mascot costume.
I think Greg’s arc is the most disappointing of them all only because, to your point, the first two seasons felt like they were setting him up to be the one character to actually show growth. We’re told how we’re supposed to feel about the Roy siblings from the get-go, but Greg felt like he could have been different since he didn’t grow up in the Logan empire. Maybe it stays true to the theme that all of the characters ultimately don’t show much growth, but it’s a bummer when you realize he was just a freeloader the entire time.
He isn’t smart
Smart enough to be the only one to actually think “hey, let me find out what these Swedes are actually saying” I was rather impressed with that.
For sure. I just posted something similar – he brings a level of base practicality to whatever situation he’s put in. I wondered since the Norway trip why no one was using google translate around Madsson and his people. Leave it to good ol Greg to use some common sense while everyone else was jockeying around for themselves.
My favorite Greg moment, a great example of both his resourcefulness and his oafishness, was when he shredding all those documents on Thanksgiving. On one hand, he’s sharp enough to realize that keeping some of those papers will pay off for him someday. On the other hand, he’s dim enough to take the time to make copies (and keep the copies) of papers that are heading directly to a shredder instead of keeping the originals. It’s a little touch that says a lot about the character.
“He isn’t smart or hardworking like Tom is, so he has no value otherwise.”
You watched this guy weasel his way up from amusement park character, puking in his costume, to the CEO of Waystar’s NUMBER ONE GUY, and your takeaway is that he isn’t smart?
Jesus, pay attention.
Honestly Roman should be lower than Kendall. At least Kendall did stuff this episode. Roman was such a disappointment. He was acting so limp. For the whole Finale he did nothing. I was dissapointed because in episode 9 it seems like he went into the riot to get himself beat up and re-energize himself but no he was so limp for the whole 1 hr and 30 minutes
You’re also forgetting in this post too that he was still pretty hurt, sad, and beat up from Logan’s death. Hence why he was so “limp.” He finally got to the acceptance phase and accepted Logan’s “you’re not a serious person” and why he stopped caring about being in charge of the company.
I don’t think he went into the protest to re-energize himself. I think he went because he doesn’t know how to feel without pain. It’s an unhealthy dynamic and he knows it, but he can’t break out of that pattern. I think Roman holds more power at the end because he seems to have come to terms with losing Waystar more than Kendall has. Kendall will be haunted by it, as his empty staring out over the river shows. Roman cracks a small smile over his martini, and appears visibly lighter. While Roman has problems, he is free of the things that abused him his whole life–Logan and Waystar. I have marginally more hope for him than for Kendall.
Actually, I think Roman should be higher. Of the four, Connor not withstanding, he actually seemed to be at place of… maybe not peace, but at least acceptance of reality for the first time.
What? He didn’t go to the protest to “re-energize.” He went there to abuse himself after experiencing the emotional humiliation by Kendall. Roman is broken by the penultimate episode. He actually regains a measure of agency in the finale.
One of my favorite pastimes of the last few months is reading Succession takes by people who fundamentally do not understand the show.
“Honestly Roman should be lower than Kendall. At least Kendall did stuff this episode.”
Roman was the only one who faced everything honestly.
You actually think Kendall is better off now than Roman is?
Jesus, man…that’s a bleak, bleak thought.
Another thing that I don’t like is how Shiv voted against Kendall. Shiv finds out Mattson betrayed her and that Tom will be the new CEO. She is so mad at both of this but then like 7 minutes later Shiv votes against Kendall because he put his feet up on the desk. Shiv wants to be CEO, she would have a better shot if the company was still in the family with Kendall in charge than Mattson. I just feel like her decision to betray Kendall could have been given more time because it seems rushed.
It was hardly rushed and surprising. You’re forgetting that he betrayed her first by making Roman co-CEO instead of her and keeping her out of the loop after he had promised her otherwise, which is what drove her into the arms of Matsson in the first place. Add the intense sibling rivalry they’ve always had (especially with Kendall mentioning that stupid eldest son nonsense), and her remembering that he did kill that busboy and covered it up, and then her realizing that she’s better off staying as Tom’s wife than serving untrustworthy Kendall and then it makes sense why she did it.
