unpacking Succession's most dangerous character

your favorite succession character probably says a lot about you Roman's your favorite character you probably enjoy chaos Tom's your favorite character you probably live for dinner parties Logan's your favorite character you probably like telling people to [ __ ] she's your favorite character oh for [ __ ] sake dad just tell him it's gonna be me I don't know what to tell you get a new favorite character but it's also hard to choose because the show acts as a confusing litmus test not because it's a complicated premise a filthy rich family fight over their vast media Empire I have you beat but because the characters are so unlikable if I met any of these people at a party I'd bloody hate them they're obnoxious rude selfish narcissists everything's an angle every relationship is an opportunity for leverage and while it's impossible to keep a straight face at Roman's crude comments and Conor's complete lack of awareness I think I finally found a job I want to do okay what is it president of the United States I'm pretty confident in saying I wouldn't have a beer with any of the main characters but it's pretty hard not to like Greg this is like OJ I mean except if OJ never killed anyone cousin gray Greg the egg sporis whatever you want to call him I'm actually going by Gregory now Gregory is my favorite character on my favorite TV show and I want to tell you why [Music] you see Greg isn't like the rest of them he's a distant cousin who no one really knows he works on a way Stars theme parks and he doesn't have any money no seriously I'm not kidding Ken's off waging a war against Logan for billions of dollars and Greg can't even afford a taxi dude you guys need to work this out for yourselves because basically one of you guys hasn't got 14 okay and when we first meet this tall bumbling doofus with no corporate skills he's on a simple mission to convince Logan to give him his job back it's simple but effective writing as this means Greg acts as our audience surrogate into the world of ridiculous wealth the implication is that he's just like us a big relatable normal goofball a standard by the helicopters and lavish parties cleverly this also tricks us into thinking he's the most moralistic of the bunch someone to root for a trick that pays off when he eventually decides to sue Greenpeace I have some beef with cream piece a long story but they're bad we later find out that he's actually set to inherit 250 million dollars from his uncle Ewan so this whole every man stick loses its relatability but this makes Greg even funnier to me someone who's generationally wealthy but can't access their money and they have to hang around with people saying stuff like this look here's the thing about being rich okay it's [ __ ] great that is funny and makes Greg the token comic relief character but not an annoying way he's not overused and it's not like Jesse Armstrong makes him repeat the same joke over and over again I'll admit that the Tom and Greg Dynamic can get a little bit grading by the end of season three but they're not throw away one-dimensional dummies instead Greg's appeal comes from the circumstances of his meteoric rise and how he seems completely different from the Roy's while also exhibiting a lot of their cold-blooded traits we'll talk about his Machiavelli inside soon but we can't talk about Greg without talking about you're trying to seduce me Tommy yes I am yes I am Greg while the siblings are busy backstabbing one another Tom and Greg's on-again off-again romance is one of the only consistent alliances throughout the show it's definitely an uneasy Arrangement founded on threats and blackmail would it be bad for me to like mention those to you now are you asking if you can blackmail me but they're both so outwardly ridiculous that there never seems to be any true malice there and even when they're on opposite sides of the Logan Kendall War they still feel like Kindred Spirits which stems from the first episode when it's clear that they have more in common with each other than the rest of the Roy's they're both outsiders with Tom regularly complaining to Greg that he's not part of Logan's Inner Circle he didn't come from ridiculous wealth and so is Hell banned on destroying anyone in his way to make it to the top including shiv but he sees a lot of himself in Greg so in a rare moment of kindness decides to take him under his wing when you uh figure all this out come in and see me okay which brings me to my favorite thing about Greg his role as The bumbling Idiot has ironically shrouded his emergence as one of the show's biggest threats while he's probably the only character in the show who has an associate path Greg has been pulling the strings from the background since episode 2. after ending up at the hospital when Logan has a stroke he decides to use his time by slightly