‘Succession’: We Need To Talk About Evil Cousin Greg

We long ago fell in love with cousin Greg in the third season of succession, TRUE? The menswear shoots, the fancams, the instinctive joy you felt every time her awkward figure appeared.

He was the star of the season succession and a lifeline for ordinary people who were in awe of the lifestyle of the rich and famous in New York. His vertigo at the “juicy and brainy blow” of the fried vegetable was ours.

But as the fourth season progresses, something begins to crystallize. In fact, I’m going to say it: I think I hate Greg now. In fact, right now Greg seems like a disgusting person to me. He’s the kind of guy who takes a date to his late uncle’s birthday party and talks about her as “another mark on the record.”

Things got even worse in the fourth episode of the season. It was revealed that Greg’s name appears on Logan’s controversial willwhich outlines his last wishes for Waystar (if you can understand the scribbles, of course).

“In what capacity?” Greg stammers. “How?” He possibly sees his chance to run Waystar-Gregco; he possibly fears permanent ostracism from the family for the accidental sex tape.

Kendall’s name appears on the paper as a possible boss – or quite the opposite, who knows – and Greg’s as well. “So maybe,” Greg tries, “the natural conclusion would be that I would be his number two.”

The older ones – Frank, Karl, Gerri – laugh in Greg’s face. Sure, we’d all love to know what transformation plans the guy who’s had no ideas other than to cowardly jump on whoever seems like the worst bet at all times has for a multibillion-dollar company, but that’s never going to happen.

However, Greg won’t fail to get to the front of the queue, hovering around Marcia when a really distraught Kerry shows up to get some things she had left in Logan’s room. It’s all very reminiscent of Greg, who managed to get between Logan and Marcia in the car in the first episode.

“Oh, she’s coming. She’s so nasty,” Greg says, audibly clenching his pearls. “Don’t look, Marcia, it’s too unpleasant.”

Kerry’s makeup bag spills all over the floor. As Roman goes to help – and to get Kerry’s number, possibly to get a little more information about his father’s last days and find out if Logan heard his exasperated voicemail before dropping his phone in the toilet – Greg stands next to Marcia and coughs, “Oh God, here comes the waterworks.”

Greg! Shit! So, as Kendall and Roman are introduced as two very bummed-looking interim CEOs, Greg sings, “Long live the king! And the other king!”

It turns out that Greg has been the cuckoo in the nest from the very beginning. When he was, as Kendall put it at the end of season one, a “Machiavellian little fucker,” he was the transparent outsider who made the unseen look pretty.

He lived in a youth hostel. He would take the company cakes home in doggy bags. You supported him against the privileged Roys. Maybe you even wisely assented to his views on California Pizza Kitchen. This, you thought, was our man. He was always on the verge of being crushed by the Roy machine, and yet he managed to stay out of harm’s way.

But Greg’s drip of bullshit behavior and dastardly (and utterly inept) maneuvering this season is entirely different. He is now a bad person.

Of course, he has been surrounded by bad people for a long time. However, while the Roys have been steeped in Logan’s unique way of doing business since they were born, Greg saw it from the outside and decided he wanted in on it. He threw away his grandfather’s $250 million because he saw the Roys’ wealth and decided he wanted more. He would like to have a decent title, plus more money than God. Nicholas Braun signaled before this season that Greg was about to make a turn.

“Greg puts himself to the test, comes across as a different guy at times this season and is bolder than we’ve ever seen him, as well as strategic.Braun said to Deadline. “I mean, he’s always been a guy who’s tried to play whatever role is available to him and he’s really leaning into that this season.”

Therefore, Greg is now a bad guy. Because it is important? It matters because suddenly it seems like the end of Succession it’s coming together, that some story arcs are entering the last drop of their parable.

For example, Roman. As Greg vomited through the eyes of a dog dressed as a mascot at a Waystar park, Roman taunted a kid with a million-dollar check, which he then tore up while he laughed. He looked like Gordon Gekko. He was absolutely disgusting.

Yet this season, when the Roy boys have been most vulnerable and compassionate – Shiv is crushed by the weight of her collapsing marriage, Ken has broken up, Connor is sad, everyone is grieving – Roman has been the most vulnerable. and sympathetic to all.

It used to seem like everyone else on the show was a sideline in the Roy family demolition derby; now you’re worried that Kendall, Roman, and Shiv could be expelled themselves. It happened so subtly that we didn’t even notice it, but succession it has always been a tragedy wrapped in jokes.

This latest episode has made it clear that Greg’s tragedy will likely consist of finding a pot of gold but losing himself, while the Roy boys go the opposite way.

Now I hate Greg because Roman, Shiv and Kendall clearly don’t have time for him, and for the fact that I’ve now been dragged into feeling something by the most venomous bunch of backstabbers on TV. That in itself is an indicator of how intensely good she’s been. succession.

The show has taken the one character you thought you knew and corrupted him right before your eyes, having made you grow fond of him. Cousin Greg is evil now, and I think I might be too.