| 1 | [[WMG:[[center:''Series/{{Succession}}'' [[Characters/{{Succession}} character index]]\ |
| 2 | [- '''Main Characters''' ([[Characters/SuccessionLoganRoy Logan Roy]], [[Characters/SuccessionKendallRoy Kendall Roy]], [[Characters/SuccessionShivRoy Siobhan "Shiv" Roy]], [[Characters/SuccessionRomanRoy Roman Roy]]) | [[Characters/SuccessionTheRoyFamily Extended Roy Family]] | [[Characters/SuccessionWaystarRoyco Waystar RoyCo]] | [[Characters/SuccessionOtherCompanies Other Companies]] | [[Characters/SuccessionPolitics Politics]] | [[Characters/SuccessionOtherCharacters Other Characters]]-]]]]] |
| 3 | |
| 4 | ---- |
| 5 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 6 | |
| 7 | !The Roy Family |
| 8 | |
| 9 | [[folder:Logan]] |
| 10 | --> See [[Characters/SuccessionLoganRoy his page]] for more information. |
| 11 | [[/folder]] |
| 12 | |
| 13 | [[folder:Marcia]] |
| 14 | !!Marcia "Marcy" Roy |
| 15 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/succession_marcia.jpg]] |
| 16 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"No discussion. I am his next of kin. I am his proxy. I am in charge. Thank you."'']] |
| 17 | ->'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/HiamAbbass |
| 18 | |
| 19 | Logan’s third wife Marcia is fiercely devoted to Logan but has yet to earn the full trust of his children, especially Shiv. |
| 20 | ---- |
| 21 | * AffablyEvil: Despite being aware of (and sometimes complicit in) Logan's crimes, Marcia is ''far'' more polite and personable than him. [[BewareTheNiceOnes Just don't piss her off]]. |
| 22 | * AmicableExes: Still cares about Logan even after he begins their separation, and claims they maintained a healthy (and perhaps still intimate) correspondence almost daily. |
| 23 | * BadassBoast: She gives a coldly efficient one to Rhea. |
| 24 | -->''"When I lose, the other one will generally lose an eye or a soul."'' |
| 25 | * BewareTheNiceOnes: Marcia is outwardly polite and pleasant, but cross her, and the consequences will be anything but pleasant (although still polite!) She won't hesitate to call you out, even if it's at your own wedding or at a business dinner in which your future is decided. |
| 26 | * CoolOldLady: She is elegant, cunning and put-together, and can be absolutely terrifying when she needs to bring someone to her heel. |
| 27 | * CommutingOnABus: She is in theory there all the way through Season 2, but she doesn't go on many of the trips with the Roys, which result in her being out of the picture for longish periods of time. |
| 28 | * DarkMistress: [[spoiler:She's just as interested as Logan in framing the dead caterer as a thief so Logan can be freed of suspicion of his death.]] |
| 29 | * FemaleMisogynist: She calls Shiv a spoiled slut right after her stepdaughter finds out about cruises, and the increasingly likely possibility that Logan had taken part in the abuse. |
| 30 | * ForeignLanguageTirade: When delivering a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to Shiv, Marcia occasionally lapses into her native French. |
| 31 | * {{Hypocrite}}: A rare moment of someone putting Marcia in her place comes when Marcia makes one snide comment too many about "how far [Willa] has come" [[spoiler: after she marries Connor]], only for Willa to coolly retort "Yes, look at both us" -- reminding Marcia that, for all her airs and graces, she is in many ways just as much a GoldDigger as Willa is and is in no real position to look down her nose. Marcia can only accept the comeback with silent fuming. |
| 32 | * MoralityPet: To Logan Roy. He can't summon respect or affection for any of his offspring, but he does seem to genuinely love Marcia. |
| 33 | * MysteriousPast: When Shiv investigates her background, she doesn't find any information about her prior to when she was 31. In the second season she outright states that even if given a year, she wouldn't have enough time to tell you all about her past. |
| 34 | * NoSenseOfPersonalSpace: Knowing Kendall’s secret of accidentally killing the waiter and it being covered up, she tells him he’s a nice boy and that MiseryBuildsCharacter while holding him in place. |
| 35 | * ParentingTheHusband: She has her limits, mostly at Logan treating her like one of the children, but will look after him in his more scatterbrained moments and sometimes defends him like he’s a child who has no clue what he’s doing. |
| 36 | * PutOnABus: Early in season 4, [[TheMistress Kerry]] snarks that Marcia is "in Milan, shopping... forever". |
| 37 | ** [[spoiler: Unfortunately for Kerry, it doesn’t last.]] |
| 38 | * TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: She gives a pretty damn devastating one to Shiv in the penultimate episode of the first season, calling her spoiled and entitled as she actively works against the one man who gave her the privilege to do so. |
| 39 | * SilkHidingSteel: Marcia is extremely polite, fairly quiet, and appears much more put together than the Roy kids' mother Caroline. But if even Logan messes with her, she is willing to do some serious damage. |
| 40 | * TookALevelInKindness: Marcia is nothing but [[KickTheDog cruel]] to Kerry [[spoiler: at Logan's wake, callously kicking her out and mocking her social status.]] Several episodes later, [[spoiler: at Logan's funeral, when Caroline brings Kerry up to the front with the all of the other wives and mistresses, she takes Kerry's hand as she weeps, seeming to realize now that Logan's dead, it doesn't matter anymore.]] |
| 41 | * UndyingLoyalty: She has her own problems with Logan, and doesn't appreciate being treated like his children, but is far more likely to be on his side and decry them as ungrateful brats. |
| 42 | * WickedStepmother: The siblings consider her this, seeing her as a gold digger who's entrapped Logan, especially when she refuses to let them see Logan while he's recovering from his stroke (though Shiv finds out the hard way that she has good reason for this). This is downplayed as the series progresses, as while she's certainly no saint herself, Marcia is usually fairly amiable and welcoming to the Roy siblings, so long as they reciprocate her courteousness. |
| 43 | * WomanScorned: |
| 44 | ** She is ''not'' happy about being sidelined during the second season and doesn't hesitate to let Logan know it. |
| 45 | ** At [[spoiler:Logan's wake]] she takes the highest pleasure to absolutely eviscerate his young mistress, Kerry. However, by the time [[spoiler:Logan's funeral rolls around, she appears to have softened towards her.]] |
| 46 | [[/folder]] |
| 47 | |
| 48 | !!!Logan's Children aka "The Kids" |
| 49 | |
| 50 | [[folder:Kendall]] |
| 51 | -->See [[Characters/SuccessionKendallRoy his page]] for more information. |
| 52 | [[/folder]] |
| 53 | |
| 54 | [[folder:Shiv]] |
| 55 | -->See [[Characters/SuccessionShivRoy her page]] for more information. |
| 56 | [[/folder]] |
| 57 | |
| 58 | [[folder:Roman]] |
| 59 | --> See [[Characters/SuccessionRomanRoy his page]] for more information. |
| 60 | [[/folder]] |
| 61 | |
| 62 | [[folder:Connor]] |
| 63 | !!Connor Roy |
| 64 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/succession_connot.jpg]] |
| 65 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"I ranch, I ride, I earn, and I give. Just like you."'']] |
| 66 | ->'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/AlanRuck |
| 67 | |
| 68 | -->''"Everyone thinks you're a joke, and you're fucking embarrassing me."'' |
| 69 | --->-- '''Logan Roy''' |
| 70 | |
| 71 | Relative to the other Roy children, Logan’s eldest son (from his first marriage) is uninterested in the demands of navigating Waystar’s internal politics, instead preferring the libertine lifestyle he leads at his ranch. |
| 72 | ---- |
| 73 | * AffectionateNickname: As he’s their older brother/parental figure, he’ll sometimes call Roman “Romey”, Kendall “Kenny", and Shiv “Baby”, still treating them as little kids. |
| 74 | * AttentionDeficitOohShiny: Always has a project of the week, before swiftly moving onto something else. Alan Ruck believes his ADHD is undiagnosed thanks to Logan's embarrassment over perceived weakness and abnormalities of cognition or emotion. |
| 75 | * BerserkButton: |
| 76 | ** His mother might be one, as evidenced by how he reacts to Roman joking about her institutionalization. |
| 77 | ** He gets angry at people who forget ''he'' is the eldest son. |
| 78 | ** Remember: it's not true he [[IdleRich hasn't worked a day in his life]]! He is a hard-working rancher on the verge of setting up a podcast on Napoleonic history! |
| 79 | * BigBrotherInstinct: Throwaway lines in season three indicate that he was a good older brother figure for Kendall and Roman in Logan's absence before they were irrevocably soured by the family business. |
| 80 | -->'''Logan:''' So, what's this, uh... fishing thing? I don't remember.\ |
| 81 | '''Roman:''' Oh, yeah, that was, uh, Connor, actually. Connor took me on that. But, you know... single, multi-use, happy childhood memory, so, yeah. |
| 82 | ** He also tries to be a good older brother to Shiv, hoping she at least had fun at the ranch and offering to walk her down the aisle. |
| 83 | ** [[spoiler:When Logan passes away during his wedding, Connor immediately retracts a statement he makes about Logan not loving him when he sees how badly his siblings are taking the news, and pivots to comfort them right away.]] |
| 84 | * BitchInSheepsClothing: He tries very hard to establish himself as the more virtuous of the siblings and the only one to not engage in the cutthroat actions Logan encourages but his efforts, while often well-meaning, tend to get derailed any time his sense of entitlement is infringed upon. |
| 85 | * ButtMonkey: |
| 86 | ** In general, Connor is treated as an afterthought at best, and an incompetent loon at worst by his family, simply because they know he has a fanciful understanding of himself and reality, and has no interest in or experience towards running Waystar. It gets to the point where Kendall refers to himself as the "eldest son" in the Season 3 finale, simply because he never considered for a second that Connor has any sort of status or meaningful influence for him. |
| 87 | ** [[spoiler:In "This is Not for Tears" he is left begging Logan for $100 million because Willa's play left him in serious debt, but Logan's sole condition is that Connor give up his political ambitions, which embarrasses Connor. The same episode has him almost completely forgotten when Gerri mistakenly refers to Kendall as Logan's firstborn son, and when he volunteers to take the fall for the cruises scandal, Logan almost takes pity on him for the useless offer.]] |
| 88 | ** Subverted by the end of the series, however: the video of Logan the siblings watch in the finale reveals that, for all Logan's disdain of Connor in terms of his character, business acumen and ruthlessness, he was also the only one of the siblings who Logan used to spend time with doing anything that could be remotely considered father-son bonding. [[spoiler: This is reflected in the way he ends the episode itself; he still doesn't get a huge amount of respect and appreciation, but he is also pretty much the only sibling to find himself more or less content with his life. His siblings end the series with pretty much nothing to show for all their machinations and efforts -- Kendall's been forced out as [=CEO=], Roman's drowning his sorrows and Shiv is trapped as a trophy wife in an unhappy marriage -- he's HappilyMarried to Willa (or, at least, as happily married as their particular relationship dynamic would allow for) and ready to move on to his next odd whim.]] |
| 89 | * CatchPhrase: |
| 90 | ** "I am the eldest son!" |
| 91 | ** [[BlatantLies "Connor Roy was interested in politics from a very young age"]]. |
| 92 | * CloudCuckooLander: Connor is a strange guy. He's completely out of touch with the real world to the extent that it's almost impossible to get him to come down to Earth, he's prone to latching on to odd topics, he has a number of strange political views and is generally out of the way of the rest of the siblings' interests of cut-throat business and politics. When he does randomly decide to run for president, one of his tenets is being against masturbation (which he portrays as a waste of reproductive potential). |
| 93 | * CompensatedDating: His "girlfriend" Willa is an escort he pays to date him. |
| 94 | * CondescendingCompassion: Talks to a Black dancer from Bushwick and assumes that everything has been so hard for him. |
| 95 | * ConditionedToAcceptHorror: Not as bad as his younger siblings, but Willa is horrified to hear him talk casually about Lester, the sexual abuser Logan didn’t let near his kids, and defend it as a different time. |
| 96 | * ControlFreak: Connor has a controlling streak, having a meltdown when a party doesn't go his way. |
| 97 | * CrazySurvivalist: He waxes on about how the world will soon run out of water, and his need to hoard as much of his as possible to be able to sell it. |
| 98 | * CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: As incredulously out of touch as he can be, he still managed to pose a threat to his siblings' plans to elect Mencken as President. For a third-party or independent candidate with views as bizarre as Connor's to split the vote to a degree that mattered is seriously impressive. |
| 99 | * DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife: Connor's wealth has left him completely bored and desperate for ''something'' to give him a sense of higher purpose with his run for President all but stated to be because he simply can't think of anything else to do with his time and money. |
| 100 | * DisappointingOlderSibling: He is, technically, the oldest Roy child, but he is so dimwitted, weird, weak-willed, and useless that a lot of people forget he factors into the family at all, and the Eldest Child responsibilities have thus been passed onto Logan's second son, Kendall. |
| 101 | * DissonantSerenity: Willa has concerns over how calm he is about Mo being such a presence in his and his siblings’ lives, and he initially thinks “Lester touched all of us” is a funny thing to say in a eulogy. The reporter, too, clearly thinks he'll have privileged and disturbing information. |
| 102 | * DeconstructedCharacterArchetype: Connor deconstructs the UpperClassTwit. Sure, he might have incredible privilege and wealth that allows him to coast through life without ever having to worry about trivial things such as working or paying taxes, but it quickly becomes apparent that Connor [[DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife has absolutely no clue what to do with his life]] and isn't taken seriously by ''anybody'' because of it. It gets to the point where Connor has to pay a woman to be his girlfriend because he's so LonelyAtTheTop, and he does things such as attempt to fund Willa's play and decide to run for President on a whim because he's so utterly bored and desperate to be noticed in some regard. |
| 103 | * DesperatelyCravesAffection: He pays for Willa's affection and can't help falling for Logan's emotionally blackmailing, "You're number one," after Kendall breaks free of the leash. Alan Ruck refers to it as Connor is on the inside looking in, both with "the golden trio" and his father. |
| 104 | * TheDitz: He's not very bright, to put it simply. |
| 105 | * DirtyOldMan: He’s almost asked to leave the bachelor party because he keeps telling much younger women that he’s in love with them and making them uncomfortable. |
| 106 | * DoggedNiceGuy: Gets a little creepy in "Prague" where he's "met a really nice girl" but "she's trying to hide from me". |
| 107 | * DrowningMySorrows: In "Rehearsal", he's in such a slump after [[spoiler: Willa expresses doubts about the wedding]] that he chugs down alcohol and gets so intoxicated that by the end of the night, he's drunkenly singing karaoke in between self-pitying sobs. |
| 108 | * EccentricMillionaire: He's the only character on the show who chooses to enjoy his supreme wealth - mostly by indulging his odd whims and hobbies. |
| 109 | * EndearinglyDorky: Wila starts having real affection for him because he's weird in his protectiveness over her. |
| 110 | * EntitledToHaveYou: While they do genuinely love each other, he would rather Wila stop being a sex worker and stop even just hanging out with other people. |