Why would Shiv have been CEO in any capacity? She has no real experience at the company. Like, literally none. She made some comms choices in the middle of Season 2, and put some pressure on the news teams improperly a few times, but that was it. Whereas Roman, we’re told, at least had a few trials of working with Frank, did whatever can count as some training, gets deals done.
There was never any reason Shiv should have been CEO at all. People seem to forget that their trajectory of individuals at the company didn’t simultaneously all begin in the first episode.
she was going to be fucked over completely if she voted for Ken because he already had no problem fucking her over. Maybe there was zero strategy in the decision and it was purely personal, but it was still the right move for her.I think she had to choose between aligning with Tom or Ken, and which one as as she put it, could she stomach more. Best of the worst.
– Kendall has a history of sidelining Shiv.- Kendall is demonstrably incompetent.- Kendall’s childishness and immaturity would threaten the future of the company.- Kendall’s pathetic and clumsy attempt to claim that he lied about killing a waiter reveals how easily he can lie to his sister’s face.- Ultimately, I think, it was Kendall bringing up his, and her, children as the reason to keep the company in family which actually cemented her decision. Yeah, what future should she bet on for her unborn child? Tom is sniveling, conniving, and duplicitous in his own right, but he is probably much smarter and more capable of managing the company than Kendall, and as the father, way more likely to look out for his own kid’s interest than Kendall. Not to say that Kendall would necessarily kick his own niece/nephew to the curb (but who knows?) but that he’s probably more likely to blunder on their future than Tom. And Tom would give Shiv access to power and influence which Kendall definitely would not.
By voting to sell, she gets her billions out of the company, free and clear. She was screwed either way, since she would never be the CEO regardless of who ended up controlling the company, and she no longer has to worry that her incompetent brothers would run the business into the ground.
Then again, Mattson’s financial house of cards might still collapse fairly quickly and there won’t be much Tom can do about that.
>Shiv votes against Kendall because he put his feet up on the deskJust because you’ve decided this is the reason doesn’t make it true.How many more seasons of these kids backbiting and backstabbing each other do you need to understand that they can’t bear to see one of them win?
Honestly, IMO it all comes back to the scorpion. Shiv might have been betrayed by Tom. She might be genuinely furious about her betrayal by Tom. She might even be sincere about wanting to side with Kendall and Roman.But when the moment of truth finally comes? Shiv betrays. It’s who she is. It’s what she does. Her entire character through the series is someone who cannot be trusted; she cannot be trusted to remain faithful in her marriage, she cannot be trusted to adhere to the political ideals she espouses, and she cannot be trusted to support the people she claims to back. So when she gets in that room and she has that taste of power and Kendall is the one who is about to get the prize? Her instincts and jealousies and resentments kick in. She can’t let Kendall win, even to avenge another betrayal. And so she acts in a way that is true to her nature.The scorpion will always stab the frog. It can only be itself.
There’s certainly ambiguity of why she changed her vote, and when. But I think a much better review site (The Ringer, https://www.theringer.com/succession/2023/5/30/23741836/power-rankings-series-finale-with-open-eyes-tom-wambsgans-kendall-roy-shiv-roman) discusses WHEN she changed her vote, and her stoneface after Kendall sneered “That’s fuckin’ right” while Roman cast his vote may have done him in. Also, what the fuck is THIS line? ”Actually, two prizes, since he also goes home with Shiv at the end of the episode. And baby makes three.” So Shiv is a prize to be won? Have you watched ANY of this series?
Was this the first episode of Succession you’d ever seen?
It makes sense from a dramaturgical perspective but good lord did it feel unsatisfying. Like I suppose that there are some internal machinations for Shiv, but the end-all “I think Kendall is down and out the worse” final status of her mind is just maddening, and equally compelling arguments can be made in either direction.People keep talking about how bad Kendall was too, as justification for why he should have lost, and I don’t see it. What’d he do? He killed someone. I mean, more like proximate manslaughter, but it was bad. Real bad. Indefensibly bad. From which he then had a 29 episode mental breakdown over the guilt. What else was so terrible of his? He tried to stand up to Logan and failed, which…it makes him bad that he gives poor interviews to federal investigators? That’s a personal flaw, that he couldn’t confidentially pull through the plan to actually get some accountability from the cruises debacle? Or maybe it’s that he has a bunch of hare-brained media schemes…but then you realize, oh, wait, that’s literally everyone in this world. Everyone’s ideas are equally awful. He…shunned his daughter during a racially tinged election? How I saw it was him trying to turn the ship around, just acknowledging it would take a long time. I mean it’s not like he was the only person to step in when his son was hit, or when Roman was hit; no, surely, he was Uniquely Bad.So no, I still really don’t understand why people also just seem to take for granted, in their discussion of the show, that Kendall was especially The Worst. I’d be inclined to say the opposite, that he’s probably the character with the most redeemable qualities and the biggest drive to be better. But I guess because he got mad when being denied the chance to take the reins at a company he had decades of leadership involvement in already and mistakenly called himself the eldest son it’s all worth it. I mean after all, the fact the he was told “it would be his” as a child means that he didn’t actually work there ever and was *especially* poorly qualified. Props to Shiv or something.
