Succession Power Rankings: “Glad-handing The Sad Faces”

Ranking the Roys after season four episode nine, “Church and State"

Two ultimate sad faces here … Photo: Screenshot.

I am here as a fellow human to acknowledge that Logan Roy has … passed on. He has passed over to the other side, to share a table with war criminals, ex-presidents, and IG club promoters because they’re definitely not getting into heaven. Earth-side, he is being celebrated and execrated at a funeral that is the social event of the season. The vibe is somber, and not just because of the funeral: Mencken’s election(-ish) has New York City in a state of unrest. People are walking down the street with gasoline, stores are boarding up … I would be panicking if I hadn’t thought of the Williamsburg J.Crew that boarded up the windows during the race war protests in summer 2020. Everything at that store is already 75% off!

Anyway: *Reese Witherspoon women’s stories matter voice* Some drama going down in a church matters. It just matters! Here’s where we stand after 409, “Church and State”

Jeryd Mencken
All season, Mencken has been waiting in the wings as Succession’s big bad. Tonight he earns the title. He only gets one real scene in this episode, but the room seems to bend around his presence, the way it would with Logan. The funeral’s reception has become an audition for who will be Mencken’s favorite.

Kendall approaches first, asking when they can count on him to sound the regulatory alarms; as expected, Mencken’s promise becomes a little slippery. “I’ve said I’ll try to help,” he replies. Mencken brushes off Greg and teases Roman. He seems most interested in whatever Connor is talking about until he’s whisked away by Shiv. Mencken is the man everyone needs to impress, and he obviously has all the power to wield right now. He is at the center of the deal, no matter who wins.

Lukas Matsson
…and with that power, it looks like Mencken is choosing Matsson? The country is reeling after Mencken’s asterisked win, and Shiv is right to advise Matsson to take advantage of the moment and dump the India numbers: “It’s just become an amazing day to bury your bad news.” The tailgate party might’ve been his warmup; Matsson is a little more deft at rubbing shoulders with the rich gossipy New Yorkers this time around at Logan’s funeral reception. He’s not exactly charming, but he’s better at seeing the angles. The brothers will never change their mind about Matsson, but there’s still an opportunity that Mencken could. The Roys kids only got good at reading their dad, and they usually failed at that. Matsson approaches Mencken gingerly, far different from his sexy ass anorak sit down with the Roy brothers in Norway. He plays the tech-only guru, and gives up all political and cultural capital to the ideologue.

Caroline Collingwood
In the absence of Cyd Peach’s scowl, let me be the first to say: Mother is mothering. Caroline approaching Kerry — “it’s not Kelly, is it?” — and introducing her to Sally Ann, and then introducing Sally Ann to Marcia … if I did a final power ranking of every single character, Lady Caroline would be at the top. “Sally Ann was my Kerry, so to speak,” she says to Marcia, introducing her to another of Logan’s mistresses. Mothering on levels that have never been mothered on before! Caroline already got her golden parachute after turning on her kids in Italy. She has nothing to lose here, and nothing to gain, except for a good time! Marcia tried to throw her weight around at the wake, but it’s the wife emeritus who is really running this show.

(A side note: Shiv saying “I thought I could hear Dalmatians howling” when Lady Caroline glides in like a dementor … a joke totally in my Q zone.)  

Ewan Roy
When Uncle Ewan storms the stage like Lil Mama, I half-expected a complete disavowal of everything Waystar related, and half-expected a fiery appraisal of his brother’s legacy. His eulogy was somewhere in between: clear-eyed about Logan’s pain, and also his faults. In so many areas of life Logan “fed that dark flame,” yes, but he was also scared and petulant and insecure. The kids rush to “tell the other side,” but really they mean to make him out to be a god, craft the narrative that he was all-seeing, all-knowing. Ewan’s eulogy is harsh, but fairer: he knows his brother was just a man. “He fed a certain kind of meagerness in men,” Ewan declares. “Perhaps he had to, because he had a meagerness about him. And maybe I do about me too. I don’t know.”

Siobhan Roy
In her own career, Shiv has the subtlety of the a bullhorn — I’m still getting secondhand embarrassment from her “pitch” to Matsson about making her CEO — but she is better at being the woman behind the curtain. She correctly steered Matsson to bury those tricky India numbers, and reified herself as part of his inner circle. Mencken might be the devil, but she can be flexible: if Matsson inserted an American CEO, that could appease the jingoist. These are all good ideas! A shitshow has become a Shiv show. The discourse about Shiv is always unfairly harsh or stupidly soft: she’s really gaining momentum now, sussing out what everyone needs to hear and giving it to them. At the tailgate, she pitched Matsson that she should be CEO because she “knows the company. I know my way around. I’m collaborative. I have the name.” Now, she’s fine tuned the pitch to suggest that the Swede can pull her strings. (And maybe some other things too! Lol.)

