As we finish another episode of HBO’s hit television show, Succession, and slide into the penultimate episode next week, I thought it would be quite relevant to power rank Logan’s options for Royco. I firmly believe that a successor will be announced by the end of season two, yet that person may not be who actually follows Logan as the series progresses. And as more and more viable options arise, the playing field is seemingly tilting away from the Roy siblings themselves.

#8 Tom Wamsgans

Pretty sure it was already 1,000% clear that Tom had no business being in discussions of a successor, but I still wanted to mention that his stock fell even further than it already had this episode. Not only is Greg apparently attempting to frame him for the destruction of cruise documents, but it’s also starting to feel like Logan is going to have him be the fall-guy for the whole situation. I’d hate to see something awful happen to Tom that led to less witty banter and joyously hilarious screen time, but it’s slowly starting to feel as if his tenure at Waystar Royco may be coming to a dramatic end.

#7 Greg Hirsch (A.K.A. Cousin Greg)

Cousin Greg doesn’t really have any chance of succeeding Logan, but I wanted to show just how far out of the realm of things Tom actually fell this week. Not to mention, Greg does look like he’s trying to incriminate Tom, which could end very poorly for either (or both) of them by the end of season two. I do think that Greg trying to put the fall on Tom shows a little bit of the Roy in him though, and if he is successful, I could see him with more of a “key player” role moving into the upcoming seasons.

#6 Siobhan “Shiv” Roy

If I’m being completely honest, Shiv probably would have been shoved into last place this week if Tom had not clearly been pushed down to the cruise scapegoat level within Royco. She is not doing herself any good as of late. The entire conversation with Rhea was such a bad idea, especially with how the whole Kendall thing ended in season one. Granted, that mostly fell apart because of the death of a young man, but still… come on Shiv! What made her think that having “ammunition” as an opportunity at the company that just shat all over her father’s dreams of swallowing up the media market was a good idea? Her chances at taking over Waystar Royco have all but disappeared in my mind. She would need Kendall to go to prison for the death of that guy, Roman to fall in love with Gerri and run off with her, or Logan to slip into dementia and randomly name her to have any sort of chance to become head honcho.

#5 Connor Roy

Connor somehow managed to slide up in my rankings and he wasn’t even in this week’s episode! Granted, Connor seems as if he could give a rats ass about taking over Waystar, but he still has higher potential at the moment than the previously mentioned characters. Granted, some CEO experience may look solid on his Presidential campaign, but I don’t see Connor being a true factor in the succession debate moving forward. I think his character will play an important role in the episodes/seasons to come, but it just won’t be as CEO of the Roy family company.

#4 Kendall Roy

Kendall seems to be the most logical choice on paper still, yet he also did more harm than good to himself this episode (#DickPic). He should’ve known better than to bring Naomi around his father. Logan is that guy who holds grudges literally FOREVER. Even though Naomi helped push the deal earlier in the season, she is related to Nan so you know Logan hates Naomi just as much as the woman who destroyed his mega-deal. This, of course, leads Logan asking Kendall to tag along with him to the house of the grieving parents of the boy Kendall killed. And on top of all of that, Kendall was starting to questions some of what his dad was doing, and Logan was not a fan of that one bit. All the pushing back mixed with his romance with a Pierce may end up biting Kendall right in the ass before the end of the season.

#3 Roman Roy (And Gerri Too)

Roman was one of the few characters who had a somewhat positive episode this week, and it really benefitted his cause to lead. Ro-Ro absolutely killed the episode and hit every nail on the head that his father threw at him. We even had the uncomfortable, “I didn’t even really hit you” convo in the car between the two of them that Roman took about as well as he could have. My one thing keeping him from a more serious (positions 1 or 2) placing as the successor is the fact that no one takes him as seriously as Shiv or Kendall. We even had the Rhea comment that he could be the one, just not right now. This is where I think the whole Gerri/Roman tag-team combo comes into play though… maybe Logan finally realizes Roman’s potential and has him shadow Gerri for a year or two as she runs the company. There’s tons of potential here for this very weird, very unique duo, but I just don’t see Logan allowing either to run his company.

#2 Logan

This mean SOB somehow ended up a winner again this week, and it doesn’t look like his reign of terror will come to an end any time soon. Logan easily scraped the bullying story off his shoe while also destroying any confidence Kendall had built up from the finale of season one. He’s also living in the shadows with Rhea, which could come back to haunt him if she’s playing him, but let’s be real… he’s probably playing her somehow. It is a bit strange how everyone kept alluding to a Logan/Rhea romance, but that can’t be real, can it? Logan also got his (ex) wife off of his back in this episode as well thanks to Roman and managed to get away it only by sacrificing time with his children (like Logan cares LOL). The whole Marcia situation is really clouding my view of this as well. She seemed like such n integral part of Logan and his decision-making process in season one, yet has been completely thrown by the wayside for season two. Maybe she will slip him something and kill him off so that she can get her tentacles back into Waystar, or maybe she will continue to be completely irrelevant to the Logan storyline going forward.

I could have completely misinterpreted Logan’s final line of episode seven, but the way I took it was that Rhea and possibly some other candidates outside the family were going to begin being looked into as replacements for Logan. Rhea seems like she is more of the behind-the-scenes type, but her new relationship with Logan could possibly bloom into a chance for her to slip out of the shadows and into the foreground of Waystar Royco. And if Logan is contemplating outside candidates, that’s a huge win for whoever those people may be. I couldn’t even remotely fathom who he would be thinking of here but I think it would be safe to assume that Frank, Gerri, or anyone else we have seen throughout this season would fall into that role. And Logan could have been referring to those “outside candidates” solely as Rhea, which would be quite the plot twist to see her take over the family biz.

All in all, I thought this was a very solid episode. Even though some may argue that not a whole lot happened here, I think it is setting up some insanely dramatic possibilities for the penultimate episode next Sunday. As of right now, it is rated an 8.7 out of 10 on IMDB, which would make it the lowest scored episode of the season thus far, but I believe that once the season is over it will have proven itself as a key piece to what we know of the Roy family puzzle.

Thanks for another week! Be sure to go check out our other Succession/HBO/Etc. posts at Summary.org and leave tons of feedback. #SuccessionSzn