| 111 | * EstablishingCharacterMoment: Connor's first lines are explaining to a child how he's developing a parcel of land and wants to hoard the water on it for himself when the world starts to run out. This touches on Connor's lack of interest in the family business, his mild personality in most situations (talking to a child) and his weird political views. |
| 112 | * {{Foil}}: To Logan, as he’s the oldest sibling, Roman especially makes fun but they have a good relationship, and he tries to be the father figure to the three of them when Logan can’t and has never bothered. He also dates much younger women like Logan does, but controlling aside, treats Willa better than Logan does to any woman he’s with (as low bar as that is). |
| 113 | * FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: As ''weird'' as Connor is, he is at least more responsible than suicidal drug addict Kendall, MommyIssues SadClown Roman and the AwfulWeddedLife Shiv. |
| 114 | * FourTemperamentEnsemble: Phlegmatic. |
| 115 | * FourPhilosophyEnsemble: The Apathetic. |
| 116 | * HalfSiblingAngst: Beyond the age gap, his younger siblings are all from Logan’s second wife and Connor was left out in the cold, constantly being forgotten about as the actual oldest son. |
| 117 | * HarmlessVillain: He's easily the least effective and malicious of the Roy kids. |
| 118 | ** Seeing as he generally stays out of the business and doesn’t engage in the morally dubious practices therein, it’s hard to say Conor is even a ‘villain.’ |
| 119 | * HiddenDepths: |
| 120 | ** Connor is the least relevant of the Roy siblings, and the family, as a whole, treats him like a joke. But in season 3 [[spoiler:he actually shows some depth when Kendall attempts to bring the siblings on his side. He calls them out for ignoring what the family and company were doing on the cruises. His exit from the meeting is followed by the others right after.]] |
| 121 | ** He shows some glimmers of self-awareness in "Rehearsal" when he calls out his siblings for being so desperate to please and impress their father despite the fact that it'll never happen, and that he knows full well that he's TheUnfavorite and has made at least some peace with it (though his claim that not needing love is "like a superpower" is heavily implied to be him protesting a bit too much). |
| 122 | ** Season 4 continues his developing self-awareness [[spoiler: particularly after the death of his father]]: instead of continuing with his delusions of somehow convincing Willa to fall in love with him, he actually sits down and has a serious conversation with her about the exact nature of their relationship. [[spoiler: This actually works to strengthen their relationship, as Willa admits that, while she's not in love with him and is marrying him at least partly for financial security, she is nevertheless sufficiently happy with him to be willing to live as his wife.]] |
| 123 | ** The above also prompts some growth in how he regards and treats Willa; [[spoiler: in the pre-election night episode, on being offered a (less than prestigious) ambassadorship in exchange for dropping out and throwing his support behind Mencken, he actually listens to Willa when she tells him she doesn't really want to live in a third world country and factors that into his decision-making process. While hardly a huge gesture or sacrifice -- one of the countries proposed was Somalia, after all -- it nevertheless does show a selflessness and willingness to consider his partner's thoughts and feelings on a major life decision rather than just leaping impulsively into a chance to boost his own ego. It's hard to imagine the other Roys acting similarly.]] |
| 124 | * IdleRich: In contrast to his cutthroat siblings, Connor prefers to live off the money his father has made and involve himself in as little day-to-day events possible. He does occasionally try to do stuff such as invest in his girlfriend's play and even run for President, but it's clear he's completely in over his head, and is only doing those things to feel accomplished about himself. |
| 125 | * IJustWantToBeLoved: He explodes in the season three finale, ranting that he’s the eldest son, and that he’s tried his best with the trio, but they just take advantage of him. |
| 126 | ** In season four, Con again tells his siblings off, noting they are ‘love sponges’ and he has gotten used to not being loved at all. |
| 127 | * IJustWantToBeSpecial: A lot of his angst comes from feeling left out, and Alan Ruck believes he’s overcompensating out of a need to be more unique than he actually is. |
| 128 | * ImmediateSelfContradiction: Frequently, since he's thoroughly lacking in self-awareness. |
| 129 | -->'''Connor''': Oh, Shiv, you know I don't like to take sides. ''(beat)'' But I'm on your side. |
| 130 | * JerkWithAHeartOfGold: A deluded, pretentious nutjob who occasionally shows off the famous Roy temper, but for the most part Connor is easygoing, personable, and cares about his family while sitting out on all their destructive backstabbing. |
| 131 | * KavorkaMan: Downplayed. He's not ugly, but despite being an older, doddering fool, he easily finds himself surrounded by attractive, interesting women, even ones he doesn't have to pay to spend time with. That said, he does end up creeping out quite a few girls at the Prague party during the first season, in part due to trying to follow them around, [[ItMakesSenseInContext and also because he keeps asking them where they were on 9/11]]. |
| 132 | * KnowNothingKnowItAll: He thinks simply being well-read makes him intelligent, when it's clear he doesn't understand much of what he says and can't hold up his side in the simplest of debates. He treats his brief conversation with Gil as an epic debate that he won in crushing fashion, when in reality he just slung a few prosaic insults at Gil until Gil walked away, clearly seeing Connor as not worth his time or effort. |
| 133 | * LackOfEmpathy: Even when an ''active shooter'' is terrorizing the building that all of his siblings and father are at, Connor barely worried at the prospect of them getting hurt, [[SkewedPriorities caring more about attending a dead executive's funeral and getting funds for his Presidential campaign]]. |
| 134 | * LockedOutOfTheLoop: Logan mentions he never had an interest in the business, so he’s just not told what everyone else seems to know. "Vaulter" has him complain that his siblings always march off to daddy and leave him out. |
| 135 | * MadonnaWhoreComplex: He loves Willa and pays her to be his girlfriend, but is still very fixated on making sure she comes off “clean”, with her past erased. |
| 136 | * {{Manchild}}: He's the oldest of the Roy siblings by far but is arguably the most immature and sheltered of them all. |
| 137 | * MayDecemberRomance: His girlfriend Willa is clearly much younger than he is (their actors are thirty-three years apart). |
| 138 | * MellowFellow: Unless he's in a ControlFreak mode, he is very calm, relaxed and genial. |
| 139 | * MirrorCharacter: To Roman. Both more on the Republican side of things (Roman wanting a fascist as president, Connor having an interest in phrenology) and having HatesBeingTouched and sexual issues. They seem to understand each other, like Shiv and Kendall band together, with Connor going to comfort Roman after Shiv goes too far with the sex jokes. [[spoiler: The series finale heavily implies that Roman will end up following in Connor's footsteps and living a life of idle playboy frivolity.]] |
| 140 | * NeutralInNameOnly: Although his power is limited (if even remotely existent), Connor [[RunningGag routinely]] says that he doesn't take sides... but he's always on ''someone's'' side (Shiv's in particular). |
| 141 | * NotSoAboveItAll: Though he claims to not be confrontational and prefers to be neutral, it doesn't take much to get him involved in petty drama. He also is a ControlFreak with his own agenda, despite framing himself as the most calm, mature sibling. Plus, he calls out his dad for misogyny, and does generally love Willa, but still pimps her out to further his political ambitions and he's not above making blowjob jokes about his little sister when he wants something from her. |
| 142 | * OnlySaneMan: As eccentric, immature and egotistical as he is, he's arguably the most well-adjusted of the Roy siblings, lacking Roman's immorality and desperation for approval, Shiv's cutthroat attitude and Kendall's serious mental health issues, in addition to having a better understanding than all three of just how damaging their upbringing was. This is no doubt due to Logan viewing Connor as a harmless fool who will never be of real value but is also unlikely to ever do real damage or betray him, so he is content to simply leave him be. For all his kooky ideas and own pretensions (such as his presidential run), he's also the only one who just seems content to enjoy the life of privilege and luxury he already has without desperately trying to stab everyone in the back in an endlessly futile quest for more and more and more. And while his relationship with Willa is clearly transactional, it's also turned out to be easily the happiest, most stable and successful relationship on the show by far (which admittedly is not saying much). |
| 143 | * OutOfFocus: Of all of Logan's kids, Connor is easily the least relevant on the show. He's thoroughly uninvolved with Waystar's day-to-day operations and is mostly focused on his odd eccentricities, only getting involved with what's going on with the company if he's somehow obligated to do so. |
| 144 | * ParentalSubstitute: They rag him about it, but he was far more of a father figure for Kendall, Roman and Shiv than Logan. |
| 145 | * PleaseDontLeaveMe: He begs Willa to stay at the house for a while after the shitty therapy, calling love a virus and hoping maybe she'll catch it. |
| 146 | * PowerfulPeopleAreSubs: Asks Willa to slap him out of nowhere, and when she does, he calls her the best girlfriend in the world. |
| 147 | * PreemptiveApology: In “Nobody Is Ever Missing”, when Logan asks the kids to have a chat, he brings Kendall in and apologises in advance for the ripping to shreds he’s about to get. |
| 148 | * PracticallyDifferentGenerations: He's easily over 10 years older than his half-siblings (Alan Ruck is twenty-two years older than Jeremy Strong, twenty-six years older than Kieran Culkin and thirty-one years older than Sarah Snook). In the past this meant he had to act somewhat paternally (in his words, "[Logan] couldn't be bothered"); in the present, he has a fairly estranged relationship with them. |
| 149 | * PromotionToParent: He deludes himself early on that he can fix anything, and really tried in the past to be a parent to his little siblings, but kindness becomes so alien to them that they lash out at him instead. |
| 150 | * ShooOutTheClowns: Connor is mostly a comedic character, who does not meaningfully contribute to the main story due to not being closely involved in the family business. Many dramatic scenes do not have Connor present, with one memorable example being [[spoiler:Kendall confessing to his other two siblings that he was an accessory to manslaughter in Season 3, after Kendall had enraged Connor into leaving the event with an insensitive comment about being the oldest son.]] |
| 151 | * StrawmanPolitical: Connor holds very libertarian political beliefs, which are portrayed as absurd and a way to show how out of touch he is. |
| 152 | * QuitYourWhining: Tells Kendall off in the season three finale, thinking he's suicidal and being a pain in the ass simply because he's a SpoiledBrat who didn't get the CEO job. |
| 153 | * RichBoredom: It's heavily implied that his activities, including his attempt to run for President, are just his way of filling the gap his siblings have with their careers. |
| 154 | * RichReclusesRealm: While all of his siblings live in apartments (in the centre of New York), Connor has a huge ranch in New Mexico. It's normal enough there, but he owns it because he's planning for the inevitable collapse of society and he controls a water source that runs through the property, so he's planning to turn it into one of these. |
| 155 | * SexIsEvilAndIAmHorny: He pays Willa to be his girlfriend more than anything sexual, and one of the campaigns he wants to run on is anti-masturbation. He also tells this to Roman, whose HatesBeingTouched issues are well-known. |
| 156 | * ShelteredAristocrat: Connor has never been in a position where he was ''required'' to think about anything (especially not the welfare of other people) or do any work, so -- unlike the rest of the Roy family, who benefit from Logan's nepotism but still run themselves ragged in their jobs -- he's grown up into a clueless, naive dilettante that does everything ''electively'', as a hobby. This includes his presidential ambitions and political platform, which are conservative in the sense that they're informed by his own perspective as a wealthy man, but otherwise a grab bag of bizarre fixations (such as anti-masturbation) that only appeal to other eccentrics.[[note]]Alan Ruck himself has described Connor's beliefs as "composed of whatever he’s interested in on that particular day" and "a mixed-up box of Trivial Pursuit cards".[[/note]] |
| 157 | * SkewedPriorities: He has zero control over his life, got his father's love passed over him for three younger children from a different mother and is forgotten about most of the time, so he'll act like cold butter at the ball is the worst thing ever. |
| 158 | * SmallNameBigEgo: He has a very oversized view of his intellect and capabilities. In season two, he genuinely believes he has a shot at becoming president and would be capable in such a position, a notion which others try to disabuse him of with limited success. |
| 159 | * StalkerWithACrush: Subtle, but in "Rehearsal" he's revealed to regularly monitor Willa's every move via a tracking app he put on her phone without her knowledge. |
| 160 | * TeamSwitzerland: He ''claims'' to be this, as he doesn't factor into the show's central conflict and repeatedly states that he doesn't take sides (only to then promptly take someone's side). |
| 161 | * TokenGoodTeammate: Downplayed as he certainly has his own issues, but Connor is the only one who avoids the backstabbing and betrayal the rest of the family engage in and is probably the nicest on a personal level. |
| 162 | * TheUnfavorite: Due to his rather... odd demeanor and ambitions, as well as the age gap between him and the rest of his siblings, he's usually [[ButtMonkey completely forgotten about]], and tolerated at best. Despite being Logan's firstborn son, Logan considers him [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg a complete nonfactor]]. Strangely enough, this means that Logan tends to treat him with more kindness than his other children since he's so clearly harmless. [[spoiler: The finale supports interpretation when the siblings watch a video of Logan relaxing and enjoying the company of the people who are closest to being actual friends; Connor is the only one of the siblings who is present. Weirdly enough, the fact that Connor is the unfavorite child may somehow make him the favorite.]] |
| 163 | * UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: He accidentally escalates the conflict between Kendall and Logan on two separate occasions: |
| 164 | ** In Season 1, he mistakenly assumes that Kendall intends to announce Logan's retirement at the RECNY gala and informs Logan of the fact. Logan then usurps Kendall's speech and announces that he's staying on as CEO. Kendall, who had merely wanted to make a "he will never retire" joke, is upset at the turn of events and his father's general lack of trust in him, which leads him to try and stage a coup several episodes later. |
| 165 | ** At the end of Season 2, he makes fun of Greg for turning down a $250 million offer from Ewan; Greg then [[spoiler:outfits Kendall with the cruise scandal documents that Kendall can use to bring his father down]]. |
| 166 | * UpperClassTwit: Oh ''yes''. He's as rich as the rest of the siblings but easily the dumbest and most out-of-touch due to his incredible privilege, and he adamantly refuses to contribute much of anything to society. |