Just an infuriating finale. Can you tell?
My take – of the siblings, Roman ends up on top. Kendall is obviously the bottom of the whole thing. Shiv ends mid-pack. She has finally had an opportunity to exercise her voice and power, which is good for her. But she ends locked in a twisted love/hate pact with Tom. That last shot of them driving off in the limo felt like some twisted Murdoch version of the ending of Graduate — now what? I’ll grant the reading that now she and her husband are on equal footing didn’t occur to me. It’s an interesting take and it’s one I’ll have to process — maybe that does mean her future is rosier than I was initially thinking. Roman ends on top (of the siblings) because he’s free. He’s finally free from the burdens and delusions. I’m sure he could still spend the rest of his life talking to a therapist and only scratch the surface of his inner demons… but seeing him sipping that martini, I see someone sitting alone in the best possible way, unshackled by obligation or expectations. Of course, I forgot about Connor, who maybe ends up above even Roman in my own book because he knew where he was all along: “The good thing about having a family that doesn’t love you is you learn to live without it.”
Yeah I’ve always felt Connor just sort of floated along outside all of these goings-on. The sale just means more cash for him to entertain himself and buy some more happiness for Willa.And I agree on Roman. Deep down he knew he’d never be on top of anything at the company (even after their pact, Kendall is basically trying to invent a job for him being over…social media? Maybe?) and this finally allows him to put all the jockeying for himself and between Kendall and Shiv behind him forever.
Yeah, I don’t really think Connor and Willa belong in the power ranking at all. They’ve never held any power or sway within the organization or within Logan’s family. They’ve always been outside. If anything, the finale showed the cracks beginning to show in their relationship. All is not well in the house of Con-heads.
She looked pretty deflated when confronted with the fact he might not be going to Slovakia (alone).
Roman seemed to me like a man waking up from a bad dream. Kendall was right, Roman never really wanted the CEO job but couldn’t admit it. He got seduced into thinking he should fight this long, pointless battle until he reached the point where he had to admit it’s all meaningless. Once he does, and he’s sitting alone with his martini, it’s a relief.
“Roman ends on top (of the siblings) because he’s free.”
This.
Kendall is broken without Waystar as a rudder and Shiv is in a worse bargaining position that she would’ve been if she had partial ownership of the company. Sure, Kendall sidelined her, but if the three of them stayed together and kept control of the company she could, in the future, throw some weight around and weaponize her power/votes. Now, she’s essentially Tom’s Marcia. She’s his wife, and she may have his ear, but she has no power. None. Not in the relationship and not at Waystar.
Roman is, when it all shakes out, probably happy to have his billions and not another care in the world.
https://www.axios.com/2023/06/06/medias-succession-obsession
Are Shiv and Tom divorced? Thought they were merely estranged.
I do corporate law, and it seems the common consensus is that none of the kids were the right fit. And on some level thats true.But imo, they each seem just as competent as any CEO. It’s just a culture of power hungry people, and any of the kids might be fine because the industry is designed to benefit people like them. It’s less a critique of them, and more the actual system that favours often incompetent people by putting them into extremely powerful roles.At the end of the day, a CEO is listening to their hired experts, and making a decision off of those opinions (and requires some ability to disconnect from your humanity).
I bet Marcia comes out of it pretty well in the end. Free of Logan and with a massive inheritance, plus the amount Connor overpaid for the house. And, cherry on top, if she doesn’t want to she never has to see any of those fucking kids again.