The Top 5 Succession Characters In Line To Steal the Waystar/Royco Throne

By: Kelly Kearney

Everyone’s favorite family of greedy sociopaths are back! After two long years on a pandemic break, “Succession” is finally gearing up for the battle of “Who will replace the media mogul and corporate billionaire, Logan Roy?” The fight for the throne is hotter and more volatile than ever. And considering the personalities at play in this unholy line of succession, the steal looks to be a side-splitting tragic and inevitable failure; at least where the number one son is concerned. In the first two seasons we saw boy-Icarus, Kendall (Jeremy Strong), fly too closely to his father’s sun and come crashing down to earth, or shall we say directly into an English pond killing a waiter and eventually overthrowing his father’s company. Kendall knows he blew his last chance to replace Logan (Brian Cox) when he tossed his company to those wolves in Congress. Shiv (Sarah Snook), who also flip-flops between capturing her father’s attention and avoiding it through her other competing projects, lost her chance at the crown after she stepped on Logan’s toes and then courted his rival for a CEO spot. It was a move too far for the Waystar patriarch who wound up kicking his Pinkie Princess to the back row until she can learn “family always comes first,” which is a shame for the smartest Roy in the family. It did; however, kick off a competitive race to the top. Now, the Roy Princes and Princess are all vying for the top job, but could a dark horse or bespectacled legal eagle take the crown? Could some unsuspecting and insignificant gnat start buzzing a cacophony of take over nightmares into Logan Roy’s stranglehold with the board? Anything is possible in this satirical look at a billionaire family’s fight to control their media empire. In descending order, check out my top five most likely choices to replace Logan Roy as head of Waystar/Royco.

#5: Cousin Greg

The sometimes stoned and bumbling (but always plotting tall drink of water) Greg Hirsch (Nicholas Braun) has his work cut out for him if he plans to inherit his great uncle’s power. Besides getting his hands dirty with the cruise-crime cover-ups that put Waystar/Royco in the crosshairs of the Justice Department, Greg has managed to adopt his family’s secret to success: extortion. If he isn’t blackmailing his cousin Kendall for a better job or compromising his bromantic partner-in-crime Tom (Matthew McFadyen) for a bigger office, Greg can easily be overlooked as some benign court jester who fell into the corporate world by accident. Nothing can be further from the truth. In the previous two seasons Greg went from fuzzy mascot to a corner office in Manhattan’s corporate rat race and it all came about thanks to some implicit timing and a friendship with the water bottle shot putting cousin by marriage, Tom Wambsgans. It’s a friendship some fans see more like a burgeoning toxic romance than a buddy who, on occasion, treats Greg like a trashcan to dump his insecurities into. But Tom is Greg’s part-time boss, sometimes-friend and full-time bully. The bizarre bond the two have forged is chocked full of as many uncomfortable abuses as there are hilariously inappropriate subtexts. They are the gay-ship of your hetero dreams. And when Tom isn’t harassing Greg, he’s teaching him the way of the corporate world, which seems to have paid off now that Greg partnered with Kendall to take down Waystar. In the season two finale Greg wisely chose to share the incriminating documents he copied from the piles of evidence Tom forced him to torch. It was a risky move that only a serious player in the game would pull. Whether or not he and Tom become the scapegoats in this take over is yet to be seen, but it could drive a nasty wedge between the two-some. Wambsgans knows his protégé is the man least likely to win this race. He’s the one nobody sees coming. The one who can easily read a room and choose the side least likely to end up in Logan’s morgue, which is exactly what prompted his corporate treason and why he might be safe from the fall out. In this world of capitalist chess Greg is the unsuspecting pawn who might checkmate the King. And with Tom in his corner, because where else is Wamsgams going to go, and now that his wife is playing poly-Princess with hotties of New York, his rise to the top might be unstoppable. Toss some Greg sprinkles on this delicious corporate sundae because the kid might be the cream of the Roy crop!