dropping into conversation that Logan gave him a new job and he offered me a job right which is already a bit dark capitalizing on a dying man's inability to dispute a lie but then he decides to play Roman and shiv against one another following his mum's advice and I guess you need to decide which one of them is more important and this one conversation seems to encapsulate the way in which Greg manipulates those around him for the rest of the show it's a bit of a stretch to say his Persona as a doofus is an act nice to meet you likewise your Excellency but he's clearly aware that it disarms the Roy's and so he uses it to his advantage while they continue to view him as a harmless idiot he uses small pieces of information to go from theme park worker to whatever the hell he is now some upper mid management lot the Lord of I don't know and it's not just seemingly harmless blackmailing of close confidants Greg goes out of his way to find people to leverage for example in only three seasons he tells Jerry about the cruise line Scandal but lies to Tom when confronted about it keep some of the cruise line documents as an insurance policy later uses these to Blackmail both Kendall and Tom rats out his co-workers at ATN wears a wire to entrap Tom pledges his allegiance to Logan but switches sides and gives Ken the cruise documents asks Tom to take the fall swaps from Ken back to Logan and as Greg slowly loses his soul his appearance changes once a casual mess he's now wearing a 40 Grand watch fancy suits and combs his hair back like a corporate Lackey from the outside he now looks like a Roy which makes sense right all of his backhanded deals are dripping with self-preservation a defensive maneuver the Roy is a world renowned for and he seems committed to a life of ego driven Uber wealth and in a lesser show this could put a nail on the proverbial coffin with any of Greg's previous Purity eradicated by his Newfound status towards the bottom of the top the bottom of the top but succession gives us hope because despite the designer suits and his ever-growing list of depravity Greg is still the same awkward bumbling mess [Music] and stay with me here because I don't just mean oh he's so cute he stumbles over his words he must be a nice guy I think this actually means something as Megan Garber stated in a brilliant article from the athletic in the world of succession eloquence is a sign of complicity Greg a malapropism incarnate is the exception that proves the rule in simpler terms Greg is the only character in the show who speaks with any insecurity even when he's trying to be formal or fit in he says stuff like this if it is to be said so it'd be so it is and in a world of supreme eloquence and self-confidence this signals to us that no matter how embroiled he is in the Roy's world he is not fully capitulated to it through Greg's imperfect language comes hope strong well nice and strong strong one strong for a man and language carries incredible weight on the show Logan lies almost too easily long having rescinded the morals that would trip him up Kendall is a jukebox of abbreviated corporatisms if I get taken out on other [ __ ] I might need you to take my cultural temperature shiv is more than comfortable espousing corporate platitudes and Roman is potentially the most confident the lot saying what he wants when he wants they're not always making coherent or convincing arguments and often rely on mixed metaphors but they always present a confident front just [ __ ] go nut nut pure access full bore yeah even Conor believes what he's saying with the shamelessness of a true roy a shift States the thing about us Mark and you should know this by now we don't get embarrassed by contrast Greg gets embarrassed he gets awkward but this is a sign of humanity and a hint that Greg destroyer of documents buyer of watches might still have some good left in him and with a rewarding character Arc punctuated by fluency like this what's it worth in terms of the me of it all why wouldn't he be my favorite character foreign [Music]

Channel: Scene It

Views: 416,207

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Id: kEMDk4TtLQU

Length: 8min 44sec (524 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 11 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/MayflowerKennelClub]

like i said elsewhere here, i knew he was not to be trusted since s01e01 but this guy mentions even more shit that i missed. its a good watch.

[u/_rabbott_]

Love this video analysis!

[u/ContessaNoDeNo]

Love it! I always

[u/Ok_Writer3660]

I love this - perfect. As long as Greg bumbles, we have hope

[u/Negahawk]

Great watch!

I take umbrage at him besmirching Tom being “hell-bent” to the point of destroying or turning against Shiv. That was clearly, to me, a byproduct of her coldness and indicating she would not only do it to him, but was likely to.