Heirs to the Throne: A Definitive Ranking of Succession's Best Theoretical Successors
Succession is a sprawling masterpiece filled to the brim with deceitful motives, juicy characters, grim portrayals of humanity, biting humor, superb acting, great writing and grand scenery.
It's long been clear that while the question of who ultimately succeeds Logan Roy is important, the true meat of the show is watching everyone embarrass themselves trying to scheme around each other or fail at impressing Papa Roy.
Thanks to a phenomenal performance by Brian Cox, Logan's character is the center of Succession's fictional - yet entirely realistic - universe. Logan has many layers: he's evil, he's a bully, he lies, he cheats, he makes his subordinates play Boar on the Floor, he supports fascists, he's homophobic, he's emotionally abusive towards his children, he's.....you get the point. Not exactly a shining example of a good role model.
But there is no denying Logan is a ruthless, yet extremely successful and cunning businessman. Part of his disgust in his children stems from their inability to show they can properly lead a company. So what does he do? He treats them like any other foe by constantly manipulating them. If you had a dollar for amount of times Logan has dangled the imaginary power carrot in front of his kids only to swipe it away...you'd be as rich as the Roy's.
Unfortunately for Logan, none of his kids have the "it" factor, and after three seasons, it's obvious he's still by far the best CEO (or shadow CEO, sorry Gerri) for Waystar Royco. With that being said, let's have a little fun and rank who would be the best potential successors to Logan's throne.
22. Willa
Willa is only part of the Roy family because she sees Connor as someone who is pleasant to be around and will finance her playwright dreams. She's shown no actual desire to run Waystar Royco; in fact, she seems quite repulsed by the whole operation. And while she has displayed good critical thinking skills (such as rewriting Connor's speech that initially praised a family friend/child molester at a funeral attended by a journalist looking for Roy dirt), she has no business experience that we know of.
21. Marsha
Marsha always has an air of suspicion and ulterior motive scheming, but we haven't seen much of her since season 2. She makes brief appearances throughout season 3, but is mostly on the sidelines. She hasn't shown a willingness to take the throne, but she's smart. One foreseeable drawback of a Marsha-run Waystar is that her mysterious and passive aggressive nature would assuredly lead to internal strife and press leaks of discord within the company.
20. Caroline
Caroline, the acidic mother of Kendall, Roman and Shiv, has served as Succession's relief pitcher through three seasons. Whether it be Tom and Shiv's wedding, a trip to London or her own Tuscan wedding, Caroline reliably pops up to create a healthy serving of spicy drama. She asked guests at her daughter's wedding "How long do you give it?" She left a clearly depressed Kendall hanging when he wished to discuss a dark secret nagging away at him. She told her only daughter that she would have rather had dogs instead of kids. And finally, she screwed her children by renegotiating her divorce settlement to prevent them from stopping Logan from selling Waystar. At least she's showcased some ruthlessness.
19. Uncle Ewan
Let' be honest: if good old Uncle Ewan ever got his paws on the Waystar throne, he would immediately disband the company and donate the proceeds to charity. Played by the wonderful James Cromwell, Ewan is Logan's pessimistic brother who despises his entire family. His best skill is his ability to own anyone in an argument. When he visits Logan at an event honoring the Logan Roy School of Journalism, Ewan sarcastically asks, "What's next? Jack the Ripper's Women's Health Clinic?" Nonetheless, Ewan seems pretty content to just chill on his ranch and roast Cousin Greg.
18. Lawrence
If you don't know who Lawrence is, that's ok. He was Kendall's very first adversary in the pilot before the writers clearly shifted away from him. But Lawrence knew how to play the game. He built Vaulter, a Buzzfeed-esque digital publication, and was able to stranglehold Kendall in negotiations. Even though we found out Lawrence was artificially juicing traffic numbers before Logan fired his whole company, he proved that he was a capable and level headed executive. In reality, he should be higher on this list, but let's make this fun.
17. Connor
Con has no real job. For three seasons, his arc has been living on a ranch doing nothing, funding Willa's doomed play, and now making an unrealistic bid for President of the United States. He's never held an executive level position anywhere, and Logan straight up told Con that he was embarrassing him with his presidential run. But Con is gaining some steam; he's polling at almost one percent! Would a Con-run Waystar implode? Probably. But it would be fascinating to watch play out.
16. Kerry
Kerry wasn't even in season 1, and she popped up sparingly as Logan's assistant in season 2 before becoming a prominent player in season 3. Since she's now sleeping with Logan, she holds more influence than the kids in some scenarios. While we have little idea of how she would run a company, she's weaseled herself into the inner circle of one of the most successful media companies in the Succession universe. That takes some skill.
