Could Cousin Greg Win the ‘Succession’ Finale?

It’s a rare time when cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) hasn’t fallen short on some task or Kendall, Shiv, Roman, Tom and (when i was alive) logan in Succession. And yet he’s always persisted, a happy-go-lucky happy-go-lucky who taps his fingers into an electrical outlet just to feel that much closer to power. CEO material though? It’s not as wild as it seems.

Persistence is Greg’s only skill. Well, that and being so stunningly tall and clumsy that it’s impossible not to always see him in every room among the negotiators, mistaking his attendance for a sign that he’s worthy of promotion. Maybe that’s enough. Maybe Greg is the puppet Waystar Royco CEO Lukas Mattson wants, and the only show creator Jesse Armstrong needs to thread the needle on Sunday’s series finale. Let me explain.

Succession is, above all else, an incredibly interesting TV show that is perfectly suited to thoroughly interesting times, specifically when it comes to the show’s cross section and themes of power, money, and the media. Most of the characters in the center are villains and tyrants dressed in wheels. Hateful, or at least love-to-hateable. Check out what Roman and Kendall have done in their time as co-bro-CEO in recent episodes without adult supervision. Stifling a multi-billion dollar deal, power tantrums, stock manipulation, and a stranglehold on democracy. It’s been like a week, a week and a half? Do we really want to see them get everything they want?

Shiv Roy is the lesser of the three evils, but she’s prone to backing up bad horses whenever they gallop by. Her without patience, without an eye, without loyalty, which means that she is also objectively bad. I’d love for her to get the CEO job if it was the only way to keep Kendall and Roman from feeling like themselves again with their small talk and arrogance. But it is not the only way.

We can rule out a few other candidates with breakneck speed. Connor, dear(?), sweet(?), Connor. The saddest and most humane moment this season might have been Connor, ultra-damaged, shrugging off a possible rejection and counting his ability to do so as a superpower. None of the children could tell his father that they loved him in the end. He was already gone, but you know that Connor knows that Logan wouldn’t have heard him even if he was still alive and alert. Let’s give Con a nice ambassadorship as a parting gift because he’s so sad, huh?

Frank and Karl, a tag team for the ages. I love them, but there is no chance. Like Gerri, the choice might make sense on paper in the real world, but what’s the message: establishment elders bring stability? That headline is not sexy. A Greg appointment as CEO is sexy because it’s chaotic, which is more on the mark of this show. More importantly, it may be unavoidable with Armstrong tipping his hand slightly (unless he’s screwing us all).

Credit to my editor for suggesting these connections. I’m just a conduit, but they have enough sense to quiet the part of my brain that screams that Greg is unworthy or unfathomable, or both.

First, the aspect that’s definitely going to happen: Mattson is going to screw over Shiv at the behest of incoming Chairman Menkyn to prevent regulators from screwing up his huge deal to buy Logan Roy’s vast empire. He clearly scares one off and annoys the other, pressuring Mattson to post his bullshit numbers and refusing to properly kiss the president-elect’s ring. Shiv is displaying a bit of Roy’s undeserved arrogance. But he is exaggerating and overestimating what he brings to the deal. It won’t be her.

Greg, on the other hand, is molecularly built to tell people in power what they want to hear without slowing down to assess moral hazard. Remember “Boo Souls” last season? Tom was being theatrical. I think Greg may have sold his soul. If not then, then when he shrugged it off and helped allow the insertion of a fascist into the White House.

Was Greg’s time with Menkyn (where he bragged about helping him get W) enough to endear him to the new leader of the free world? it was the role of him coldly layoff of employees by mass Zoom and his moldable, corruptible clay routine enough to endear him to Mattson? How about Greg blurting out that Shiv is pregnant while she does everything she can to fall for her new alpha dad?

There has to be a reason Armstrong had Greg usurp Tom up the pecking order to become a substitute pallbearer, right? It’s enough to make you fantasize about the actual uselessness and unimportance of Greg going up in smoke and emerging as not just the boss, but Tom’s boss.

In addition to that bit of delight, Greg’s rise would also allow for a comment on the way useful jerks with a lot of ambition tend to fail and find success. (As you may recall, when we first meet Greg in the pilot episode of the show, he is the third Featured Character: He’s working as a clumsy mascot throwing up inside his costume at one of the Waystar-Royko theme parks). He would also allow Armstrong to punch the kids in the nose a bit.

To me, the biggest question Armstrong has to answer with the ending is: do you walk away from this story with the most cynical version possible? Which is to say, he could let these rich and powerful monsters get whatever they want. Or you could end the cynicism with a dose of irony, make Greg the Idiot King, and allow Kendall, Roman, and Shiv to fill a pot full of money to try and drown out the devastation of knowing they were duped (by Greg, by Mattson , for their own failed impulse checks when it came to greed and family infighting) and that they will never live up to their father’s legacy or refute his ultimate damning assessment of them as unserious people.

We’ll find out Sunday night which direction this is all heading, but yeah, Greg that doe-eyed vampire could really pull this off. despite the long odds.

The series finale ‘Succession’ premieres Sunday at 9 pm ET on HBO.