| 167 | * WhiteSheep: Less than he thinks of himself as being but Connor is probably the most well-meaning and harmless of the Roy siblings and seems content to just enjoy the enormous luxury his privileged life has afforded him. |
| 168 | [[/folder]] |
| 169 | |
| 170 | !!!Extended Roy Family & Partners of Family Members |
| 171 | |
| 172 | [[folder:Greg]] |
| 173 | !!Gregory "Cousin Greg" Hirsch |
| 174 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/succession_greg_1.jpg]] |
| 175 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"I feel like I might not like it in the death pit."'']] |
| 176 | ->'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/NicholasBraun |
| 177 | |
| 178 | -->''"You little Machiavellian fuck! I see you, Greg. I like it."'' |
| 179 | --->-- '''Kendall Roy''' |
| 180 | |
| 181 | Greg is the only grandson of Logan's brother Ewan and is thus initially far removed from the Roy family’s wealth. A slacker with no skills or ambitions, he moves to New York to ingratiate himself to Logan and get a stable job within the company — and promptly finds himself embroiled in the succession wars. |
| 182 | ---- |
| 183 | * AccidentalMisnaming: Twice in the first two episodes, belying his BeneathNotice nature; first, Logan introduces him as Cousin Craig, and then he's listed on the Waystar employment records as Greg Roy, because nobody remembers his last name. |
| 184 | ** It later happens again in "Tailgate Party", when Mattson refers to him as "Gary" in a derisive manner. |
| 185 | * AffablyEvil: While being at Waystar has diminished much of his morals, he generally remains polite and genial. See FauxAffablyEvil for what he has developed into. |
| 186 | * ArmorPiercingQuestion: [[spoiler: Even though Logan seems to shrug it off quickly, Greg being the one to have the balls to ask him "Where are your kids, Logan?" in deliberate mockery provokes an especially nasty, bitter outburst from Logan.]] |
| 187 | * AudienceSurrogate: As the only middle-class main character and a NaiveNewcomer to the family drama, he is the audience surrogate for the succession wars. |
| 188 | * TheBabyOfTheBunch: He's the youngest character in the main cast, which, coupled with his NaiveNewcomer status, ensures that nobody takes him seriously. |
| 189 | * BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: One of the reasons behind his decision to [[spoiler:side with his roommate/cousin Kendall]] in the finale of Season 2. |
| 190 | * BeneathNotice: He is considered a doof by all other characters, which works to his advantage time and again as nobody expects him to be a real threat. The first time he shows his ruthless side is when he betrays Tom's plan to go public with the cruise crimes scandal to Gerri; even though Tom only shared this information with Shiv and Greg, he believes Greg over Shiv. By the end of Season 2, Greg is a pivotal player in the family's succession wars. |
| 191 | * BewareTheNiceOnes: Greg, of all people, becomes one of the most pivotal players in the second season finale. [[spoiler:After worrying about the damning files all season, and saving a few from Tom's destruction in a very un-Roy moment of wanting to do the right thing, he ends up siding with Kendall and releasing the records. (Being able to inherit hundreds of millions from his grandfather again doesn't hurt, either)]]. |
| 192 | * BewareTheSillyOnes: He's seen as a harmless goof by pretty much everyone and such a view is not unjustified, but he regularly shows he's smarter and craftier than he appears. ''Matsson'' of all people is the one who notices and lampshades this. |
| 193 | * BigLittleBrother: He's a cousin rather than a brother to the Roy children, but the trope is played straight otherwise: he is the youngest of the main characters and also the tallest, at 6'7''. |
| 194 | * BigOlEyebrows: He's got 'em. |
| 195 | * BitchInSheepsClothing: Compared to the sociopathic Roys, he's a sweet kid — but he's not above deceit, blackmail and milking his extended family for money. |
| 196 | * {{Blackmail}}: He turns out to have quite a talent for this. He successfully uses it on not only Tom, repeatedly, but also on multiple other characters who ''should'' be smart enough to plan for it but fail to because Greg is just so below their radar that they never think he'd have the capacity to manipulate them. |
| 197 | * BrilliantButLazy: He starts as a twenty-something who can't even hold on to a low-level job, but he proves himself surprisingly smart and crafty when he needs to be. |
| 198 | * BullyAndWimpPairing: With Tom, where Greg is the wimp. Even though Tom abuses his authority over Greg, the two are often a united front thanks to their shared [[CommonalityConnection outsider status]] within the family. |
| 199 | * ButtMonkey: Nobody really hates him, but no one really cares about him, either, not helped by his slow and unimpressive demeanor. Tom also frequently has him doing embarrassing dirty work, such as forcing him to shred sensitive documents after Greg had already driven twelve agonizing hours to get his belligerent grandfather to Thanksgiving dinner. |
| 200 | * CardCarryingVillain: Of a sort. He eagerly says that he "doesn't care" about others, calls himself "disgusting" and other negative attributes with glee, and mocks the notion that he needs or wants a soul in comparison to power. |
| 201 | * TheChewToy: His low position in the Roy hierarchy ensures that he's constantly humiliated, overlooked, and made the scapegoat, and in general it seems that even the universe conspires to put him into uncomfortable situations. |
| 202 | ** In season 1, he's constantly ridiculed and embarrassed by Tom; his grandfather forces him to eat a second dinner of unappetizing noodles against his protests; and he attends a "hellish" bachelor party in which he's manipulated into ingesting too much cocaine, fearing he's going to die. |
| 203 | ** In season 2, he's shown an apartment with ceilings so low that he bangs his head into them; he accidentally says too much in an interview and sweats about being outed as the "leak"; he's one of several people forced to play "boar on the floor", and forced to testify in front of a Senate subcommittee in spite of being monumentally unqualified. |
| 204 | * ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: It doesn't matter who it is or what he has to do, Greg can and will betray ''anyone'' at any given time if it serves his interests. By Season 4, he has--in one fashion or another--both benefited ''and'' screwed over most of the main cast with his double-dealing. |
| 205 | * {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Has a tendency to wander off into strange thoughts. When in a panic room in the second season, he becomes increasingly anxious of the room's design, thinking that antagonists could fit an "attack child" through a window. |
| 206 | * CommonalityConnection: His outsider status saddles him with the company of Tom, another SocialClimber within the Roy extended family. |
| 207 | * CorruptTheCutie: Tom drags Greg into the cruise crimes conspiracy, effectively "infecting" Greg with the "virus" of being complicit in the cover-up. This is a turning point for Greg, who, until that moment, could have possibly avoided the slide into a life of douchebaggery. |
| 208 | * CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Much like Tom, he seems harmlessly incompetent, but he's actually a very good schemer when the situation calls for it. |
| 209 | * DeconstructedCharacterArchetype: Of the underdog slacker hero. His character arc shows that it's impossible to keep pace (let alone succeed) in a cutthroat world without resorting to amoral behavior. While Greg initially tries to remain as morally pure as possible in the beginning of the series, he begins to openly embrace his bad side by the time Season 3 rolls around, which includes suing the charity his grandfather works for in an attempt to claim his inheritance, and callously dumping Comfry in favor of trying to get in with a wealthy Italian contessa. He also decides to accept a DealWithTheDevil with Tom to remain with Waystar, noting that he doesn't have much use for a soul anyway, as he playfully mocks the fact. |
| 210 | * DesperatelyCravesAffection: He is so touch-starved that at one point in Season Two he gets a haircut for the following reason: |
| 211 | -->'''Greg''': I just wanted someone to touch my head, you know. Soothing. |
| 212 | * DirtyCoward: Once Greg gets involved with the Roy family and their dealings, he does everything to try to remain on everyone's good side while still getting a piece of their wealth. |
| 213 | ** In general, Greg is terrified of losing everything he's gained while remaining with the Roys, and his manipulative actions in the later seasons begin to reflect that. Notably, he sides with Kendall in trying to take down Logan with the cruise scandal evidence he's been sitting on, only to immediately defect back to Logan when he realizes that it's not pragmatic for him in the long run. |
| 214 | ** He also sleeps with a ditzy young woman in Logan's home, then confesses and lays the blame on her, leaving his unassuming date to be "dealt with" by Colin because he doesn’t want to see the outcome. |
| 215 | ** His TheDogBitesBack moment to Kerry in which he gets payback for her abuse after he was forced to tell her that she wouldn't be appearing on ATN due to her terrible audition comes across as this as well, since he only really starts doing so ''after'' Marcia has already emotionally destroyed the other woman. This just makes him seem like the kind of weasel who'll only kick people when they're down and after a bigger bully has already made sure it's safe to do so. |
| 216 | ** During the events of "America Decides", Greg is intimidated into submission by a vengeful Shiv, who threatens to screw him if he continues to prod her around under Tom's command. But when Kendall asks him about Shiv's dealings with Matsson, he is quick to leak it to him to spite her, even showing off a devious and smug PsychoticSmirk as he's leaving the meeting room to hammer it in. |
| 217 | * DisappearedDad: Greg's father is never seen and appears to be estranged from his son. Given his father's reputation among the family for being homosexual and promiscuous -- Caroline's comments that he "slept with all the men in Sausalito" and Logan's similar snide jab in Season 4 -- it's possible he was disinherited, or he simply abandoned the family to pursue his own life, whether hedonistic or not. |
| 218 | * TheDogBitesBack: He has several moments of this against people who think they can control him. [[spoiler: One of the biggest examples is in "America Decides", where Shiv tries to bully, demean and threaten Greg into doing what she wants. Greg doesn't hesitate to screw her over, letting her see his devious smirk after the fact to let her know she fucked with the wrong person.]] |
| 219 | * DominanceThroughFurniture: Tom's tactics to assert his authority at ATN is making "human furniture" or "footstooling" his employees (putting his feet up on their backs). He does so to Jonah and tries to encourage Greg to join in. All the "normal" people in the room are horrified when it comes out that Tom does this in the Senate hearing. |
| 220 | * DoNotCallMePaul: PlayedWith. As he starts climbing the corporate ladder, he briefly tries to get his family to address him by his more dignified full name "Gregory", but it doesn't stick at all and he quickly gives up. |
| 221 | * DreadedKidsPartyEntertainerJob: He's introduced working as a mascot at a Waystar park, where he immediately gets accosted by multiple children who beat the shit out of him and stress him so much that he vomits all over the suit. |
| 222 | * DumbassHasAPoint: |
| 223 | ** He's completely correct in his assertion that the so-called "safe room" he shares with Tom is "just a room" and not remotely safe. Though he slightly diffuses his moment of clarity by later suggesting that an "attack child" could slip through the window and presumably murder him. |
| 224 | ** While Greg didn't handle it well, [[spoiler:his concern that Ewan's friend and attorney Roger Pugh wasn't going to be his best option was also well-founded as Roger and Ewan both seemed far more concerned with using the case as a chance to deliver an anti-capitalist diatribe than in Greg's well-being and neither seemed overly concerned with the prospect of Greg going to jail in the process.]] |
| 225 | * DumbassNoMore: Over the course of the first two seasons, he learns to leverage his knowledge of the Roys' secrets and his BeneathNotice status to advance and secure his position within Waystar. |
| 226 | * EmbarrassingNickname: Greg the Egg. |
| 227 | * EstablishingCharacterMoment: In his first scenes he suffers a bad reaction to pot, gets fired from a low-level GoofySuit job at an amusement park as a result, and tries to unsuccessfully blame the situation on a contact high. This establishes him as a slacker, a loser and a weasel. |
| 228 | * EveryoneHasStandards: Subverted. Although he claims that working for ATN is against his principles, his character arc over the series is about him gradually abandoning whatever principles he has.ng horrifying for America. |
| 229 | * ExcellentJudgeOfCharacter: For all his fumbling and still trying to get in, he points out that Logan is paranoid and vindictive, Roman is a sex pest and Tom abuses everyone under him. |
| 230 | * ExtremeDoormat: Seriously, he can be pressed and guilted into doing just about anything. He develops out of this a ''bit'' as the series goes on (see GrewASpine), but he still has his moments of utterly crumpling under serious pressure. |
| 231 | * FauxAffablyEvil: As the series goes on, he becomes more of this than genuinely affable. He keeps up the same downtrodden, polite and surface-level empathetic nature, but he slips in a lot of barbs, is truthfully uncaring about the people he interacts with, and loses the well-mannered attitude when he sees an opportunity to bully someone. |
| 232 | -->'''Greg''': I just jackknife right in there and slit their throat.\ |
| 233 | '''Mattson''': It must feel, afterwards, a little bit shitty, right?\ |
| 234 | '''Greg''': Honestly, not really. HR says I'm the right guy for the job, because it ''looks'' like I care, but I don't. |
| 235 | * FishOutOfWater: He sticks out like a sore thumb among the super-wealthy Roys, and not just because he's so tall. |
| 236 | * TheFriendNobodyLikes: Pretty much no one in the Roy family genuinely likes Greg as a person. Any attempts he makes at inserting himself into conversations get him ridiculed and shrugged off, and even when someone needs his help, it's usually asked for begrudgingly because they simply have ''that'' much distate for Greg. Even Tom seems to only value him as much as he can control and order him around. |
| 237 | * GeekPhysiques: Of the tall, gangly variety. |
| 238 | * GenerationXerox: Greg's grandfather, Ewan Roy, is exceptionally tall at 6'7". Greg shares this height exactly. |
| 239 | * GeniusDitz: His awkwardness is a social problem rather than an intellectual problem. He's not exactly brilliant, but he's cunning enough to take Tom by surprise and adapting more quickly to their eat-or-be-eaten world than Tom expects. He's also apparently the only family member who knows anything about computers. |
| 240 | * GettingHighOnTheirOwnSupply: He deals drugs to those around him--early on, primarily Kendall--just as much as he dips into them himself. |
| 241 | * GoofySuit: He starts the series with a job as a mascot at one of Waystar-Royco's theme parks, and wears the requisite suit during his introductory scenes. |
| 242 | * GrewASpine: Part of his character arc is learning to stand up to Tom's abuse. Subverted when Tom becomes impressed with his newfound courage and takes him on as a confidant, which only makes Greg ''more'' of a weak-willed underling, such as when he's forced to pull Kerri from consideration as a news anchor himself after a cowardly Tom outsources the task to him. |
| 243 | * HiddenDepths: He's a lot savvier and more suited to the cutthroat world of business than he seems. It's telling that Logan is nothing but cordial to Greg in the rare moments they get to talk, and he even offers to go up to bat for him when he explains his grandfather's plans to disinherit him in Season 2. |
