Succession Season 4 Turns A Key Relationship On Its Head In The Most Bonkers Way Possible
This article contains spoilers for "Succession."
The late American titan Logan Roy was a man of great complexity, and his death has only made his life all the more difficult to decipher. A weighty piece of paper concerning the fate of the company was tucked away in the media mogul's safe, scribbled on, and edited before ever making its way into the hands of legal counsel. The contents of that paper have already had huge consequences for the future of the company, but what I'm sure we're all really wondering is — how will it affect Cousin Greg?
Gregory Hirsch has been the darkest horse of "Succession" since the pilot episode. He bumbles into the family gathering, unassuming and uncoordinated, and immediately establishes himself as a power player. He suggests that if his grandfather Ewen, Logan's curmudgeonly brother, were to leave his seat on the board to his grandson, the young man might have something to offer the formidable billionaire. In a single afternoon, Greg manages to impress Logan with his cunning without alerting anyone else in the family that he might be a threat.
It might seem crazy, but Logan has proved his respect for Greg time and time again. He fought to keep him in the company when he dipped a toe in the pool of rebellion in season 3, which was important for Greg's evolution. The old man even told Greg that he liked him in episode 8 of season 2 when Ewen threatened to disinherit him. Without his grandfather's influence, he had lost his bargaining chip, but even then Logan wanted to keep him in the company. Why would he do that unless he intended to put Greg in charge of something important — maybe even his beloved news network ATN?
Logan left Greg something big in his informal will
The informal piece of Logan's last will and testament revealed after his death holds a lot of questions, but absolutely no one is willing to admit — or decode — what was written about Greg. Frank describes this as "an addendum of miscellaneous matters in pencil with a question mark," and no one else further illuminates the subject. When Greg suggests that he would "naturally" be Kendall's "number two," Frank laughs in his face. Did Logan leave Greg something smaller, or were they just trying to downplay his position?
Then, there's the issue of the underline-slash-cross-out through his son Kendall's name. He leaves the company to his son in print, but what does that little pen stroke mean? And could it have something to do with that "addendum of miscellaneous matters" involving Greg? It may seem like a totally insane theory, but I think there's a world where Logan wanted Greg to take over the company and decided to leave it to him instead of Kendall.
The amount of time that's passed over the 4 seasons of "Succession" isn't clear, but this paper suggests that it took place over a couple of years. If the paper was drafted a few years ago and adjusted eighteen months ago, that means that it must have been drawn up before the pilot and fixed later on. It's possible that Logan crossed out Kendall's name and considered leaving something to Greg in the first season.
Logan has always seen Greg for his potential, but is Greg the Egg hard-boiled enough to out-maneuver everyone and get what Logan intended to give him?
Could Greg be the true successor to ATN?
Logan might have considered Greg as a potential successor to the news sector after Hirsch started working there, or maybe when he was disinherited. If Logan wrote that note after Greg's mentor/tormentor Tom and Logan's daughter Shiv separated, he might still have left ATN in Greg's hands. It was probably important to him to keep his most prized possession in the family, and Tom wouldn't be family anymore. That's not to mention Tom's brutal business tactics and poor public speaking — although, if it is to be said, Greg might also need work in that department.
But unlike Tom, who took a beating in the public eye after the D.C. trials, Greg is more or less a clean slate who — unlike Kendall and Roman — has proven his loyalty to Logan time and time again. But did Logan really believe that Greg had the business acumen to take over his empire?
Okay, I'm not saying Greg is secretly an evil mastermind, but he's definitely made a few smart moves. He made copies of the incriminating documents from the cruises scandal — even if he handed them over to Tom in the end. In the immediate wake of Logan's death, Tom instructs Greg to delete a file marked "Logistics" before the company changes hands and gets its fingers on something fishy. I wouldn't put it past Greg to have sent that folder to himself before wiping it from the work drive.
Maybe not, but he's definitely got some leverage
Logan may have liked Greg, but how much power he was willing to hand the Egg remains to be seen. In his final days, the media titan clearly wanted Roman to take over ATN, and in the end, he will get his wish — with a side of Shiv and Kendall. There's no telling what direction they will steer the company, although unfortunately, all signs point directly into the ground.
With the old guard pushing for them and the Waystar sale imminent, there are only so many high-power jobs that the Roy siblings can dole out. The one good thing that Greg has going for him is that he isn't Tom. He knows the ins and outs of ATN in a way that Logan's children don't, and they might trust him to take on some senior position if it means protecting their dad's wishes and gaining a loyal servant that's already served time on the inside. Once again, Greg's unassuming nature might work to his advantage.
Greg tries to appeal to the siblings before the fateful post-mortem board meeting, but they reject his advances. Will they take him in now that they know Logan almost wrote him into his will? If the audience — or Greg — gains some clarity about his position on that piece of paper, it could totally change the game. He could have anything from a little leverage to a total checkmate, but we'll just have to wait and see. Whatever Logan wrote, in pencil, with a question mark, is totally meaningless unless Greg figures out how to use it.