Help, I Can’t Stop Overanalyzing the New ‘Succession’ Posters

Why does Cousin Greg's position keep changing? Does the line really mean anything, or is HBO trolling? Why did they use the stretch tool on Kieran Culkin?

By Ashley Reese  |  September 15, 2021 | 6:00pm
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Help, I Can’t Stop Overanalyzing the New ‘Succession’ Posters
Image:HBO

It’s been two days since the Succession season three promo posters have come out, and I’m still buggin’ trying to figure out what the hell I’m looking at. Why does Cousin Greg keep changing positions? Is the order of the characters trying to tell us something? Is Kieran Culkin on stilts?

The HBO hit series is returning October 17 after a lengthy pandemic-induced delay. The last time we saw our favorite rich assholes, Waystar Royco CEO and Roy family patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox) asks his son, Kendall (Jeremy Strong), to take the fall for a slew of sexual assaults and at least one murder on the company’s cruise line. In a surprise twist, Kendall, once slated to be his father’s successor, used his televised resignation to tell a room full of reporters that his father knew about the misconduct all along.

Season three is bound to address where the loyalties of the Roy family and others will go: to the somewhat out-of-touch yet formidable Logan, or Kendall, the sad fuck-up with a fire in his belly?

Well, there are posters teasing out a few different possibilities:

Image:HBO

Maybe token Roy daughter Shiv (Sarah Snook) decides to align with her big bro Kendall after tiring of her father giving her the runaround about becoming his successor. And her husband, Tom (Mr. Darcy Matthew Macfayden), sticking by Logan for career purposes tracks as he aims to make his way up the Waystar food chain. Meanwhile, Roman (Kieran Culkin), the youngest Roy son, also allies himself with dear old dad; his natural shrewdness is a major asset, and he hates to disappoint dear old dad. If this seems likely, well, there’s a poster to help validate your theories.

But there’s also a poster for a completely different possibility.

Image:HBO

Maybe Shiv continues to side with her father alongside her brothers Roman and Connor (Alan Ruck) while Tom joins team Kendall and Cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun). I agree with critic Olivia Truffaut-Wong that this alliance seems unlikely, especially given Tom’s dedication to the Waystar brand and his own career aspirations. But hey, there’s a poster for that.

Or…

Image:HBO

Or what if there’s more of a split, with Shiv, Tom, and Connor staying with dad while Roman envisions greener pastures with Kendall and Greg? I mean, maybe… but regardless of what I think there’s a poster for that, too.

But let’s also focus on the order in which everyone is positioned in the posters. The only consistency is Kendall and Logan in the front. Sometimes Shiv is pulling up in her father’s rear, sometimes it’s Roman. One poster has Cousin Greg and Connor way in the back, divided only by the literal line between them, while others have either one closer to the front of the pack. The only real consistency is that Greg has always been on Kendall’s side. It makes sense; Greg did help out Kendall during his explosive revelation during the season 2 finale.

Oh, sorry, just kidding. There’s a new Spanish language poster for Succession that shows Greg on Logan’s side.

On the one hand, what the fuck? On the other hand, we can’t ignore the fact that with each season, naive Cousin Greg grows a little more cunning. He has dabbled in blackmail, salvaged damning documents that the head honchos at Waystar wanted to destroy, and conducted secret recordings of company secrets in the hopes of saving his own ass if or when shit hits the fan. He’s not a Roy by name, but he’s a Roy by blood, and little by little affable ol’ Greg is learning tricks of the trade.

It’s not too hard to believe that Greg could pick whichever side he deems to be in his best personal interests as opposed to any ethical ones. Perhaps Team Logan, alongside his partner in company crimes, Tom, ends up being the safest place for ol’ Greg. He did turn down $250 million because he placed so much trust in the old fart, after all

Or maybe none of this means much of anything and I am simply reverting to the kind of speculative behavior I indulged in as a teenager on Harry Potter forums, reading far too deeply into anything and everything—illustrated book covers, numerology, etc—in the hopes of finding clues about the next installments that weren’t actually there.

Either way, please, help. Make it stop.

 
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