| 244 | * ImportantHaircut: Alongside his SignificantWardrobeShift Greg's shaggy hair is cut down to a tidier look in season 3, and in season 4 it is even shorter and styled in a professional matter to show how he is much more baked into the world around him rather than just a fish out of water. |
| 245 | * InadequateInheritor: Ewan Roy threatens to disinherit Greg if he continues to work for Logan. |
| 246 | * InnocentBlueEyes: Has big, mooning blue eyes, and is generally the most naive and good-hearted Roy (in comparison to the rest of the family). |
| 247 | * InSeriesNickname: Greg the Egg, as well as (less embarrassingly) Cousin Greg; the latter is how both TV critics and fans normally refer to him as well. |
| 248 | * KickTheDog: |
| 249 | ** When Ewan [[spoiler:disinherits Greg after he's betrayed him for Logan not once but twice.]] Greg then ignores [[spoiler: Ewan's genuine advice to grow up and first tries to sue his grandpa before settling for targeting ''the charity'' he's donating it to.]] |
| 250 | ** [[spoiler: In Season 4, he repeatedly verbally humiliates and bullies other to get into the good graces of others, be it taunting Kerry's emotional breakdown after Logan's death, or threatening and belittling a sound mixer during the [=Living+=] presentation.]] |
| 251 | * LackOfEmpathy: Not to the same extent as many in the Roy family, but by Season 4 he's become extraordinarily disinterested in the suffering of others. He dutifully, unflinchingly fires a very large group of people in a callous way, praises himself for a "nice" job on it, and later brags that such a task is fitting for him because while he ''looks like'' he cares about others, he ''doesn't''. |
| 252 | * {{Manchild}}: Prior to the start of the show, he's a twenty-something slacker with no marketable skills and no ability or desire to keep a job. |
| 253 | * MommasBoy: His mother is the one who gives him the idea to ingratiate himself to the Roys, and throughout Season 1 he consults her over the phone whenever he's faced with a challenge. |
| 254 | * NaiveNewcomer: Greg is Logan's grandnephew, but he grew up in a middle-class setting and had little interaction with Logan's side of the family until his mother sends him to New York, which lands him smack dab in the middle of the family drama. |
| 255 | * {{Neet}}: At the beginning of the show he's a twentysomething slacker with no marketable skills or career prospects. |
| 256 | * NiceGuy: In comparison to the Roys, Greg is practically a saint. Even after he starts sacrificing his morals to swim with the Roys, he never shows any of the family's wrath or sadism. |
| 257 | * NiceToTheWaiter: In a direct contrast to Tom, he isn't an asshole towards service workers — a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment reveals he spent the night before Shiv's wedding hanging out with Andrew, the waiter who [[spoiler:Kendall later accidentally kills]]. At Kendall's birthday party, he also reassures a performer in the "compliment tunnel" that he's doing a good job, after Tom snipes at the man. |
| 258 | * OddCouple: He's in a ThoseTwoGuys duo with Tom, with whom he shares a CommonalityConnection as relative outsiders to the rest of the Roys. |
| 259 | * OpportunisticBastard: He is constantly hitching rides on the shoulders of more powerful people, first aligning himself with Tom [[spoiler:and then ditching him for Kendall when the opportunity presents itself. He further continues to play all sides in whatever ways he can, consistently showing an aptitude for side-swapping.]] |
| 260 | * PrettyBoy: In a conversation with himself about the cruise documents, he mockingly refers to himself as such. In a more downplayed example, he gets called a soyboy during a political conference in Season 3. |
| 261 | * PluckyComicRelief: He is awkwardly amusing, and his storylines are more light-hearted than what the other characters get. |
| 262 | * ProfessionalButtKisser: The only way he knows how to get ahead is being something of a suck-up and begging for jobs. |
| 263 | * RagsToRiches: Greg is a jobless loser at the start of the show, though he comes from, at worst, an upper-middle-class home and has a filthy rich grandfather. Compared to the Roys, however, he's a pauper, so when he starts associated with them, it's a huge shift in his fortunes. |
| 264 | * SentOffToWorkForRelatives: What lands Greg in the Roys' orbit in the beginning, and it actually happens twice in the pilot. He's gotten a job he doesn't deserve at one of the Canadian theme parks that the Roys run due to his name, but gets fired on the first day for smoking weed. His mom forcefully sends him off to New York to beg for his job back or get another one, which he does. |
| 265 | * SignificantWardrobeShift: Over the first two seasons, he starts wearing suits that actually fit him, showing that he's slowly becoming more comfortable in the world of the rich. |
| 266 | * TheSlacker: His work ethic is very, very bad. |
| 267 | * SpockSpeak: His speech is often slow and emotionless, and when nervous, he sometimes starts speaking in bizarrely formal terms. |
| 268 | -->'''Greg''': I merely wish to answer in an affirmative fashion.\ |
| 269 | '''Gil Eavis''': You can speak to us normally.\ |
| 270 | '''Greg''': So I shall. |
| 271 | * TheStoner: His first scene has him fired from a very low-level job due to him getting high right beforehand. |
| 272 | * StressVomit: In his introductory scene, a bad combination of drugs and children pissing him off leads him to vomit all over his mascot outfit. |
| 273 | * SurpassedTheTeacher: By the end of Season 2, he seems to be besting his "mentor" Tom when it comes to playing the Roy game of one-upmanship and backstabbing. |
| 274 | * ThoseTwoGuys: He gradually forms this dynamic with Tom. |
| 275 | * TokenGoodTeammate: Only inasmuch as he's not as terrible as Logan Roy and his brood, and seems to have a grasp on morals, however tenuous. |
| 276 | * TookALevelInJerkass: Greg spend most of the first three seasons coming across as a mostly decent guy, the occasional selfish moment aside, but gradually becomes more and more corrupted by his environment, as well as Tom's constant encouragement and coaching to abandon his (tenuous) principles in favor of chasing more money and power. Eventually, he takes a new, dark turn by trying to sue Ewan's charity of choice after losing his inheritance (entirely his own fault). By Season 4, he's become just as much of a self-serving JerkAss as the rest of the family, leveraging his cousin status for privileges and sex and generally acting far more entitled and snobbish. |
| 277 | * TrademarkFavoriteFood: The Cajun chicken linguini at California Pizza Kitchen. |
| 278 | * WardrobeFlawOfCharacterization: Lampshaded in-universe: he wears deck shoes to his first day at Waystar and is promptly chewed out by Tom for not knowing how to dress himself. |
| 279 | * WithFriendsLikeThese: He and Tom come to think of each other as friends, which doesn't stop the mutual wariness, deception and blackmailing. |
| 280 | * WildCard: Of any major character, Greg is the most malleable in loyalties and arguably even the most self-serving, who can and will benefit both sides of a conflict if it serves his interests. He gathers intel and leaks it to friend and foe alike, compliments someone then insults them on the fly depending on who he's talking to, and he's generally shown to be a dangerous loose cannon who everyone looks down on, while truthfully having way more sway than anyone realizes until it's too late. |
| 281 | * YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame: He successfully blackmails Tom in Season 2 and is not happy when Tom expresses his admiration of that. |
| 282 | [[/folder]] |
| 283 | |
| 284 | [[folder:Tom]] |
| 285 | !!Tom Wambsgans |
| 286 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/succession_tom2.jpg]] |
| 287 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"Underneath, we're all just little nudie turtles."'']] |
| 288 | ->'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/MatthewMacfadyen |
| 289 | |
| 290 | -->''"Greg, I'm gonna accelerate you. New title, a ton more money, a nice new office. You're movin' up. You can throw away the training bra. A seat at the big table. You like that? Yeah?"'' |
| 291 | --->-- '''Tom Wambsgans''' |
| 292 | |
| 293 | Tom, Shiv’s boyfriend (later husband), is infatuated with the Roy family’s power and prestige. Employed in a senior position at Waystar, he pursues acceptance from his wife's family, often humiliating himself in the process. |
| 294 | ---- |
| 295 | * AgeGapRomance: It's never brought up but he seems to be significantly older than Shiv if their actors' ages are any indication (Matthew [=McFayden=] is fourteen years older than Sarah Snook). |
| 296 | * AmbiguouslyBi: He shows no interest in any other woman except Shiv and no men... except he's very, very attached to Greg. The first thing he does when he meets him is try to bully him, asking if he'd kiss him, and he's very jealous when Greg moves in with Kendall. In Season 3, he repeatedly compares their relationship to that of Nero and Sporus[[note]]a slave boy who Nero castrated and married[[/note]], celebrates the news that [[spoiler: he's not going to prison for the cruise scandal]] by kissing Greg's forehead, and acts unhappy and jealous when Greg wants to ask out Comfrey. His invitation to [[spoiler:join Logan against the siblings, betraying his wife Shiv,]] in the finale of Season 3 is also framed more like a marriage proposal than anything, including the fact that he addresses Greg as "Sporus." |
| 297 | * AntiMentor: Played with. He advises his subordinate Greg not to trust anyone (a helpful tip in the cutthroat business world) but doesn't disclose the latter's meeting with Michelle Pantsil, a secret only he was trusted with. Additionally, he uses one of his employees as a physical footstool and successfully encourages a hesitant Greg to join him. |
| 298 | * AntiVillain: He's sleaze like most of the cast, but out of everyone Tom shows the most signs of genuine kindness and morality. It's a relative thing and he's just as capable of mindless cruelty, but he's still relatively more altruistic and empathetic than most of the Roys's inner circle, albeit with it heavily dampened by his weaselly and self-serving personality. |
| 299 | * ArsonMurderAndAdmiration: Responds this way when he realizes that Greg is blackmailing him, using crucial documents that could land him in prison against him. He's genuinely proud that he's showing initiative and savvy, even going so far as to encourage him by offering Greg more than he is demanding. |
| 300 | * AtLeastIAdmitIt: He openly says that being rich is freaking awesome, and he's not going to pretend he doesn't love every second of it or deny himself any luxuries--and, as he says to Shiv, all the rest of them share his lust for money, so none of them have the right to judge him for it. |
| 301 | -->'''Tom:''' I like nice things. I do. If you think that’s shallow, why don’t you throw out all your stuff for love? |
| 302 | * AwfulWeddedLife: For as much as they seem to care about each other at times, Tom and Shiv's marriage is marred with neglect, abuse, and passive-aggressiveness from both parties. |
| 303 | * TheBabyTrap: Because of his fear of going to prison, he’s suddenly obsessed with Shiv’s periods. She’s not happy when she figures this out, despite his insistence that it’s a nice thing and not just treating her as a host chamber. |
| 304 | * {{Bridezilla}}: He gets really, ''really'' into figuring out the details of the wedding, and is horrible towards the wedding planner. |
| 305 | -->'''Tom:''' Not to be a groomzilla, but... |
| 306 | * BrutalHonesty: [[spoiler: During his vicious fight with Shiv in "Tailgate Party", he delivers multiple truth bombs about her attitude, mental state, and, most harshly, his belief that she is unfit for motherhood.]] |
| 307 | * BullyAndWimpPairing: With Greg, where Tom is the bully. Even though Tom likes to assert his dominance over Greg, he does care for him, and the two often stick together thanks to their shared [[CommonalityConnection outsider status]] within the family. |
| 308 | * ButtMonkey: To the Roys; he is below everyone except Greg in the family pecking order. |
| 309 | * CampStraight: A (presumably straight) sneering metrosexual with a fondness for dress balls and pastel colors. |
| 310 | * {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: He tries to hide it, but Tom is a ''weird'' man, who’ll pepper lines like “bad news about my hymen” in morning breakfast conversation. |
| 311 | * TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes: It's implied that the side of Tom that plays psychosexual mind games with Greg would be more appealing to Shiv, with the irony being that it's the side of him that never comes out in front of her, causing her to look at him as a boring drip of a husband leading to much of their marital conflict. [[spoiler: This is, basically, proven correct to a point throughout Season 4. Tom begins behaving far more aggressively, explicitly cruel in his quest for power, and Shiv is so infatuated by his ambition that their romance is reignited. Briefly.]] |
| 312 | * CommonalityConnection: He and Greg are both outsiders among the Roys. |
| 313 | * TheConfidant: Shiv was a traumatised mess (she still is, but hides it better) when she met Tom, and he’s the only one - aside from Logan who “sees everything” - who knows some personal stuff she’s told him. |
| 314 | * ConspicuousConsumption: He thinks this is the best way to look rich, when in reality such behavior only underscores the fact that he's "new money". |
| 315 | * CrazyJealousGuy: Shiv admits she’s cheating on him, so his threat to break Nate’s legs is sort of justified, but he also throws water bottles at Greg for attempting to break away from him. |
| 316 | * CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Much like his underling Greg, he seems harmlessly incompetent, but he's a very good schemer when his back is against the wall. [[spoiler: The Season 3 finale rams this home when he outdoes the rest of the Roy children and throws in with Logan, pulling off a heavy victory for himself, even if temporary. And then the show ends with Tom becoming the CEO, albeit subservient to Matsson.]] |
| 317 | * DamnedByFaintPraise: Shiv is very obviously settling for him, as her only reason for being with him is that he's "a good guy". Even on their wedding day, she only says, "You're a great guy, and I like hanging out with you," in comparison to Tom, who is so overwhelmed by his love for ''her'' that he cuts his speech short. |
| 318 | * DirtyCoward: When there’s a shooter, he pushes a woman out of the way because “executives are coming through!” |
| 319 | * TheDogBitesBack: While he allows himself to be run roughshod by the entire Roy family, he has his limits - notably snapping back at and humiliating Shiv's lover at their wedding reception before having him leave the premises. He becomes more tired of Shiv treating him like a pawn in Season 2, even telling her to fuck off when she goes too far mocking him during a dinner. By the season finale, he's had enough with Shiv's antics and even tells her he's considering leaving her. Taken even further in the Season 3 finale when he [[spoiler: outright betrays Shiv by warning Logan of her, Kendall, and Roman's plan to block the sale of the company]]. Season 4 sees Tom [[spoiler:take Matsson's side in the [=GoJo=] deal, ultimately taking over as the new Waystar CEO]]. |
| 320 | * DoggedNiceGuy: He behaves this way around the Roys, but takes out his insecurities in an ugly way on anyone who is beneath him in standing. |
| 321 | * TheDragon: He gets in Logan's good graces in Season 4 and becomes his most trusted crony, speaking on his behalf in at least one negotiation. [[spoiler:This does not last, as Logan dies early on in the season. Though Tom finds his way back into this position under Matsson in the series finale by being his puppet CEO.]] |
| 322 | * DrunkWithPower: He loves the thought of being able to fire fifty people from ATN, and being able to use people as human furniture. |
| 323 | * DudeWheresMyReward: Tom is a mirror to Roman in that they both think they can play the being kicked game until it stops and they can be rewarded. But while Roman wants love and a family who can process emotions like normal people, Tom’s angle is getting more power. |