Her brothers are still pissed at her for the election night reveal, but I do think part of dropping the pregnancy news in the limo was to warm up their chilly tension. She’s basically showing now, and she said she was going to tell Caroline, but one thing the Roys will always respect are more Roys. (Hence why Greg has been able to hang around.) Roman fucks his eulogy, and Kendall aces his, so here comes Shiv to try to make harness this moment for himself too. (“He was hard on women. He couldn’t fit a whole woman in his head.” Girl … bffr.) Shiv has complicated feelings about her own pregnancy, but she definitely knows that it’s something to be managed and wielded: she uses it with Tom and the brothers, she brushes it off for Matsson and Caroline. 

Shiv comes out pretty clean this episode, though. She’s close to Matsson and brokering the Mencken deal, and she and Tom are on good terms. Her speech sucked, but at least it was forgettable.

Connor Roy
Connor planned the whole funeral and didn’t even get to speak … one day the Con-heads will rise again! The funeral was a success, though, and that’s mostly to his credit. He’s gone all-in on Mencken and his might be the only promises Mencken could be interested in keeping.

Kendall Roy
Kendall takes a third L (Jess dumping him, in the professional sense) in the process of taking a second L (Rava and the kids skipping Logan’s funeral) on the day of his first L (dead dad). Roman chokes when he takes the microphone to speak at Logan’s funeral, and Kendall steps to the microphone. Kendall wants to give the “other side” to Logan, in contrast to Uncle Ewan’s blistering estimation of his brother’s lack. He’s telling a story, one that may only be half true, but that he really believes: Logan Roy was a great man, and he wishes he were more like him. 

Kendall is a good public speaker — stilted at first but he warms up, self-deprecating enough, emphatic — and this eulogy almost conjures Logan back to life. “Great geysers of life, he willed,” Kendall says. “Buildings he made stand. Ships, steel hulls, amusements, newspapers, shows, and film, and life! Bloody, complicated life! He made life happen.” It’s a little … much … Swarm-y stan behavior … but this completes some kind of transformation of the soul. Kendall gives into his father’s way, that language of brute force and will. The speech is compelling, but by the end he sounds a little delusional to me, crediting his dad with basically inventing … capitalism, money, desire? (That Mencken approaches him and calls the speech “perfect” … the reddest flag.) Logan’s death has unleashed something in Kendall, it has released him. He doesn’t have to be the reasonable liberal or the whistleblower. He can cut away all that artifice and be his own self-serving self. 

At the funeral’s reception, Kendall is harsher with Roman in a way he hasn’t been before. “You fucked it. It’s okay, look, it happens. You thought you were dad, you tried to dad it, you fucked it,” Kendall tells him. “He’s got our dick in his hand. We should have his dick in our hand.” Kendall voted Pacino in that Twitter poll and is going full Corleone.

Tom Wambsgans
Before the plane Logan died on had even landed, Tom started spinning the narrative of his closeness to the family’s power center. Funeral day feels like that task’s final exam: Tom misses the funeral and his spot rolling the casket. In the narrative of Mencken’s win, he doesn’t even credit for following Roman’s orders to make the call. But if Shiv can really scoot into the CEO job, that’s a good bit of job security now that he knows he’s the baby daddy. (Tom only edges out Frank and Hugo because either way his job is safe, and Frank and Hugo are on Matsson’s kill list.)

Hugo Baker
That’s why his head is so big, he’s full of secrets. He sniffs out the rotten India numbers, he hears that Shiv is making a play for an American CEO, he backchannels to fuck the deal for Kendall. He agrees — “woof woof,” to which my puppy Remy said her culture is not a costume — and I think it suits him. Kendall is going Godfather II, so it’s probably safer for Hugo to align himself here.

Frank Vernon
Pre-untimely breakdown, Roman treats Logan’s funeral like it’s an SEC school’s rush event. He’s confident that Mencken will block the deal, but it would be better to have the board in place (and ideally supporting him over another sib). He tries to recruit his old nemesis Frank to his no-pussy posse and Frank dismisses him swiftly, with a grunt and a head shake. He trades jabs with the rest of Destiny’s Seniors. All in all, a nice social outing for Frank Vernon.