#4 Kendall Roy

Poor Kendall, the first born-second son of endless disappointment. He was Kendall the capable, right up until he had to prove himself worthy; a title his father would never grant him. Shiv, Kendall’s baby sister and Daddy’s favorite, once questioned her brooding brother’s difficulties with weighing his worship for their father against his need to kill him. It is the entire crux of this father-son war. Ken loves to loath Logan as if every hug is an “Et tu, Brute?” moment filled with unyielding respect and yet saddled with hatred that burns hotter than the sun; something even Bill Shakespeare himself would applaud. Kendall is a paradox of daddy issues stemming from his need for attention, no matter the source. Whether it’s drugs, shoplifting or familial treason, Kendall’s confidence is quickly dismantled by a swift kick in the pride from his disappointed father, which always leaves him crumbling into some sort of awkward boy suffocating in the darkness of Logan’s shadow. It is a constant marathon race and the training, like gears Logan grinds them all through, breaks his son’s spirit and turns him into a monster, which is exactly the sort of son his father would typically choose as a successor. The problem with Kendall isn’t his drive, which has the fire of his contempt igniting his push to the finish line, but his failure comes in his execution. His take-over plots are slighted by his hatred for the man he is dangerously coming close to becoming. As the main pot stirrer of company shake ups, Kendall sees the business not as an all-consuming media giant but as a weapon he can use against his father, like payback for all the hugs he never got as a child. He thinks big, but his inability to see his own frailties leaves him inevitably dangling like a baby from Logan’s Jupiter’s jaws. However, that doesn’t stop him from dusting himself off and trying again. For the son most likely to succeed his father, Logan views Ken as a threat, someone he cannot control, and that’s why he places a target on his back in both the earlier seasons. To be the CEO’s successor, Kendall must turn that fiery spirit into a quest to destroy the only child his father ever loved: the company. In doing so he could prove to Logan he has the instincts the company needs to continue on long after he’s gone. After all, isn’t killing the King to steal the throne exactly what a corporate raider like Logan Roy would do?

#3 Marcia Roy

After her husband cozied up to that liberal media interloper Rhea Jarrell (Holly Hunter), Marcia (Hiam Abbass) was pushed to the wayside and expected to be happy with the spectator seat Logan gave her. Big surprise, she wasn’t and at the end of season two Marcia left her husband swinging in the post-Jarrell break-up wind. The brute was carless with her heart, but who knew she even had one? After the deal to buy Nan Pierce’s paragon of news virtue PGM fell through and Rhea was manipulated into an unforgivable blunder on Logan’s birthday, a path opened to the CEO seat for Marcia to sink her claws into. With her tentative agreement to acquire her husband’s shares after he dies, and a simmering hatred for playing second fiddle to her husband’s wandering eye, Marica is in a prime position to manipulate and blackmail Logan all the way to the top of the heap. Hell, hath no fury like the woman who cared for you after a stroke and then was tossed aside for fresh meat, because you better believe Marcia hasn’t forgotten her role in their family dynamics, which is more than I can say for the rest of us, who still aren’t sure of the matriarch’s background outside of her Lebanese culture and her penchant for using the Roy kids like a toothpick to clean her greedy fangs. While Marcia’s overall agenda is unclear, one thing is crystal – she was promised the crown and she would probably expedite her husband’s death if it meant she could cash in that early inheritance. Do not sleep on Marica! She is a slow poison; a bitingly dangerous viper with greed in her eyes and a love of power in her veins and we wouldn’t expect anything less from the wife of Logan Roy.