15. Karolina
Karolina serves as Waystar's head of public relations, which might be the most miserable executive job in the world. She's had to navigate familial strife, a cruise scandal, Congress hearings, Roman spearheading a failed rocket launch, multiple outside attempts to take over the company, a shooting inside Waystar's headquarters and Kendall whistleblowing Logan at a press conference. She does a solid job, but doesn't have much to work with.
14. Hugo
Played with the perfect amount of weasel by Fisher Stevens, Hugo joins the gang midway through season 2 to deal with crisis communications on the cruise scandal. Hugo may seem innocent, but if you watch carefully, he's a cunning little worm who knows how to play the corporate kiss up game to a T. Slowly but surely, he usurps Karolina from power. He's not afraid to make suggestions and get told to f-off by Logan. He's seen telling Karolina what to do during the cruise hearings. And finally, he privately suggests to Logan in season 2's finale that he should fire Karolina. What a damn worm! In season 3, he can be seen expertly coordinating multiple private jets. There's no denying he brings worthy ideas to the table.
13. Sandy
Sandy is Logan's nemesis, another aging and filthy rich media mogul. Through a shell company attached to Stewy's venture capital fund, Sandy secretly earns himself a significant share of control in Waystar, and uses that to mess with Logan. We don't see much of Sandy, but in his scenes, he gives off a grizzled ruthlessness and wisdom that lends itself well to leaders in this world.
12. Josh Aaronson
Josh has only appeared in one episode in season 3, and he asserted his dominance over Logan and Ken by making them go to his private island. He tells them straight up: "you work for the shareholders; you work for me." He's charming, but smart. He hints that he could have been a gambler, but it's hard to tell how he made his money. Josh has shown no interest in the day to day grind of running a company since he seems perfectly content relaxing in his endless clothing layers.
11. Roman
Roman covers up his clear lifelong emotional abuse by cracking hilarious yet inappropriate jokes at the worst times. When Kendall confides his darkest secret that he killed a waiter at Shiv's wedding, Roman says, "So that's why it took 45 minutes for me to get a drink." As for his business acumen, he has some legitimate promise. His ability to think like Logan by prioritizing the company over everything is a plus. He sniffed out a potential deal to go private, but was keen enough to know that Waystar shouldn't take it. In season 3, he's one of the only people at Waystar who can connect with Lukas Mattson on a personal level, which leads to eventual negotiations. But his evil side is hazardous. He texts Gerri inappropriate pictures of his, shall we say, North Pole. He treats others terribly, and is simply not mature enough in those facets to be the face of a publicly traded company.
10. Shiv
9. Karl
Karl is a member of Logan's inner circle, and has served as Waystar's CFO for years. He's a smart businessman, and has been trusted to negotiate with foreign wealth funds and Stewy on the proxy battle. He's also in the room when Logan is planning to sell to GoJo. Karl is objectively boring, and that kind of helps his candidacy. Other than an implied love for brothels, he's a cleaner choice than most people. He's made Waystar a lot of money over the years and has Logan's trust. And while he had a panic attack during negotiations, he can be forgiven since his life could have been in danger. He also has just the right amount of weasel in him. When Frank is dying on the vine on stage at the shareholders meeting, Karl leaves him out to dry by walking off the stage. He wouldn't be the most exciting CEO, but it's safe to assume he would at least be competent.
8. Frank
Frank is usually always by Karl's side as he serves as Waystar's COO. Frank is a grizzled media executive, which is very helpful to the Roy's operation. He has a wide connection of relationships in the industry and it generally well liked by everyone except Roman. Some of Frank's best work happens at Waystar shareholder meetings. In season 1, he's the only one in the room to stand up to Logan during the vote of no confidence. And then in season 3, he's seen once again running the room by making up an excuse that Kendall wasn't present due to an illness. When Ken pipes up, "That's not actually true," Frank hilariously just moves on. Frank may not have Logan's trust, since he's fired and rehired Frank multiple times throughout the series. But there's no denying Frank is a solid executive.
7. Rhea Jarrell
Rhea comes into the fold for the latter half of season 2 as Logan takes a liking to her. Rhea is the CEO of Pierce Media Company, the left wing version of Waystar. She appears to be very competent at her job, and is able to get Logan as close as possible to a deal with Nan Pierce before it all implodes because Nan finds out Rhea got too close to Logan. Oops. But Rhea is actually chosen publicly as Waystar's successor, but once she sees Shiv convince a witness in the cruise scandal to drop out, and realizes she can't trust Logan, she bails.