| 324 | * DumbassHasAPoint: He brings up early on that Logan will do the same to Shiv what he did to Kendall, play with her and get bored once she’s in, and while he can’t connect the dots that Logan is like that with everyone, that ends up exactly what happens. |
| 325 | * EffeminateMisogynisticGuy: His malewife status only goes so far, and his sexist side comes out in season three (wanting to use Shiv as an incubator, feeling emasculated by her being his boss, and wanting to show her who the “man” is). |
| 326 | * EmasculatedCuckold: Kendall and Roman both taunt him (though it’s just as much about humiliating their sister) on how likely it is that Shiv will fuck other men when he’s going to jail. |
| 327 | * EntitledToHaveYou: Pissed off about Shiv’s wanting to have an open marriage, he resorts to TantrumThrowing when Greg wants to “see other people”... professionally. |
| 328 | * EveryoneHasStandards: |
| 329 | ** He makes clear to Greg that he doesn't actually believe any of ATN's right-wing rhetoric and sees it simply as a stepping stone. He's also visibly uncomfortable when Mark Ravenhead heavily implies that he's a Nazi sympathizer and Holocaust denier. |
| 330 | --->'''Tom:''' Have you ever read ''Literature/MeinKampf''?\ |
| 331 | '''Mark Ravenhead:''' Ehhhh, yeahhhh? Couple times, I guess.\ |
| 332 | '''Tom:''' Couple times? Were there easter eggs in there you didn't get the first time? |
| 333 | ** As much as he tries to overlook Logan's clear abuse of his kids, he looks genuinely disturbed at how he (accidentally) slaps Roman and barely seems to even acknowledge it. He's also horrified at him harming Iverson during the thanksgiving dinner. |
| 334 | * ExtremeDoormat: He meekly accepts and shoulders much of the criticism that the Roys place upon him, and is especially [[HenpeckedHusband cowed by Shiv]]. By the end of season 2, he's finally starting to push back a little. |
| 335 | * FallGuy: [[spoiler: Though at first reluctant, he eventually clenches his teeth and offers himself up as a sacrificial lion to go to prison in order to save Waystar. He's doing it in the hope it will lead to greater respect and power in the future, but he's still utterly terrified by the prospect and rejoices when he manages to avoid prison time.]] |
| 336 | * FamilyVersusCareer: He misses [[spoiler:Logan's funeral]] for work at Waystar. Matsson is impressed with Tom when he learns this, [[spoiler:thus setting the stage for him crowning Tom CEO in the series finale]]. |
| 337 | * FlippingTheTable: An unusual example. After he finds out [[spoiler: he's likely not going to prison]], he violently overturns Greg's desk in joy, not anger. |
| 338 | * GirlOnGirlIsHot: Averted. When Shiv arranges a threesome with another woman, he's not enthusiastic. |
| 339 | * GoldDigger: While he does love Shiv, he from the very start wants to get in good with her father, disappointed when Connor initially offers to walk her down the aisle, and part of the reason why he's dreading prison is because he's become accustomed to the nicer things in life. |
| 340 | * HenpeckedHusband: He is henpecked ''hard'' even before he marries Shiv. |
| 341 | * HeterosexualLifePartners: Definitely has shades of this with Greg, though his behavior throws into question just how "heterosexual" his attachment to Greg is. |
| 342 | * {{Homoerotic Subtext}}: Tom's aggression toward Greg is often sexually charged. While this isn't unusual behavior for straight men in a juvenile or college fraternity sense, Tom is somewhat obsessed with Greg in ways he'd clearly rather deny. This starts nearly climbing out of subtext in Season 3. Most notably, he tells Greg the story of Nero and his lover Sporus out of nowhere, then immediately tries to start a physical playfight (despite Greg's resistance), and later refers to Greg ''as'' Sporus while making an intimate business proposal in romantic lighting (as two waiters in the background snap each other's rears with napkins). |
| 343 | ** He also engages in questionable behavior with other male underlings, as seen when he uses Jonah as a footstool. Using others as "human furniture" is a sexual fetish. |
| 344 | * {{Hypocrite}}: Tom is uncomfortable with Ravenhead’s obvious fascist views, but has a whole conversation with Shiv defending him, using all the usual excuses like “who wasn’t salty when they were twenty one”/”your dad likes him”/”fascism is a loaded word”. |
| 345 | * IFightForTheStrongestSide: Tom does know on some level that Logan is abusive, even making incest jokes about it, but as he tells Kendall, he’s seen him get fucked over and over, and - well - he’s with the fucker. |
| 346 | * InferioritySuperiorityComplex: The man uses people as human furniture to try and get over how emasculated Shiv and the other Roys make him feel. Noted by Greg early on, explaining to Ewan why Tom insulted him so much with "he's scared and lonely". |
| 347 | * ItsAllAboutMe: Although Tom tries to put up a facade of working as a husband-wife team with Shiv while working for Waystar, it's clear that he only really cares about himself. |
| 348 | ** When Shiv is offered the the title of CEO of Waystar in Season 2, Tom barely tries to feign excitement and explicitly notes that he was hoping ''he'' would get the job instead. He's also deluded enough to think that he was the target when a shooter attacks the building in "Safe Room", due to his status as head of ATN. |
| 349 | ** Later on in Season 3, he's constantly fearmongering about the idea of going to prison, while also trying to convince Shiv to have a baby with him, but only wants it so that a part of him will always be with Shiv if he's incarcerated, much to her complete disgust. |
| 350 | ** Taken up to eleven by the Season 3 finale, where he [[spoiler:works with Logan to backstab the main Roy siblings (and by extension, his own wife) to get himself and Greg top positions in Waystar before it's successfully merged with Matsson's company]]. |
| 351 | * JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Though he can be very abrasive, self-serving and bullying, he really does care for Shiv and wants to be part of the family, and is genuinely hurt when he realizes she's cheating on him and refuses to admit it. Even Logan tells Shiv he's a good man. |
| 352 | ** Despite his abuse, he also grows to care for Greg's well-being. In what is Tom's most selfless act on the show, he protects Greg (at actual detriment to his own position in the family) from Logan's wrath after Greg inadvertently betrays his great-uncle to a biographer writing a tell-all book. In Season 3, when Greg asks Tom if he would absorb his personal part of the blame in the cruise papers scandal for him since it seemed as though Tom would be going to prison anyways, Tom simply agrees to, with nothing to suggest he has ulterior motives in doing this for Greg. Even Greg is surprised. [[spoiler:When Tom ascends to become Waystar's CEO in the finale, he opts to bring Greg along with him in a position of power, noting that while Mattson may have issues with Greg, Tom is aware enough of Greg's loyalty to him and rewards him for it.]] |
| 353 | -->'''Greg:''' No quid pro quo? Just… that's… that’s incredibly kind of you. |
| 354 | ** He chooses to learn about Waystar's illegal activities — when not doing so would have kept him off the hook in a potential scandal — and is then the only character who contemplates doing "the right thing" and making the information public. Also, in marked contrast to Shiv, he is backing Sanderesque presidential candidate Gil Eavis out of idealism. |
| 355 | * JustJokingJustification: Tom's modus operandi is to pretend that he's joking because he struggles with his own emotions and emotional outbursts, especially with Greg and Shiv, especially as she's much more hard-nosed than him in general. |
| 356 | * KickTheDog: When he tasks Greg with firing dozens of ATN employees over video call, Tom smugly mocks the people's upset reactions and inevitable tears for a cheap laugh. |
| 357 | * LargeAndInCharge: Inverted. He's the tallest character in the show after Greg but the two are at the bottom of the pecking order and are regularly reminded of that fact. |
| 358 | * LargeHam: He can be quite over the top when he wants to be, screaming and spouting off downright insane statements when trying to assert dominance in a conversation or let off some steam when he's stressed. |
| 359 | * LikeASonToMe: In “Retired Janitors of Idaho”, a piss-mad Logan calls him “son” and asks him to take him to the bathroom. It’s assumed that Logan thinks he’s Kendall, but Tom still takes the opportunity with both hands. |
| 360 | * LoveForgivesAllButLust: Downplayed. Throughout Season 1, Tom worships Shiv. While it is also accompanied by her realization that she would like to take over Waystar-Royco which pushes Tom further from her, he is deeply wounded that she asked for an open marriage [[KickTheDog on their wedding night]], and when he finally vents how he really feels to Shiv for once, he emphasizes that, with the implication that was when she went too far with him. |
| 361 | * {{Manchild}}: Tom tries very hard to come across as a suave professional, but his natural immaturity ends up coming through a lot, whether in his trying way too hard to prove he belongs to the ultra-wealthy elites or his tendency to throw tantrums when things don't go his way. |
| 362 | * MasculineGirlFeminineBoy: Where Shiv is ruthless and calculating, he is, at heart, soft and sentimental. He also likes pastel colors, and his ultimate childhood dream was to attend a fancy ball. |
| 363 | * MeanBoss: Greg mentioning that Tom can be abusive professionally is the first step in him getting some respect from Logan. |
| 364 | * MinnesotaNice: He grew up in St. Paul and is saddled with the requisite Midwestern politeness, with a lot of his jabs cloaked in passive aggression (although he does let loose with Greg). His behavior is obviously passed down from his parents, who brush off apologies for being late to pick them up at the airport by saying that they had "great fun" sitting around for hours. |
| 365 | * MirrorCharacter: He's more like Logan than Shiv knows about, showing off his darker side by abusing Greg, and puts his hands on her shoulders after [[spoiler: betraying her]] like her dad does in the credits. |
| 366 | * MoralityPet: He's not a good person at all, but he and Shiv have a dog called Mondale, and Tom is the only one affectionate to it. |
| 367 | * MyGirlIsNotASlut: He grudgingly accepts Shiv's offer of an open marriage, but that doesn’t mean he wants to hear any of her past experiences. |
| 368 | * NiceToTheWaiter: Inverted. Tom's internal scumbag sadist shows through his mild facade whenever he's given power over others. |
| 369 | * NotSoHarmlessVillain: While "villain" is a bit extreme since most everyone in the show is morally reprehensible in one way or the other, Tom still rises from a complete ButtMonkey barely scraping by early on, to a genuine rival to the Roy kids in Season 4 after his betrayal at the end of Season 3. [[spoiler: By the end of Season 4, he has outmaneuvered them all through sheer butt-kissing, slimy double-dealing and opportunism to become the new power at [=WayStar=].]] |
| 370 | * NotWithThemForTheMoney: Zig-zagged; he's a SocialClimber and very obviously enamored with the Roy wealth, but his feelings for Shiv are genuine. [[spoiler: In Season 4 he very blatantly spells out that a big part of his attraction towards her was for power and money, and that while he sincerely cares for her, he still values those material things almost as much.]] |
| 371 | * OddCouple: He's in a ThoseTwoGuys duo with Greg, as both are relative outsiders to the rest of the Roys. |
| 372 | * OriginalPositionFallacy: He's on neither Kendall's nor Shiv’s side because he’s seen them get fucked repeatedly, but assumes the best place to be is on the side of the person doing the fucking, thinking it won't be him next. |
| 373 | * PapaWolf: ''Immediately'' checks up on Kendall's son after Logan unintentionally harms him during the Thanksgiving dinner, which is noticeable given [[AbusiveParents Kendall]] doesn't even bother to even check up on his own son. |
| 374 | * PetTheDog: |
| 375 | ** For all his flaws, he does come to like and care for Greg and the two have probably the only genuine friendship in the whole series (in relative terms, as it's still laden with verbal abuse and intimidation from Tom). |
| 376 | ** [[spoiler: When Logan dies, Tom is ''desperately'' doing his best to console the Roy kids (mostly Shiv), offer them a chance to final goodbyes, and using overall extremely kind, empathetic language throughout the situation. Despite his current estrangement from Shiv, Tom shows that he is capable of putting that aside to give the kids some closure.]] |
| 377 | * PlausibleDeniability: Tom runs into this when a key member of his staff retires and reveals that he's been covering up extremely illegal activities by the company. Tom has to choose whether to learn about the activities so he can keep them covered up, or to avoid learning about them so he has plausible deniability when they come to light. He ultimately chooses to learn about them...and promptly [[CorruptTheCutie involves Greg]] in the whole mess as well. |
| 378 | * ProfessionalButtKisser: |
| 379 | ** His very first scene is wanting to get in good with Logan, and that never stops even when he’s horrified about what goes on in the company. |
| 380 | ** This pattern continues in Season 4 with Matsson, as Tom continues to be submissive to Matsson even as the latter is [[KickTheDog openly talking about wanting to fuck Tom's wife to his face]] as a SecretTestOfCharacter. [[spoiler:It all finally pays off for Tom in the series finale, when Matsson makes him CEO of Waystar]]. |
| 381 | * PowerOfTrust: Zig-zagged. When asking Greg to go to the office on Thanksgiving, he claims that he wants to be able to trust Greg and vice versa. Come Season 2's "Hunting", he goes back on his word and warns Greg to trust no one and that even he can only be trusted to a certain extent. Despite this, he keeps Greg's meeting with author Michelle Pantsil a secret. |
| 382 | * PungeonMaster: His best-known line might just be "You can't make a Tomlette without breaking some Greggs". |
| 383 | * PuppetKing: [[spoiler:Tom ends up with Waystar in the end, but it's clear this comes with Matsson's strings attached.]] |
| 384 | * PyrrhicVictory: Tom ends up getting what he theoretically wanted at the beginning of Season 1: he's married to Shiv, he has the pick of jobs...and Shiv ends up chipping away at his love for her to the point where he considers leaving her, and he's deeply unhappy with the knowledge he's gained about Waystar. |
| 385 | ** [[spoiler: In the series finale, Tom is made CEO of Waystar. Hooray! Except it becomes clear right away that he is only being kept in the position to be a lackey for Matsson who accurately sees Tom as [[PuppetKing someone he can push around who has almost no real authority]]. He also reunites with Shiv but it becomes clear neither wants to be in the marriage but feel obligated.]] |
| 386 | * RagsToRiches: Not "rags" exactly, given his middle-class background, but Tom is currently in a family with billions of dollars to its name, and often feels uncomfortable due to the vast differences in his and Shiv's upbringings. |
| 387 | * RankUp: A plot point, as his ascension up the corporate ladder early in the series (to Head of Cruises) saddles him with the highly unwelcome knowledge of Waystar's crime coverups. |
| 388 | * TheResenter: |
| 389 | ** He’s aware of the IncestSubtext between Logan and Kendall, and he can be seen in the background when they interact looking jealous, so he takes the opportunity in season three to be a replacement, Kendall identifying with it being no fun being the last eunuch in the forbidden city, promising Logan he won’t “wriggle”, and helping piss-mad Logan to the bathroom, being called “son” while his hand is on the man’s dick. |
| 390 | ** He's also resentful towards Shiv for her own ambition and for her manipulation of him. |