#2 Roman Roy

Roman Roy (Kieran Culkin), the foul-mouthed boy Prince hiding in the shadows of his more than capable siblings, could be the dark horse winner in this battle for the top job. Typically seen as the incompetent son with an Oedipus kink and a love of dog cages, Roman would rather jerk off to the sultry sounds of Waystar’s insult Queen, Gerri Kellman (J. Smith-Cameron), than buckle down and take his role as Chief Operating Officer seriously. Brimming with his father’s personality and plenty of clever ideas to boot (some say he is an ideas fountain), Roman seems to have the natural born talent it takes to succeed in the Waystar world, unlike his more competent siblings whose Pygmalion dreams of turning their father’s company upside down and rebooting it in their own image cannot capture Logan’s praise. What sets Roman apart is how uninterested he is in disrupting Waystar’s business profile. In fact, he sees his father’s legacy as a stable foundation to build on rather than something that should be torn down in a revolt. Rough around the edges but quietly bright when it comes to sniffing out a bad deal, Roman’s moxie for putting business above risking the displeasure of his father is something he can do better than his siblings, not that he isn’t his own special brand of suck up. This occasionally shirtless and always brainstorming man-child has come a long way since Season One and now in this recent partnering with the most powerful woman in the company, Gerri Kellman, it seems Roman is finally starting to show signs of “the one.” His aspirations of becoming a Logan remake means his fanatically popular psychosexual relationship with the lawyer, who made her fortune burying the bodies of Waystar’s victims, starts to make sense. If you want to be a corporate baron, you better have someone in your corner who excels in legal defenses and cover ups. He is the rockstar flash to Gerri’s boring capitalistic bang, but who better to fall into dirty business with than the woman who stood behind his father for thirty years? Gerri has “hot for teacher” vibes and Roman is a bit of a clueless man in need of learning the ropes; now that’s a player’s move even Logan can respect! Putting their deliciously sadistic romance to the side, this unlikely duo has managed to stay in the shadows of Logan’s watchful eye long enough to build a mutual trust – possibly the first of its kind to ever thrive inside the Roy family dynamics. And if Roman spins it right, it could position him at the head of the replacement pack. Where Gerri pushes Roman to be his best, Roman steps up to defend Gerri whenever his father’s ax dangles dangerously too close to her blonde French-twist. Could their secret affair end up with Roman stealing the company right out from under his father while his head is turned towards the cruise line crimes, or will his impulsivity be too much for the pragmatic lawyer. Could his big mouth force her to take her MILF-y smoke show to anther worthy Logan adversary? Tough to say because Gerri only backs winners. And while Laird might happily volunteer to be her next King of Filth, Roman isn’t known to give up his toys so easily. If the Waystar/Royco crown is in this Rockstar’s future, it is going to be decadently joyous watching him thaw out the heart of Logan’s right-hand “stone cold killer bitch” only to use it like a dagger plunged into daddy’s back.

#1 Gerri Kellman

Coming in at #1 on the list of possible CEOs is Gerri “Kill-a-man” Kellman, Waystar/Royco’s General Council and the only person who turned down the gig to later wind up with her name on the piece of paper as the emergency stop gap successor. Quick with a verbal tongue lashing and slow to pick a side, Gerri has positioned herself as Waystar’s Beauty to Logan Roy’s Beast. For the last three decades she’s been on the patriarchal cleanup crew and, now with her eyes set on the top seat, she is in an advantageous position to grab the seat while stepping right over the controversies she helped create. Gerri doesn’t just know all of Logan’s secrets. She’s got quite a few of her own; namely an unshakable ability to chirp her agenda into easily swayed ears while manipulating her way through the Roy kids for her own needs. When Kendall hatched a plan to overthrow his father, Gerri was right by his side like Lady Macbeth sharpening her screwdriver for a final act of betrayal. When Shiv seemed like the likely pick to take Logan’s place, Gerri was seen pulling her god daughter’s strings with secrets she hoped would inspire Shiv to kneecap herself while taking out the competition. Now, we have Roman willingly trapped in Gerri’s web of power plays. The youngest Roy-boy is happy to tug at her apron strings while begging for a pat on the head, which is Roman-speak for high-class insults and a NSFW hook-up between himself, a terry-cloth bathrobe and a bathroom door. Oh, if Gerri’s walls could talk, they would say…Well…nothing because this woman didn’t get where she is by spilling her secrets to anyone; at least not until Roman landed in her lap with his slippery shirt buttons and his smoldering looks. The perversive flirtations from Roman have quickly gone from a slight annoyance to seeking out her pet slime puppy for plots and plans over martinis. With the cut of her words and the drop of Roman’s pants, Gerri now holds all cards – or I guess in Roman’s case the family jewels. Gerri, who has been Logan’s sin cake eater happily gobbling up all his evil deeds for the right price, might just use her relationship with Roman and her knowledge of the law to turn that stop-gap assignment into a full-stop CEO position. And after that it’s anyone’s guess what she would do. Maybe she calls in favors and acquires PGM or maybe she sells Waystar off and takes her billions to New Zealand where her private army serves her bottomless martinis while she drags her slime puppy through the sand? Anything is possible after all the years she’s been cleaning up the messes of the Roy men and it’s about time this Queen took a vacation. If Logan Roy made one mistake ruling this Kingdom, and let’s be real he’s made many, it was trusting the smartest woman in the room with all of his secrets. With Gerri playing quarterback to Roman’s wide receiver, Logan may wind up in a very full grave with the rest of her victims having nobody to blame but himself.

For now, we will just have to wait and see what happens with these top five contenders when “Succession” comes back, October 17^th. Let the revolution be televised!