6. Cousin Greg
Cousin Greg is the clear cut audience surrogate in this wild series. At first, it's easy to label him as a bumbling buffoon who is out of his league wading through the complicated corporate waters. And while there is certainly a grain of truth to that, he slowly accumulates power throughout three seasons. Greg is power hungry just like the rest of them, and even though he had the upper hand since he's literally Logan's great nephew, he takes advantage of the opportunity. He's come a long way from being called Craig in the series' first episode. He's shredded cruise documents for Tom, but saved some of those documents to eventually hand over to Kendall in order to attack Logan at the end of season 2. In the season 3 finale, Greg agrees to go to Tom's side as Waystar gets upended, and is now in line to have 20 "Greg's" of his own. The cuz is alright!
5. Tom
Tom Wambsgans has a similar arc to Cousin Greg as a family outsider who slowly realizes how to play the game of life at Waystar. Tom is an afterthought for his wife Shiv, and he eventually rebels in brutal fashion when he tips Logan off that the kids are planning to stop his sale to Mattson's GoJo. That is some cold blooded stuff. Now that Tom is a certified power player, we'd be remiss not to discuss some of his pitiful moments. He got destroyed by Senator Eavis in front of Congress during the cruise hearings, his "We hear for you?" branding fiasco bored Argestes visitors to tears and he swallowed his own load at his bachelors party. But after two seasons' worth of realizing not one Roy family member has ever done anything for him, he smartly aligns himself with Logan.
4. Kendall
Ken is the heartbeat of this show, and despite all of his shortcomings (and there are many), he's proven to have the most clear cut vision of what Waystar can be. He dreams of acquiring up-and-coming tech companies, and his Vaulter acquisition may have imploded, but he had the right idea of gobbling up an online entity to balance out Waystar's old school business. Kendall wants to use ATN's information gathering skills to control the narrative, and he's smart in realizing that information is power. But between his too cool for school off-putting personality, inability to convince many people to go into business with him and hunger for acceptance, he's far from a perfect candidate.
3. Stewy
Stewy is Ken's childhood pal who brings a wonderful, easy-going humor to the executive level. He's a venture capitalist who bails out Kendall at the beginning of the series by loaning Waystar money, which in turn gives him a substantial chunk of the stock pie. He's one of the few people who isn't afraid to tell Logan what he doesn't want to hear, and he has so many good jokes despite not appearing a lot. Here are a few: "I'm gonna have to sell one of my 10 houses because of you, Ken." "Looks like whatever plan you had is kind of dead in the water, huh Ken? Sort of like the women on your cruises." When Logan gets roasted by the comedian at Argestes, Stewy whispers to him, "It's funny because it's true." When Kendall asks Stewy if he can trust him, Stewy repeatedly responds, "no." He is an incredible side character that always brings the perfect combination of charm, smarminess and humor. With his wide range of contacts and ability to have conversations with anyone, he would be a formidable leader for Waystar.
2. Gerri
Gerri is literally Waystar's CEO right now, but she's essentially a puppet for Logan. She's not allowed to make any meaningful decisions, and when she does try to make some, her subordinates Karl and Frank scurry off to run it by Logan first. But Gerri is smart, and after serving as Waystar's General Counsel, she knows where the bodies are buried. She remained composed during the Congress hearings while Tom imploded right next to her. She keeps her cards close to the chest, and even decides to team up with Roman as a strategic move. That made it even more gut wrenching to see her tell Roman, "how does this advance my interests" in the final moments of season 3 as he begs her to stop Logan from selling.
1. Lukas Mattson
It's abundantly clear that Mattson is the best CEO in this fictional world. He draws clear parallels to Elon Musk thanks to his eccentric personality and affinity for using social media to advance his position. In episode 7, Mattson's company GoJo is trading far below Waystar's stock. But by the season finale, GoJo flipped Waystar's market cap thanks to Mattson cryptically tweeting. This severely compromised Logan's position, effectively flipping Waystar from the hunter to the hunted. Part of the reason Logan is eventually willing to sell to Lukas is because he respects that he built something for himself just like him. During negotiations with Logan at his stunning Italian Luke Como compound, Mattson tells Logan the bitter truth that Waystar can either sell now, or risk becoming irrelevant. "We're flying like a rocket ship and you're sinking like a lead balloon." Mattson is one of the few executives (other than Stewy) who goes toe to toe with both Logan and Roman, and looks like he's about to come out on top.
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