The Succession power rankings: who will claim the top seat this season?

Episode two spoilers here, as Hamish MacBain looks at how the characters are faring in the final season not too well, mostly...

- Hamish MacBain

OFcourse it was never going to be simple. This being Succession, done deals are never done: especially when there are immediate family members to be psychologically tortured. And so by the end of episode two of this new season, “Rehearsal”, everything — everything — was teetering on the edge. And as ever, the race to outrank everyone else in the power rankings is very much on. So here, with a very heavy spoiler warning, is how the key players are sitting, from bottom of the pile to the top…

12. Nan Pierce

Along with 'Bridget Randomf**k', the comically self-righteous PGM matriarch was nowhere to be seen in episode two. Perhaps, having sold off her company for $10 billion to the Roy siblings, she has taken Greg's date out to shop for a less capacious bag. Better that than being a fly on the wall as the new owners of her Left-leaning media organisation brainstorm ideas. Having groaned hard at "the bald man talking about Nato", Roman thinks the way forward might be to Greg "shove all your foreign reporting, Melatonin-news hour info dumps into daytime, then primetime go full Clockwork Orange, you know?" Hope the spoils of that "disgusting" bidding war were worth it, Nanny, because the sibs are about to GB News the hell out of your legacy.

11. Roman

Oh, Romulus: we've never been explicitly told what on earth were the terrible things that happened to you when you were little, but they have rendered you powerless to even a glimmer of approval from your dad. It's always Roman who, just as the patricidal hijinks are about to be fully actioned, hears Logan utter "I need you, son", then morphs from shock-jock-mouthed sociopath into doe-eyed, quivering little boy who wants his hair stroked - and blows the whole thing.