Roman Roy
After Roman watched Kendall, his co-CEBro, work the stage at the Living+ presentation, he’s been looking for ways to assert himself as Logan’s sole heir. He threw his weight around and called the election; when no one else wanted to own that they wanted to speak at Logan’s funeral, he jumped at the chance. I said Roman was jealous of Kendall’s Greatest Showman cosplay and now look! "See Shivy cry, see Kenny lie, see Roman the showman light up the sky!” he says, dotting his face with Augustinus Bader Rich Cream and rehearsing his prepared remarks.

Aht aht aht! All of the kids, except for maybe Shiv, are more sensitive than Logan ever was. Roman has forgotten how much of a softie he really is. Less than a week ago he was on top of a mountain telling off a Swede. He can only avoid the reality of this moment for so long. Onstage he crumbles. (Maybe I’m heartless but I did have a wry laugh because this reminded me of the Easter programs at church … iykyk.) A breakdown that publicly, among this crowd, blows his chances at playing the strong public CEO ready for a knife fight.

Greg Hirsch
I saw someone call Greg “Darth Greg” this season — has he really traded in his soul, as he told Tom at the end of season three, or is he just getting better at speaking the Roy language? When Shiv tried to bully him on election night, he brushed it off and tried to make a trade; even today at the funeral, he’ll do anything for any sib in exchange for a face to face with Mencken. He’s still aligning himself with Tom, which is beneficial, but he’s not making any moves on his own.

Jess Jordan
The Mencken election has Jess seeing Kendall and the Waystar Death Star with clearer eyes. (“It’s not that she was directly responsible for the decision or even in the room when the decision was made,” Juliana Canfield told Vulture. “But there were many nights where she said, Well, I don’t really work for ATN. I work for Waystar, and I work for Kendall.”) She puts time on Kendall’s calendar to give notice, but Kendall pushes them both into a moment they’re not prepared for. Logan was a big, gaping, existential loss; Jess is a breakup. With staff especially, Kendall can turn indignant. In the scene he’s lashing out to prove his own bigness, but he’s making the argument to both of them: everyone else is stupid, and he’s right, and nothing that bad will happen, and you’re crazy if you think otherwise. He buys it, but she stands firm. (How did Kendall lose his kids, his dad, and his number one assistant all in one day? He’s putting Kerry Castellabate numbers on the board.) 

Jess is ranked number one in my heart, but lower on this list because these are power rankings not Doing the Good Thing rankings.

Rava Roy
Democracy is in peril and the temperature is very insurrection degrees outside. It’s the day of Logan’s funeral, but Rava doesn’t feel safe keeping the kids in New York City; she tells Kendall they’ll decamp to a friend’s house upstate. Kendall freaks, but Rava stands firm. I like this scene for her. Everyone has always bent toward Logan’s will, but she could see his rot. Going against the Roys, and in those bell bottoms too? Mothering a little bit.

Marcia Roy
At the wake, or whatever you want to call the event where everyone gathered at the dead guy’s house to figure out if they still had jobs, Shiv called Marcia madam “Death Becomes Her.” At the funeral, though, it seems like Connor succeeded in not letting Marcia creative direct the whole afternoon. (Good on Con!) In all of this, Marcia hasn’t succeeded in getting anything more out of Logan’s death than a nice check for the townhouse, and this was probably her last chance.

Sally Ann
Sally Ann, her horses, her harp, and her prime placement at Logan’s funeral! Rhea Jerrell must be somewhere cooing into some rich resistance Twitter liberal’s ear with steam coming out of her ears.

Kerry Castellabate
Kerry, who previously lost her job and her man on the same flight, earns a spot in the funeral's VIP row. A victory, but a small one.

Darwin Perry
How is Darwin not even in the episode but catching strays? When Tom and Greg pour over the (New York Times’s, I’m assuming, based on the font) timeline of the ATN calling the election, I zoomed in on “12:15-18 AM Darwin injures eye at critical moment.” A great little joke, but unfortunate that this is all pinned on him.

Logan Roy
Tearing up imagining Logan’s “fuck off” from hell watching all these shenanigans. His exes unionizing in the front row, Uncle Ewan reading him to filth, The Help murmuring about how much he sucked. Logan wasn’t one for formalities, so I think he’d hate it here. But, whatever, Tom said it best: “The thing about your dad is that he’s lost quite a lot of influence over the past few days.”