| 391 | * TheScapegoat: It becomes apparent that Logan (and the Waystar-Royco board) plan on Tom being this for the cruise ship scandal. [[spoiler:The only reason it doesn't happen is that Shiv finally stands up for him.]] |
| 392 | * SexGod: According to Shiv's text messages, he's actually a very skilled and selfless lover. The SexWithTheEx she has with him is described as "orgasm Olympics" and she jokes she "lost count" of how many orgasms he gave her in a single night. |
| 393 | * SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids: When Greg expresses discomfort with ATN, he yells at him to man up and act like he doesn’t have any principles. |
| 394 | * {{Slimeball}}: Overtly sycophantic, sneaky, manipulative, and not as sophisticated as he thinks he is. |
| 395 | * SocialClimber: Shiv's ex notes that he's some nobody from the Midwest, and he's very interested in climbing up the ladder of the company and even considers taking Shiv's last name for reasons obviously unrelated to equality (though he is marrying for love). |
| 396 | * SoProudOfYou: He is actually impressed with Greg when the latter blackmails him, although Greg is [[YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame not happy with this reaction]]. |
| 397 | * StepfordSmiler: It's made repeatedly clear that he isn't as happy in his marriage to Shiv as he likes to seem and is deeply resentful of her treatment of him as an afterthought. He admits to Greg, after the bottle throwing and learning that the shot was a suicide, that he also has a lot of self-loathing. |
| 398 | * TheSvengali: ''Attempts'' to be this to Greg, taking him under his wing in both business and social mentorship, but mainly keeping him around as a resource to exploit for his own goals. However, he does at times seem to be genuinely misguided in [[UnwantedAssistance thinking that he's also helping Greg]] out by doing this. |
| 399 | * SympatheticAdulterer: Shiv treats him badly, so even though he treats Greg badly too, the psychosexual mind games mixed with care aren’t seen as awful as they could be. |
| 400 | * TallDarkAndHandsome: He's got the looks for this (fitting as his actor once played Mr Darcy who was this trope incarnate), though his personality is the opposite of what this trope usually entails. |
| 401 | * TantrumThrowing: When Greg wants to break up with him (professionally), Tom takes it very badly, first tearing up and then pelting Greg with water bottles while shouting at him. |
| 402 | * TookALevelInJerkass: He becomes increasingly cruel and merciless as he ingratiates himself with Logan, especially in regard to Shiv, who he treats more like property that he has ownership of because she's carrying his baby and blames for all his failings just because she left him. He cruelly tells her that she's incapable of love, [[spoiler: unfit for motherhood, and too 'damaged' while she's pregnant.]] |
| 403 | * TrappedInVillainy: Once he learns about the company's dark secrets, Tom's first instinct is to come clean about the situation as a way of producing reform while saving the company's reputation. He is stopped, however, once it becomes clear to him that elements within the Roys' inner circle aim to shut down the possibility, and the second season has him frantically scrubbing any trace of evidence about it while actively helping the cover-up. |
| 404 | * WardrobeFlawOfCharacterization: Much like his ConspicuousConsumption tendencies, Tom's wardrobe is too try-hard — his shoes are too shiny, and his ties match his pocket squares. The Roys insult him by mocking his boxy suits and calling him "a divorce attorney from the Twin Cities." |
| 405 | * WhosLaughingNow: Tom to Shiv's lover at his wedding. After a season of the latter mocking him both behind his back and in front of it, Tom takes no little pleasure in utterly humiliating him at the reception before having him escorted out. |
| 406 | * WithFriendsLikeThese: He and Greg come to think of each other as friends, which doesn't stop the mutual wariness, deception and blackmailing. |
| 407 | * WolfInSheepsClothing: While he does care about Greg, his asshole side comes out when Shiv and the other Roys leave, and he uses human furniture to make up for his own inadequacies. |
| 408 | * WoundedGazelleGambit: Prostrates himself in front of Logan, offering to be the FallGuy who won’t wriggle like Kendall did, so Logan will appreciate it and take care of him. |
| 409 | * WrongAssumption: On some level he knows that his wife and her brothers are abused, but on another he can’t really comprehend it, laughing hysterically when Caroline throws another insult at Shiv, thinking it’s just a joke and not an abusive mother. |
| 410 | * YesMan: After Logan blames Shiv for being in on the vote of no confidence plan (she wasn’t) and apparently talks to her worse than normal, Tom still asks her if she’s okay with him sucking up to her father. He gets into trouble with Cyd for assuming she’s the same, and will just say whatever Logan thinks. |
| 411 | [[/folder]] |
| 412 | |
| 413 | [[folder:Rava]] |
| 414 | !!Rava Roy |
| 415 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/succession_rava.jpg]] |
| 416 | ->'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/NatalieGold |
| 417 | |
| 418 | Though Rava cares for her estranged husband, Kendall, she has remained separated from him while being the primary caretaker of their children. |
| 419 | ---- |
| 420 | * AlliterativeName: '''R'''ava '''R'''oy. |
| 421 | * AmbiguouslyJewish: Natalie Gold is Jewish, Sophie has a menorah on her stand, and Kendall is self-absorbed about the causes he can stand up to Logan for, antisemitism being one of them, so it would make sense if some of his family was. |
| 422 | * AmicableExes: With Kendall, for the most part. They're civil with each other, they flirt a little, and they both want to put the kids first. That said, Kendall feels that she's been trying to screw him over in court despite playing nice and flirting with him in public. |
| 423 | * CommutingOnABus: Despite being a big part of Kendall's life in the first season, she's entirely absent from the second aside from an occasional mention by Kendall. She comes back in the third season because her ex wants to use her house as base, and tries to wish him a happy birthday. In the fourth season, she is trying to cut away from Kendall, ostensibly due to the political climate getting more dangerous for her and their children. |
| 424 | * TheConfidant: Kendall gets ratty with her that just because he’s told her stuff doesn’t mean she knows what’s in his brain. |
| 425 | * DeadpanSnarker: She cares about Kendall, and knows he has a terrible father, but also what a sanctimonious prick he can be, and isn’t shy about telling him. |
| 426 | * GoodParents: Small wonder that she has full custody of the kids and Kendall is a DisneylandDad. This also gets her yelled at like she’s one of Logan’s children when she’s doing what’s best for her son. |
| 427 | * MamaBear: After Logan is horrible to Iverson for his mental issues, she makes a game attempt at trying to explain to her ex that his dad is a piece of shit. She’s also pissed off that Waystar goons will come to the park where her children are playing and harass the nanny by trying to get dirt on Kendall. |
| 428 | * ObnoxiousInLaws: Hates both Logan and Marcia, and gets angry at Kendall for trying to defend his dad with “he’s from a different generation”. |
| 429 | * OnlySaneMan: Knows full well that Logan is awful, both to her ex-husband and her own children, but also that Kendall can be oblivious and self-righteous, and tries to stay out of all of it. |
| 430 | * ParentingTheHusband: Ex-husband in her case. In “Lifeboats”, Kendall literally calls her in the morning while she’s busy with their actual children, and asks for her approval on business matters. [[https://www.vulture.com/article/succession-natalie-gold-rava-kendall-season-3.html Natalie Gold]] has it that while Kendall can be ''very'' tiring, she also wants him to feel safe for once. |
| 431 | * WeaknessTurnsHerOn: The fact that he’s sad and… giving when they have sex, might be the only reason why she has affection for Kendall. |
| 432 | [[/folder]] |
| 433 | |
| 434 | [[folder:Willa]] |
| 435 | !!Willa Ferreyra |
| 436 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/succession_willa.jpg]] |
| 437 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"You know, nothing's more powerful than art."'']] |
| 438 | ->'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/JustineLupe |
| 439 | |
| 440 | Connor Roy's young "girlfriend" (actually his escort) who aspires to be a playwright and is a former call girl. |
| 441 | ---- |
| 442 | * BewareTheNiceOnes: Willa is generally a good-natured, agreeable person and her silent acceptance of the Roys' frequent snide comments might suggest she's something of a doormat. She's actually more motivated and strong-willed than she might appear; she ruthlessly snaps back at Tom after he makes a dig at her status as a call girl. |
| 443 | * ButtMonkey: The siblings all openly detest and deride her, which she pretty has to just accept as being involved with the family. But this is not PlayedForLaughs; it's [[PlayedForDrama presented very seriously]]. |
| 444 | * DarkHorseVictory: A subtle one. In the first season Connor insists on bringing Willa into the siblings and their partners' picture, to which Shiv argues that it can't be done because Willa is a call girl and that will hurt Shiv and Tom's profiles. Several seasons later, [[spoiler:Tom and Shiv are separated]], Kendall and Rava are divorced, [[PutOnABus Tabitha is nowhere to be seen]] and Willa is still with Connor [[spoiler:now as his wife]]. |
| 445 | * GoldDigger: A more obvious example than usual as Connor literally pays her to be his girlfriend. However, subverted later on, as she is ''not'' down with marrying Connor for his money, only accepts his proposal in a moment when she feels that she at least somewhat likes him as a person, and clearly has second thoughts about going along with the wedding. On the day itself, however, she finally admits that while money and security is part of her attraction to him, she's also satisfied with the happiness she has with him, and they do marry without regrets. |
| 446 | * HiddenDepths: She isn't the usual idiotic gold-digger stereotype portrayed; she has genuine aspirations for her own career, and she shows more talent for political maneuvering than hopeful presidential candidate Connor, rewriting his speech at Mo's funeral so that it speaks neither [[SpeakIllOfTheDead ill]] nor well of the old predator (though it does end up memorably awkward). |
| 447 | * HighClassCallGirl: She's paid to spend time with Connor, and she charges high fees for this. |
| 448 | * HookerWithAHeartOfGold: Played with. She's clearly not above entertaining Connor's false hopes if it means she can get the money to pursue her own goal, but she's generally well-meaning, such as being one of the few to be nice to [[ButtMonkey Greg]] and showing genuine interest in Logan's war memorabilia. |
| 449 | * MayDecemberRomance: She's clearly much younger than Connor (Justine Lupe is thirty-three years younger than Alan Ruck). |
| 450 | * NiceGirl: She's a pretty good-natured person and bears no ill-will or enmity towards most of the Roy clan and extended family. |
| 451 | ** Notably, she even manages to briefly bond with ''Logan'' during Thanksgiving, with Logan showing off his war medal collection in an entirely positive and genial manner. |
| 452 | * NotSoDifferentRemark: She [[TheDogBitesBack finally]] manages to get back at Marcia for the former's constant sniping at the latter's profession, when she [[spoiler:marries Connor]]. |
| 453 | -->'''Marcia''': Look how far you've come.\ |
| 454 | '''Willa''': Yeah... Look at us both, right? |
| 455 | * RomanticFakeRealTurn: Implied throughout Season 2. Although firmly subverted in Season 1, where Connor seems to hope this will happen, but it doesn't, and he has to wheedle her to move in with him, she refers to him as looking "hot" in his campaign video, and she shows genuine concern in his welfare. Finally, they share a genuine and honest moment at their wedding in Season 4 where they mutually accept that they're satisfied with their relationship, even if it's less than ideal. They ultimately seem one of the happiest and most stable couples, surprisingly, though it is somewhat by default: [[spoiler: she doesn't exactly appear thrilled at the prospect of spending more time with him when it appears that he ''won't'' becoming Ambassador to Slovenia]]. |
| 456 | * TerribleArtist: She's not that talented at writing, so it's no surprise she never found much success. |
| 457 | * {{Tuckerization}}: She is named after Creator/WillFerrell, who acts as one of the executive producers of the show. |
| 458 | [[/folder]] |
| 459 | |
| 460 | !Waystar Royco |
| 461 | |
| 462 | !!!Logan's Inner Circle |
| 463 | |
| 464 | [[folder:Frank]] |
| 465 | !!Frank Vernon |
| 466 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/succession_frank.jpg]] |
| 467 | ->'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/PeterFriedman |
| 468 | |
| 469 | Logan’s longtime confidant and chief operating officer of Waystar-Royco. |
| 470 | ---- |
| 471 | * AffablyEvil: Frank is easily the most personally pleasant employee of Waystar-Royco; he's mild-mannered, cultured, honest and witty. He's also loyal to a media monster and is willing to enact his wishes regardless of the ethical considerations. |
| 472 | * AmbiguouslyEvil: On one hand, Frank comes across as genuinely nice guy who lacks the corruption of others in Logan's circle, with him never committing any heinous actions onscreen. But the fact that he works at Waystar and made it up high enough to where he is means it's more likely than not that Frank's dirtied his hands a bit. Still, as we've yet to see any of this, it's possible Frank's clean and made it as far as he has by just being smart and loyal. |
| 473 | * TheBusCameBack: After being fired for his part in the attempted coup, Logan brings him back in to negotiate a deal with the Pierces, because they were charmed by his Shakespeare recitations. |
| 474 | * ButtMonkey: Frank really does ''not'' have the best time working for Waystar-Royco. After being a loyal advisor to Logan for decades and someone who considers Logan a friend, he's fired unceremoniously in the very first episode to make way for Roman, who he got stuck babysitting for months and who now irrationally hates Frank. From that point on, he's trapped in the orbit of the Roy family, seemingly unable to cut himself loose. |
| 475 | -->'''Gerri:''' He said he offered you your job back.\ |
| 476 | '''Frank:''' Yeah. I'm considering.\ |
| 477 | '''Gerri:''' ''Why?''\ |
| 478 | '''Frank:''' I need money to pay someone to kill a guy in Palermo. Baby needs shoes, moth to a flame... ''I don't know''. |
| 479 | * ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: He doesn’t enjoy it, but goes behind Logan’s back multiple times, and always seems to eventually deliver Kendall back into the hands of his father. |
| 480 | * TheConsigliere: He is a trusted long-time associate of Logan and often serves as a not-always-heeded voice of reason. |
| 481 | * DeadpanSnarker: Less mean-spirited than the others, but he's got his share of snark aided by an extremely dry delivery. |
| 482 | * DistaffCounterpart: To Gerri. Both are the closest members of Logan's inner circle, and both have a special relationship with one of the Roy sons (Kendall in Frank's case, and Gerri is also godmother to Shiv). |
| 483 | * EveryoneHasStandards: |
| 484 | ** He "feeds the piggies" as Logan asks during "Boar on the Floor", but he looks absolutely revolted while doing so. |
| 485 | ** He's utterly disgusted when Karl starts mocking Roman for crying at [[spoiler:Logan's eulogy]] and sending a video of it around. |
| 486 | * ExtremeDoormat: When it comes to the Roys, he lets them run roughshod over him. Roman constantly insults and tries to oust him, but Frank never responds. Logan is also erratic when it comes to how he treats Frank. |
| 487 | * {{Foil}}: To Kendall. Power and money-obsessed, likes to think he has a moral compass, the only one who knows any kind of pop culture (though more Shakespeare than cartoons and rap music) and will crawl back to Logan whenever given the chance. |
| 488 | * NiceGuy: He's soft-spoken, polite and easy to get along with. |
