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      ‘Scott Pilgrim’ Is Back, Now in Anime Form

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      “Scott Pilgrim Takes Off” revives the bassist who battles his romantic rivals. In an interview, the creators discuss the next chapter, for Netflix.Let’s get ready to rumble … again! Friday brings the premiere of “Scott Pilgrim Takes Off,” an anime series based on the comic book about a young, lollygagging amateur bass player battling seven of his new love’s exes.It is the second major screen adaptation of the six-volume “Scott Pilgrim” series of graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley, which were published from 2004-10. A live-action film by Edgar Wright titled “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” (2010), was a critical favorite, and the eight-episode anime reunites most of the movie cast including Michael Cera as Scott; Mary Elizabeth Winstead as his girlfriend, Ramona Flowers; Kieran Culkin as Scott’s pal Wallace Wells; and Chris Evans and Brandon Routh as two of the former flames.“Scott Pilgrim Takes Off” was written and developed by O’Malley and the writer-director BenDavid Grabinski (“Happily”), a longtime friend. It is produced by Netflix, Universal Content Productions and Science Saru, a Japanese animation studio. At a panel about the show at New York Comic Con last month, the creators said scheduling a cast of actors who have gotten much more famous since the film was one of the most difficult aspects of making the series.“You end up with this weird game of Tetris trying to get everybody,” Grabinski told the audience.From left, Kieran Culkin, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Michael Cera in “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.” They all signed on to voice the new series.Universal PicturesEven for those who have read the comic, seen the film or played the video game version, the anime will hold surprises. (There was a robust list of topics and guest voice actors that reporters were asked not to spoil.) O’Malley and Grabinski came to the New York Times offices last month to discuss the new series, reuniting the movie cast and what comes next for Scott Pilgrim. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.How did the anime come about?BENDAVID GRABINSKI Bryan found out that Netflix and Science Saru were interested. We went to dinner to talk about the pros and cons of doing a straight adaptation.BRYAN LEE O’MALLEY This was like a year after they asked. So I was a little reticent because I didn’t have a great idea. But then BenDavid had a series of great ideas at this dinner. He’s a traditional Hollywood screenwriter who will just walk into a room and make up a bunch of stuff.Were there specific characters you knew you wanted to focus on in this version?GRABINSKI I wanted to spend as much time as I could with the ensemble. The main appeal of the show to me was to dig deeper with the exes, with Scott’s friends, with Ramona.O’MALLEY People always ask, “What’s your one regret?” I wish I could have done more with the evil exes, partly because I didn’t fully understand them. The first thing I think of when I think of anime is villain scenes. That was my first way in, and then BenDavid blew the doors off after that.The idea for the show began with Netflix and the Japanese anime studio Science Saru. which jointly approached O’Malley about the concept.NetflixWhat’s new about the series?GRABINSKI We will say that there are some big twists and turns that no other adaptation of this story has done yet. The great thing about making this show and having Bryan sitting five feet away is I have the guy who can veto things and say, “I never would have written that joke,” or “I don’t think that guy would do that.” As much as I would like to feel like every single thing in there is my idea, there’s an equal amount of ideas that I pitched where Bryan would politely text me back and say, “That’s not ‘Scott Pilgrim.’”O’MALLEY And sometimes less politely.GRABINSKI Yeah, I’m just trying to be nice about it. That’s the benefit of knowing each other for so long: You can be a little bit more blunt. This would not have worked if we didn’t know each other very well, because we’re both incredibly opinionated people. We just had a rule from the beginning that nothing could go on the show that either of us hated.O’MALLEY You want it to be unpredictable, but the surprises have to be satisfying. That’s the goal every single time.Were there conflicts?GRABINSKI Our episodes are very different, as the audience will see once they watch it. We never want it to feel stale, but it does need to feel consistent.O’MALLEY We both love episodic TV, so we wanted to embrace that.GRABINSKI I didn’t want to have something like, “Oh, it’s a four-hour movie that’s split into chunks.” We wanted the episodes to feel like episodes, but the season is one story with a beginning, middle and end.What was it like getting the film cast back together?O’MALLEY They’ve all blown up.GRABINSKI I have to give thanks to Edgar Wright. One, he put together one of the best ensemble casts of all time. And two, they all loved the experience so much that we benefited from that. After we started making the show, he reached out to the cast. He sent them the scripts and they immediately all said yes. We can’t take credit for the returning cast members. Guest stars, yes.O’MALLEY I had some involvement casting back then. He showed me every casting tape. So it’s really cool to have seen all those people flower so much and to get a chance for them to come back and revisit that work with their newfound maturity. The same way I feel about it, looking back and revisiting and finding new shading, the way we were finding it in the writing, they found in the acting. There’s a profound feeling to it and I love that.The creators said the series diverges from previous “Scott Pilgrim” stories in multiple ways.NetflixIs it the art that makes it an anime? Or is it more about the sensibility?O’MALLEY For me it’s just because we’re working with Science Saru: They are an anime studio. There’s a certain method of production and we had to slot ourselves into that. We’re not telling them what to do, other than giving them scripts. They are very autonomous.GRABINSKI Our feedback is about emotion or plot points. We wanted it to feel specific to their sensibilities. A lot of the time it became like a feedback loop where we would rewrite our scripts to match the things they were doing.O’MALLEY Abel Góngora is the director, so we wanted to give him all the autonomy. Each episode is storyboarded by different artists. They’re all Japanese artists, other than him.GRABINSKI The music and the cast, we’re extremely involved with.O’MALLEY That was the one aspect we wanted to control, because it’s so crucial to the tone of “Scott Pilgrim” to get that music correct.Are any of the characters more fun to write than the others?GRABINSKI I love Lucas Lee [played by Chris Evans] just because I’m pretty obsessive about action movies. There’s a tone to that character that is so fun to me. But honestly, the great thing is that they’re all so different. I’ve worked with Brandon Routh a lot and I knew he could be really funny, and we got him to do a bunch of stuff that I think is unexpected and very silly, and he embraced it.O’MALLEY It’s like each of the exes has their own genre, and it lets you mix it up.GRABINSKI That was the thing that was most exciting to me: pairing up characters who had never been seen together. What if they fought or what if they became best friends?O’MALLEY But not making it feel like fan fiction. Really bringing weight to it.GRABINSKI The difficult thing is trying to make sure it all feels like an organic part of the story. As much as we think, “Oh it would be really fun to have these two characters fight,” we can’t do that unless there’s a real reason that they want to fight that comes from the story.“The main appeal of the show to me was to dig deeper with the exes, with Scott’s friends, with Ramona,” Grabinski said.NetflixWhat’s next? Will there be a Season 2?GRABINSKI I can’t think about anything beyond this. I’m glad that we told a story that has an ending for all the thematic things that we’re exploring. So if TV stopped existing on Nov. 18th, I’d feel really proud of what we did.O’MALLEY We wanted to be satisfied with what we get if we never get more. I don’t love it when a show feels like a setup for Season 2. We just wanted to have a complete dramatic and comedic arc to everything.How long did the entire production process take?GRABINSKI It was a few years to go from the beginning of doing outlines to the finish.O’MALLEY But it was also fast. We started writing in January 2022. We met Science Saru in June 2022. We were seeing episodes by spring of this year. We were pretty much done recording the voices before the strike started. So it was like 18 months. Saru is very fast, which is part of the appeal of this whole process. That’s what they pitched me: “We’ll do a season a year!” It took a little longer than that, but it’s pretty magical to get something this beautiful this quickly.Will you revisit “Scott Pilgrim” in comic book form?O’MALLEY Even if I was super inspired, I wouldn’t have time for it right now. But I think it’s definitely possible. And we’ve talked about other episodes. If those never got to fruition as TV, then I would definitely consider doing a comic and co-writing with BenDavid.GRABINSKI I hope that someone, someday, does a manga adaptation of the show.O’MALLEY If someone in Japan would want to do their own adaptation without any input from us, that would be really cool. More

