Succession Characters Ranked by the Severity of Their Insults
Photo Courtesy of HBO
Succession is renowned for its outlandish, scathing quips that continuously rebalance the power rankings in the Roy family and Waystar Royco hierarchy.
From Logan’s cutting digs and Shiv’s cold-hearted comments to Tom’s mere scramble to keep up with his family-in-law, Succession is a fruitful show for serving up hard-hitting insults, and very few characters are left without a killer one-liner.
After four seasons, the show stretches far beyond a courteous “fuck off” and has delivered some of the best (and wildest) on-screen verbal abuse in recent years.
As the finale of the fourth season brings the HBO hit to a close, it’s time to establish the final hierarchy of the characters in the Waystar Royco food chain that is based on the lasting severity of their sting.
9. Cousin Greg
At the bottom of the chain of command and this list is cousin Greg. As one half of the “disgusting brothers,” Greg is known for his observational, bumbling quips that have left him as little more than the court jester.
In Season 4, when Logan parades around the office floor, Greg tells Tom: “It’s like Jaws. If everyone in Jaws worked for Jaws.” It seems on the whole that Nicholas Braun’s character offers some light relief with cheap insults such as Logan “looks like Santa Claus as a hit man.”
In short, Greg lacks the fatal instinct possessed by the rest of his family; he hedges his bets, doubts his opinions, and is never the one to deliver that world-changing blow. For instance, he says: “I think you’d agree, Roman, that you’re a self-admitted—sorry, I don’t know how you’d say this in your language—but a, a, uh, a sexual pervert.”
8. Connor Roy
It won’t come as much of a surprise that the Roy family politician comes in second to last. As the eldest son of the infamous patriarch, Connor is more contemplative than his siblings and has endeavored to forge a life outside of the business.
In Season 4, Connor shares his thoughts freely, such as calling his siblings “needy love sponges,” but only to bring the conversation back to his own philosophical musings. He feels like a “plant on the rock” who has hardened himself to live without love, which he calls his “superpower.”
Now and again, he dabbles in the unstable family dynamics by dipping his toe back in a comment like “I’m not saying I’d make a better CEO. That’s unsaid,” but Connor never defiantly acts on it. Alan Ruck’s character would rather stay out of the real conflict and straddle both sides of the argument (between his siblings and their dad) to never lose favor with either.
7. Lukas Mattsson
As a relative newcomer to the cast, Alexander Skarsgård as Lukas Mattsson has relished in tormenting Kendall and Roman throughout the sale of their company in Seasons 3 and 4.
Yet, it’s on his own turf at the contemporary Scandinavian stronghold nestled in a fjord, that the family get a real taste of Lukas’ calculated side. Upon meeting Greg, he quips: “I thought you were the backwash at the bottom of the gene pool, but this is something else.”
He continuously swipes at Roman and Kendall for their incompetence when it comes to finalizing the deal and their futile attempts to overthrow it. Lukas goes so far as to say that their recently deceased father would be ashamed of them. He adds: “I think he’d be embarrassed if he saw you two now, his two big boys playing Scooby Doos.” Say what you will about this Norwegian, but disrespecting a dead man only days after his own death to his grieving children is pretty cold.
6. Gerri Kellman
The matriarchal figure in Succession and Waystar Royco has arguably survived the reign of Logan Roy in part because she isn’t afraid to deliver some brutal feedback when provoked by the Roy children.
Her favorite target is the bratty middle child Roman, who has a disturbing sexual fascination with her telling him off, as we discovered back in Season 2. Gerri has no issue with scorning him as “acting like an over-excited little boy,” a “sick fucking animal,” or throwing in that he has “always been a disappointment.”
Another favorite is when she calls Roman a “little slime puppy” and delivers the brutal blow: “This is why you’ll never be anything other than a disgrace, a rotten little nothing.” The ruthless comments throughout all four seasons have made her a firm contender in this list.
Equally, despite her extensive time as the family’s long-time legal counsel, Gerri also isn’t shy about laying into her late boss and her new one who she sees as a “weak monarch.”
Ahead of their meeting with Lukas, she tells her co-workers:
“They may think they’re Vikings, but we’ve been raised by wolves, exposed to a pathogen that goes by the name of Logan Roy—and they have no idea what’s coming to them.”
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