| 489 | * NotSoAboveItAll: He treats Kendall a lot nicer as his godfather than actual father Logan does, but it’s not like he can actually help, and Logan uses him to target Kendall’s insecurities so that he’ll come over to Josh and shut up. |
| 490 | * OnlySaneMan: Comes with being one of the most moral people in the main cast. |
| 491 | * OpportunisticBastard: As soon as he hears about Kendall’s proxy battle plan, he wants in and to wet his beak as they’re friends. |
| 492 | * ParentalSubstitute: Used to give Kendall flying lessons, and kinder than Logan is to him (to a point). |
| 493 | * PunchClockVillain: Frank serves evil ends as part of Waystar-Royco, but seems to be one of the few members of Logan's inner circle that neither personally enjoyed it nor participated in the fraud or mass abuse. [[spoiler:In the finale, even though he's one of the main parties in favor of selling the company to Matsson, he reminds everyone that it's a good deal.]] |
| 494 | * SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Frank's intelligence and education comes through most vividly through his use of language. |
| 495 | -->'''Frank:''' Shareholder meeting in two-and-a-half weeks. I mean, we are unusually subject to the vicissitudes of public opinion. |
| 496 | -->'''Karl:''' Uh, I can translate. That's Frank for "We're fucked". |
| 497 | * SitcomArchNemesis: Roman's hated Frank ever since he was assigned to essentially babysit him at work. Frank doesn't bother responding to Roman's many put-downs. |
| 498 | * ServileSnarker: He's a little too submissive to be as openly snarker as Gerri or even Karl, but he's got a sharp sense of humor all the same. |
| 499 | -->'''Frank:''' Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Cruise Dirty Sex Fuck Cover-up Party? |
| 500 | * StraightMan: Frank is one of the more even-tempered and rational characters, often offering a sensible appraisal and solution. He also tends not to bite when it comes to Logan's antics. |
| 501 | * TokenGoodTeammate: He may stand by the Roys, but he doesn't display the same abhorrent behavior of them and their other employees. |
| 502 | * UnknownRival: Subverted. Frank is well aware that Roman despises him, but he's both mature enough and smart enough to not talk back to the son of his boss. |
| 503 | * UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Kendall hinted to Frank about the bear hug, which means it gets leaked, which means they have to accelerate it, which means Kendall has to confront his father and ripped to shreds by his family, which means he seeks out coke from a waiter, which means… |
| 504 | * UselessBystanderParent: Godfather, and it’s not like he can do much, but with what happens in “All the Bells Say” (Frank, Karl and Gerri work like nothing is happening while Logan scorns his children), Roman’s hatred of him seems to stem from knowing full well Logan’s abuse but doing nothing to stop it. |
| 505 | * WeUsedToBeFriends: Frank is Kendall’s godfather and was a ParentalSubstitute for him. When Logan uses him to get Kendall to come down to see Josh (and plan being getting beaten down again and shutting up), Kendall’s angry at him. In the season three finale, when the kids are begging Logan and Caroline to not leave them in the dust, neither he, Gerri or Karl do anything to help. Season 4 has him [[spoiler:siding against the siblings in the sale of the company to Matsson.]] |
| 506 | * WickedCultured: He's fond of Shakespeare, to Logan's irritation. Not to mention he throws casual references to Coriolanus in conversation and says he internally recites Eliot’s “Prufrock” to calm his nerves before speeches. |
| 507 | [[/folder]] |
| 508 | |
| 509 | [[folder:Gerri]] |
| 510 | !!Gerri Kellman |
| 511 | ->'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/JSmithCameron |
| 512 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/succession_gerry.jpg]] |
| 513 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"I work for Waystar, not Logan Roy."'']] |
| 514 | |
| 515 | General counsel to Waystar-Royco. |
| 516 | ---- |
| 517 | * AffablyEvil: So affable that it's easy to forget about the "evil" part, but while Gerri can be nice, levelheaded, and she's extremely intelligent, she is also one of the main participants in the Roy coverup of serial sex offences, and she compiles some of the evilest ideas (such as the collateral against rape victims). |
| 518 | * BreakoutCharacter: She was initially supposed to appear in 5-6 episodes of Season One, but instead appears in all but the pilot and is promoted to the main cast for Season Two. |
| 519 | * CoolOldLady: She can usually maneuver competently around Logan, such as not having to be a "boar on the floor" despite admitting to opposing his desire to acquire PGN. |
| 520 | * DeadpanSnarker: Gerri has a sharp tongue and typically spars with Roman, to their mutual enjoyment. |
| 521 | * DisappointedInYou: In “Hunting”, while Roman is trying to explain what happened, the camera focuses on her disappointed expression. She tells him later that he should take ''her'' advice - someone who knows what she’s doing - than trust Tabitha. |
| 522 | * DistaffCounterpart: To Frank. Both are close to a Roy son (Roman in Gerri's case), but ultimately serve Waystar-Royco. |
| 523 | * {{Dominatrix}}: Her sexual relationship with Roman consists of her verbally humiliating him while he masturbates. |
| 524 | * EnemyMine: She and Roman initially bond over their shared opposition to Logan's plan to acquire PGM. |
| 525 | * EveryoneHasStandards: |
| 526 | ** She hangs back and looks unwell while everyone else (excluding Frank who wants no part in it, and Kendall disassociating) cheers on “boar on the floor”. |
| 527 | ** Despite having cut ties with Roman at that point, she's disgusted when Karl mocks him for crying at [[spoiler:Logan's eulogy]] and chides him for it. |
| 528 | * FakeGuestStar: J. Smith Cameron is credited as a guest star in Season 1, although she's in every episode except the pilot. |
| 529 | * {{Foil}}: |
| 530 | ** To Shiv. She’s her godmother and both below her in advising and above her in how long she’s been at the company, her husband has died while Shiv has an AwfulWeddedLife, and she loves her daughters while spending most of her life at Waystar. Difference is, Shiv comes off as a little girl playing girlboss, and Gerri can compartmentalise. |
| 531 | ** To Logan. She degrades Roman in a consensual affectionate way, and he asks her to protect him when he’s fearing being guilty on manslaughter, while Logan “protects” Kendall after the waiter death in a way that leaves him no choice and dehumanizes his son so much that Kendall makes regular trips to the roof. |
| 532 | * GenderBlenderName: According to a J. Smith-Cameron interview, the character was initially supposed to be a man. |
| 533 | * HoneyTrap: Annoying Roman, she has a boyfriend in late season three, who is in the DOJ, and Gerri is sleeping with him in large part so they will go easier on Waystar. |
| 534 | * LovableTraitor: Gerri betrays Kendall after promising him she'd stand up for him in the meeting, and she is prone to work against Logan then pretend not to have done, but in a nest of vipers like Waystar-Royco, it's hard to hold this too hard against her. |
| 535 | * MayDecemberRomance: Her mentorship with Roman [[WillTheyOrWontThey ambiguously]] crosses into this territory, with him being aroused by Gerri's criticism. When she realizes Roman is masturbating during their phone call, [[NotSoAboveItAll she is taken aback but nonetheless consensually plays along]]. It doesn't last. |
| 536 | * NotSoAboveItAll: Although she was still thoroughly enmeshed in Waystar-Royco, she seems to have no personal stake in the scandals for a long time, until the suggestion in Season 2 that she took handouts and misappropriated their resources (such as private planes) for her daughters. |
| 537 | * OddFriendship: With Roman, who she does truly seem to care for. She's an older widow who got where she is through wits, guile and hard work. He's a spoiled, self-absorbed rich kid with a host of daddy issues. Yet, they do care for one another and have a genuine bond. After a particularly humiliating incident, she gives him sincere advice that motivates him throughout Season 2. Usually, Roman doesn't take advice from anyone. |
| 538 | * OnlySaneMan: She's one of the smartest and most put-together characters on the show. [[spoiler:Her leaving the company in Season 4 and blackmailing Roman with his sexual harassment was because he threatened to fire her while she was doing her job, giving legal counsel.]] |
| 539 | * PlayingBothSides: Her most common tactic, and presumably how she's survived at Waystar Royco for such a long time. It's supremely ironic when Logan praises her as being more loyal than anyone. |
| 540 | * PromotionToOpeningTitles: In Season 2, after appearing in every Season 1 episode save for the pilot. |
| 541 | * SecondEpisodeIntroduction: Introduced in the second episode of the series, becoming one of the major players. |
| 542 | * SecretlySelfish: Gerri often impresses people with her apparently cool detachment. Into Season 2 and much more in Season 3, she reveals that she's much more interested in power than she seems (like her celebration of becoming CEO) and misappropriating Waystar-Royco funds for her daughters. |
| 543 | * ServileSnarker: She will frequently snark at Roman and Kendall, and she'll even snark at ''Logan'', but she is so calm when she does so that she flies under his radar. |
| 544 | * SoProudOfYou: Downplayed. When she realises Shiv is trying to blackmail her, she actually looks a little pleased at her goddaughter. J Smith Cameron is a firm believer in how Shiv could be a great protege for Gerri, but they’ve been pitted against each other. |
| 545 | * UndyingLoyalty: To Waystar. When it comes to individuals, she is always PlayingBothSides, but when it comes to the company itself, she is very committed to keeping it running. |
| 546 | * {{Workaholic}}: Her identity is built around her love of her job, although we hear about her off-screen daughters. |
| 547 | [[/folder]] |
| 548 | |
| 549 | [[folder:Karl]] |
| 550 | !!Karl Muller |
| 551 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/karl_6.png]] |
| 552 | ->'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/DavidRasche |
| 553 | |
| 554 | Waystar-Royco's Chief Financial Officer and a member of the company's legal team. |
| 555 | ---- |
| 556 | * AffablyEvil: Not a good person, but he does have a genuine amiability to him. |
| 557 | * AintTooProudToBeg: When Logan plays "Boar on the Floor" Karl is quick to oink for his sausage while even Tom is hesitant. |
| 558 | * ButtMonkey: Karl is often uncomfortable with his less-than-ideal circumstances. And while everyone is the target of verbal abuse, Karl is never very good at fighting back against it. He gets better in Season 4. |
| 559 | * CorruptCorporateExecutive: He's the Chief Financial Officer, but the principle is the same considering how staggeringly amoral he is. |
| 560 | * DirtyCoward: While Roman and Laird joke about to pass the time during their hostage situation, Karl proceeds to have a panic attack and is quick to obey his captors without thinking it through. |
| 561 | * DirtyOldMan: Karl is past middle age and is said to frequent brothels whenever he goes on business trips. He protests that his wife understands that he's a "libertine." |
| 562 | * ManChild: [[https://www.gq.com/story/succession-karl-and-frank-interview For Rasche’s]] point of view, there’s still a sense of “trying to please Daddy”, even though Karl isn’t even related to Logan, and that can mean tattling on Shiv because she’s giving orders. |
| 563 | * {{Slimeball}}: He is, at heart, a self-serving weasel who cheats on his wife with such regularity it's a running joke and who's willing to offer up virtually anyone if it'll save himself. |
| 564 | * TookALevelInBadass: He steps out of his ButtMonkey status in Season 4, [[spoiler:after Logan dies. [[JustifiedTrope This is because]] he respected Logan and does not respect his kids, who he considers incapable.]] |
| 565 | ** Karl makes some attempt to [[spoiler:set himself up as CEO]], with Frank willing to support him. This includes considering [[spoiler:having Frank flush the note in Logan's vault that has Kendall as his desired successor. Though they decide not to go through with it.]] |
| 566 | ** Karl tells Tom to his face that [[spoiler:he has no shot at becoming CEO]] because he is an untrustworthy sycophant that no one likes. [[spoiler:Ironically, Tom does become CEO precisely because of being a sycophant.]] |
| 567 | ** Before Kendall gives the presentation on Living+, Karl asks for clarification about last-minute updates Kendall was making, and when Kendall stonewalls him, Karl threatens to squeal and reminds Kendall [[spoiler:they have a MutuallyAssuredDestruction relationship as Co-CEO and CFO.]] He explicitly lampshades the situation by pointing out that his extensive history with Logan meant that he was willing to tolerate a lot more from him than he is from the untested and unproven Kendall. |
| 568 | ** He unsubtly makes fun of Roman's [[spoiler:breakdown at Logan's funeral]] by sharing video of it, which [[EveryoneHasStandards makes Gerri and Frank uncomfortable.]] |
| 569 | [[/folder]] |
| 570 | |
| 571 | [[folder:Karolina]] |
| 572 | !!Karolina Novotney |
| 573 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/karolina.png]] |
| 574 | ->'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/DagmaraDominczyk |
| 575 | |
| 576 | Head of PR for Waystar-Royco and a member of Waystar-Royco's legal team. |
| 577 | ---- |
| 578 | * AdvertisedExtra: Though she appears frequently, Karolina almost never is the focus of a scene. |
| 579 | * AffablyEvil: Though we don't see much of her fraternizing with others, her demeanor is consistently pleasant. |
| 580 | * BadBoss: She and Hugo loathe each other, and they spend Season 4 undermining each other in the hopes that the other will get fired. When Hugo is seen to be giggling over Kerry's embarrassing audition tape with Gerri, she discreetly forces Hugo to expose his actions in front of Logan. [[spoiler:As soon as Tom becomes CEO in the finale, she immediately requests Tom fire Hugo.]] |
| 581 | * ButtMonkey: She has seemingly the most stressful job in Waystar-Royco, having to navigate numerous scandals for the public while privately having to walk on eggshells around volatile personalities like Logan who can and ''will'' blame her when things go wrong. To make matters worse, her underling Hugo is working in subtle ways to undermine her with an eye to taking her job. [[spoiler:Things look up for her in Season 4, where Matsson plans to retain her in the merger, and Hugo is likely to be fired, as she wanted.]] |
| 582 | * DissonantSerenity: [[spoiler:After Logan passes]] Karolina immediately goes into damage control mode and starts strategizing next steps as if nothing happened. Frank protests that [[spoiler:the body isn't even cold yet]]. |
| 583 | * OhCrap: [[spoiler:When Kendall goes rogue and calls out Logan in a press conference, Karolina's expression is truly something to behold. She jumps into panic mode and starts calling everyone.]] |
| 584 | * PowerHair: She's a competent and cool-headed PR executive for a major media company who always sports a prim bob. |
| 585 | * PromotionToOpeningTitles: Made part of the opening cast list in Season 2, after recurring heavily for much of Season 1. |
| 586 | * WithUsOrAgainstUs: [[spoiler:In the premiere of Season 3, Kendall asks her if she is ready to work with him. When she takes too long to give him an answer, he ejects her from the vehicle in front of a crowd of reporters.]] |
| 587 | [[/folder]] |
| 588 | |
| 589 | [[folder:Hugo]] |
| 590 | !!Hugo Baker |
| 591 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hugo_2.png]] |
| 592 | ->'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/FisherStevens |
| 593 | |
| 594 | A senior communications executive and a member of Waystar-Royco's legal team, occupying a position directly below Karolina. |
| 595 | ---- |
| 596 | * AmbitionIsEvil: It gradually becomes clear that Hugo envisions himself as a future power-player, and he moves to quietly make himself useful to the Roy family while undermining Karolina. |
| 597 | * AmoralAttorney: Hugo's just doing his job at the end of the day, but he's pretty merciless when it comes to executing that job. He advises on how to cover up a huge scandal, tries to get Tom through the hearings by using stall tactics, and readily suggests sacrificing loyal employees of Waystar-Royco to the media frenzy. |
| 598 | * ButtMonkey: In Season 4. He confesses to Kendall at [[spoiler:Logan's wake]] that his daughter did an insider trading deal and asks Kendall for help. Kendall uses this information to blackmail him through the season, using his position to push the narrative Kendall wants. Kendall even tells him to his face that [[spoiler:Hugo can be his crony, and that the relationship will not be equal.]] In the end, [[spoiler:after the merger is successful, Hugo is on the chopping block, especially once Karolina tells Tom to fire him.]] |
| 599 | * DeadpanSnarker: He's a quick-witted, snarky guy in general but special mention must go to his gem of a line, uttered to Shiv as he witnesses Tom blunder his way through a congressional hearing: |
| 600 | -->''"What's it like being married to a man with two assholes?"'' |
| 601 | * LeanAndMean: He has a slender frame and even Logan considers him to be a ruthless piece of work. |
| 602 | * NotSoAboveItAll: He and Gerri are shown to play Kerry's terrible audition tape on repeat and giggle about it as immaturely as the Roy siblings. When Logan enters the room, Hugo hurriedly shuts his laptop and tries to hide the content like a boy caught watching porn instead of doing homework. |
| 603 | * OhCrap: [[spoiler:Hugo's expression turns ashen when confronted with Marcia and her lawyer, both of whom are very aware that Logan is in a position of serious weakness.]] |
| 604 | * ProfessionalButtKisser: Once it starts to look like Shiv is on the rise, he tries to ingratiate himself with her by claiming that he's long been pushing for her to take an active role in the company "in his own way". |
| 605 | * TheStarscream: In a very subtle, opportunistic way. He suggests sacrificing Karolina, his ''boss'', to the stockholders. |
| 606 | -->'''Hugo:''' If you added Karolina that's a decent bundle of leadership meat to feed the sharks. |
| 607 | -->'''Logan:''' ''[shocked pause]'' Slippery cunt. Knife your boss? You're a nasty bastard, aren't you? |
| 608 | -->'''Hugo:''' ''[unfazed]'' ''You'' asked, Logan. |
| 609 | ** He spends all of Season 4 in a rivalry with Karolina, which sees both of them subtly trying to get the other fired. [[spoiler:He sides with Kendall in order to make Kendall the CEO and kill the deal with Matsson (given Matsson's kill list involved retaining Karolina and firing him), but in the end, Matsson wins out and Hugo is let go in favor of Karolina.]] |
| 610 | [[/folder]] |
| 611 | |
| 612 | !!!Board Members |
| 613 | |
| 614 | [[folder:Stewy]] |
| 615 | !!Stewy Hosseini |
| 616 | ->'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/ArianMoayed |
| 617 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/succession_stewy_5.jpg]] |
| 618 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"I can promise you that I am spiritually and emotionally and ethically and morally behind whoever wins."'']] |
| 619 | |
| 620 | Kendall's longtime [[VitriolicBestBuds frenemy]]: a financier who becomes a member of Waystar-Royco's board. |
| 621 | ---- |
| 622 | * AffablyEvil: He is selfish and utterly lacking in principles, but also unfailingly cheerful and fun to hang out with. |
| 623 | * AmbiguouslyGay: He’s never given a love interest, and Kendall states that he “kisses guys on molly”. |
| 624 | * AngerBornOfWorry: While Shiv and Roman are worried about Kendall too, they’re also already angry because he’s a pathetic narcissist who fucked up the wedding (and their dad is pulling some strings). Stewy tells his friend he can talk to him, and how did Logan get at him, only getting more and more pissed that Ken is acting like some abused partner. |
| 625 | * AudienceSurrogate: He comes in, tells the family and Logan that they’re all insane, and pops back out again. |
| 626 | * BeardOfEvil: Neatly bearded and a self-serving, amoral scumbag. |
| 627 | * BetrayalByInaction: At the vote of no confidence, he loses his cool because Logan is beating down everyone and Kendall isn’t even there, and abstains. He rerouted Tom’s whole bachelor party to try and apologise to the guy. |
| 628 | * BewareTheSillyOnes: He's introduced as Kendall's coke-snorting idiot friend, but he's far more savvy than he appears. |
| 629 | * BrutalHonesty: He’ll at least tell you you can’t trust him on anything, though if you’re Kendall, he’ll also try and make it up to you. He also tells Kendall to his face that he fears Logan and is unwilling to serve him the papers that begin the takeover. |
| 630 | * CardCarryingVillain: He will be the first to admit that he's playing both sides and is not to be trusted. |
| 631 | * ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: Switches sides at the drop of a hat, though, to his credit, he is upfront about this deficiency of character. |
| 632 | * TheCorrupter: Brian Cox has it as Logan believes Stewy is [[https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/succession-argestes-interview-brian-cox-1239650/ corrupting/abusing]] his son, and isolating Kendall from him is just a way of “protective reprogramming”. |
| 633 | * DisappointedInYou: Kendall has been told by a lot of people that he’s nothing and nobody, but being called fool’s gold by Stewy, that Stewy thought he was worth something but was let down, just serves to make him look like even more of a walking corpse. |
| 634 | * TheDragon: To Sandy Furness, who uses Stewy as his primary string-puller. This relationship does not hold for the entire series, with them gradually disagreeing on certain things. |
| 635 | * EveryoneHasStandards: Even though he's still angry at Kendall in the season two finale, he hates Logan more, and when Logan offers up Kendall's board seat, Stewy gives him MeaningfulLook and refuses the deal. |
| 636 | * FunctionalAddict: He's a frequent user of cocaine, but it doesn't seem to impair him. |
| 637 | * TheHedonist: One of the rare few rich people in the show who actually seems to have any sort of fun instead of just being miserable all the time. |
| 638 | * HiddenHeartOfGold: Arian Moayed is a big believer that Stewy really has a soft spot for Kendall, and just wants his friend to leave his shitty family. |
| 639 | * {{Hypocrite}}: Despite already betraying Kendall more than once, Stewy gets very upset that his friend would do the same to him. |
| 640 | * LovableSexManiac: There’s no gesture in the world for coke that looks like a handjob motion, and yet he does it twice. |
| 641 | * ManipulativeBastard: Knows full well how much the Roy kids want the kiss from daddy, and tells Roman that if he gets a deal with Furness, he’ll be the number one son. |
| 642 | * MirrorCharacter: To Tom, as they’re both on the outside of the family and wanting to get in for different reasons. Tom, because he wants the taste of power while loving Shiv, and while Stewy says he’s following the money, Waystar is a sinking ship and he wants Kendall out of there. |
| 643 | * MouthOfSauron: For Sandy Furness, who rarely appears in person. Stewy is trusted to communicate Sandy's wishes and make deals on his behalf, until the role is taken over by Sandy's daughter Sandi. |
| 644 | * NoSell: Perhaps his most impressive moment comes when he makes it abundantly clear to Logan that [[spoiler:his usual tactic of being a blustery, borderline violent bully simply won't cut it in the cold, money-driven modern world. Logan might still be intimidating, but he isn't the all-powerful monster he once was, and Stewy is very much aware of his weakened position. When Logan tries to offer a final deal with no negotiation, Stewy rejects him outright.]] |
| 645 | -->''"Dude, it doesn't matter. It doesn't mean anything. You can threaten to stuff a million severed dicks into my ball bag, but the actual fact is, we're persuading more and more shareholders every day that we offer them just a slightly better chance for them to make a little bit more money on their fucking dollar, and that's all that this is."'' |
| 646 | * NoSenseOfPersonalSpace: Always giving Kendall little touches. Touch-starved that he is, Ken doesn’t seem to mind. |
| 647 | * NotSoAboveItAll: Stewy would love to think he’s a cool guy above it all, but he’s pretty pathetic in his own right, just the Roys make him look better in comparison. |
| 648 | * OnlySaneMan: As big a slimeball as he is, he tells Kendall he should just bank out of his family and run, go into tech or something. |
| 649 | * OOCIsSeriousBusiness: The only time he's not totally calm and reserved is when he first sees Kendall after he backs out of their deal. Stewy actually reveals himself to be genuinely hurt that Ken would exit a seemingly perfect arrangement and drops his sarcasm to ask why he did it, only getting more upset when he doesn't get an answer. |
| 650 | * OpportunisticBastard: He is a parasite constantly piggybacking off other people's success and influence. Even his ''job'' as a private equity shark is centered around benefiting off other people's failures. |
| 651 | * ParentalSubstitute: Kendall will imprint his daddy issues on literally everyone around him, and Stewy knows it, talking to him like he’s an easily spooked animal, is so pissed off when Ken (apparently anyway) chooses to go back to Logan, and gives him coke as a treat when he’s miserable. |
| 652 | * PetTheDog: |
| 653 | ** He is not a great friend to Kendall, but he does attempt to comfort him after seeing how out-of-sorts his old friend is. |
| 654 | ** He rerouted Tom’s whole bachelor party just so he can make sure Kendall is okay after the failed vote of no confidence. |
| 655 | ** He’s willing to spend ridiculous amounts of money and get even more involved in Waystar if it means that Kendall will leave and seek happiness elsewhere. |
| 656 | ** After Logan is particularly vicious with Roman, Stewy runs after him and asks if he’s okay, and has wanted both him and Shiv to cash out from their shit father too. |
| 657 | ** At Logan's wake, he actually goes out of his way to comfort Kendall, and actually gets him to smile for the first time in the episode, along with giving him a heartfelt hug. He does this with seemingly no ulterior motive other than the comfort his friend. |
| 658 | * PlayingBothSides: At any given moment, he backs whoever seems to be poised to win. |
| 659 | * PromotionToOpeningTitles: In Season 2. He gets demoted from the main cast in Season 3, but he still appears in the opening credits with guest star billing. |
| 660 | * SpoiledBrat: Tells Kendall they can go into a UK pub and brave “non-vintage champagne”, but he’s still just as cluelessly rich as a Roy kid, acting disgusted with the insides of it and the workers. |
| 661 | * SmugSmiler: He is never seen without a shit-eating grin on his face, and is quick with a smarmy, nasty quip. |
| 662 | * TeethClenchedTeamwork: In season three, he and Kendall are far more tense (and Ken's manic episode gets a little too much for even Stewy), but still work together. Kendall ''fakes going to hug his kids'' just so he can go see Stewy. |
| 663 | * TokenMinority: Being Iranian, he’s a drop of colour in a ridiculously white show. |
| 664 | * VitriolicBestBuds: He and Kendall do hang out a lot, despite Kendall distrusting Stewy and generally thinking little of him. |
| 665 | * WithFriendsLikeThese: His and Kendall's friendship is marred by ChronicBackstabbingDisorder on both sides, and the two of them mostly only create problems for each other. |
| 666 | [[/folder]] |
| 667 | |
| 668 | [[folder:Lawrence]] |
| 669 | !!Lawrence Yee |
| 670 | ->'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/RobYang |
| 671 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/succession_lawrence.jpg]] |
| 672 | [[caption-width-right:350:''"You're a bunch of bloated dinosaurs who didn't even notice the monkeys swinging by till yesterday."'']] |
| 673 | |
| 674 | The CEO of Vaulter, a digital media company that Kendall acquires at the start of the show. |
| 675 | ---- |
| 676 | * AdvertisedExtra: He is given main character credit in both seasons, but has very little plot importance and appears in about a third of the episodes in both and disappears for long periods of time. |
| 677 | * BackForTheFinale: Subverted. Although his name is frequently mentioned during the series finale, he never appears and turns out to be a RedHerring. |
| 678 | * BigBadWannabe: He smugly boasts that he'll eat Kendall and the Roys one by one. This never comes to fruition, with the only time he's shown to hurt anyone being a passive example of not siding with Kendall's vote of no confidence. In fact, it's later shown that Lawrence's company isn't as hot as it first seems to be, which causes it to be gutted quickly into Season 2, much to his chagrin. |
| 679 | * ButNotTooGay: While he is shown in bed with a man and takes a man, presumably his husband, to meet Roman, he's never shown engaging in anything physical or even discussing his personal life. Could be considered [[JustifiedTrope justified]] in that the show doesn't often depict romantic or sexual interactions between ''anyone'' (save for a single love scene between Kendall and Rava), let alone a character with such minimal screentime. |
| 680 | * CommutingOnABus: He is ostensibly a member of the main cast in Season 1, but he gets very little screen time in either season and is absent from the plot for large chunks of time. |
| 681 | * DemotedToExtra: Almost right away. The start of the show makes him out to be a major antagonistic role, but he then falls out of focus and becomes a secondary character before exiting the show altogether. |
| 682 | * InscrutableOriental: He makes his disdain clear to Kendall in private, but he doesn't want to be part of Waystar Royco and it means that he presents himself as totally unreadable to them. |
| 683 | * KickThemWhileTheyAreDown: In the first episode, he is the one to tell Kendall that his father has just had a brain hemorrhage. While Kendall reels in shock, Lawrence delivers the kicker: "You invited me into the chicken coop, and without Daddy involved, I'm going to eat you one by fucking one." |
| 684 | * LaserGuidedKarma: Lawrence gets cold feet and [[spoiler: betrays Kendall at the vote against Logan, causing Kendall to be fired and spurring his downward spiral]]. This of course results in [[spoiler: Kendall finding his way back under his dad’s influence, personally acting on his father’s orders to gut Lawrence’s company]]. |
| 685 | * NotSoStoic: When Waystar starts looking to mess with Vaulter’s books and Kendall hints that Logan is trying to strip the company, Lawrence is visibly shaken and nervous. After Kendall [[spoiler: guts Vaulter on his dad’s order]] Lawrence devolves into confused anger. |
| 686 | * PutOnABus: After only having a rather secondary presence in Season 1, he's almost immediately taken out of the picture in Season 2. |
| 687 | * RageBreakingPoint: He’s usually pretty calm, even when he and Kendall are spitting venom at each other, but when Kendall closes Vaulter down because Logan told him to, he’s stunned and yelling in disbelief. |
| 688 | * SitcomArchnemesis: To Kendall, who he has a very testy relationship with. |
| 689 | * SmugSnake: Lawrence has this personality in certain business altercations. |
| 690 | * StraightGay: He is shown in bed with a man when Kendall calls him during night hours and brings him to a bar with Roman. (It is, however, also possible he is [[AmbiguouslyBi bisexual]]). |
| 691 | * TechBro: He's a fairly young man who runs a huge digital media company that Kendall acquires, but possesses a heft of quiet confidence as well as regarding the Roys as shallow dinosaurs. |
| 692 | * TwoferTokenMinority: Asian and non-heterosexual. |
| 693 | * VisualMetaphor: He tells Kendall that he'd never do business with the Roys, then steps into the elevator and rubs sanitizer on his hands, literally washing his hands of the family. |
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/context.php
FollowingContext Characters / SuccessionMainCharacters
Go To
- Show Spoilers
- Night Vision
- Sticky Header
- Wide Load