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      Quiz: How Well Do You Know ‘Succession’

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      Photo credits: HBO (‘Succession’); Shannon Fagan/Getty Images; Ezra Bailey/Getty Images; vm/Getty Images; skynesher/Getty Images; Martin Barraud/Getty Images; Jennifer Smith/Getty Images (candle); E! (Kendall Jenner); Christof Stache/AFP, via Getty Images (Ken doll); Daniela White Images/Getty Images (mashed potatoes); Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times (turducken); Dorling Kindersley, William Reavell/Getty Images (curdled cream); Stockbyte/Getty Images (raisin); Fabrice Coffrini/AFP, via Getty Images; Simon Dawson/Bloomberg, via Getty Images; and Zheng Huansong/Xinhua, via Getty Images (Davos)
      A quiz by Tala Safie. Produced by Josephine Sedgwick, Sean Catangui and Amanda Webster. More

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      Unpacking the Roy Family in That Pivotal ‘Succession’ Episode

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      The Roy family has never felt more human than it has in this season’s third episode — or more alien.In her 1969 book “On Death and Dying,” the psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross described the five emotional stages of people at the end of life: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Kübler-Ross’s model has since been popularly applied to the grief process. The implication is that all of us who live, love and die are in this way the same.“Succession” appears to have done its psych homework. In the tour-de-force episode “Connor’s Wedding” — spoilers begin here — the Roy siblings learn by phone of their father Logan’s fatal collapse, while he is on a jet crossing the Atlantic, and begin racing through Kübler-Ross’s stages.One part of the show’s genius has always been its portrayal of the superwealthy Roys as both deeply human and alien. As it is in life, so it is in death. The Roys’ reactions are, broadly, familiar to anyone who’s ever gotten similar news. It’s in the particulars that this family is very different.Let’s start with denial. In one sense, Logan’s death may be the least surprising big surprise in HBO drama history. His health has always been shaky, and the show’s very title asks what or who will come after him. But when the inevitable suddenly happens, instinct still kicks in: This can’t be real.“Real,” as any viewer of “Succession” knows, is a key word for the Roy family. It’s a measure of worth, separating people who are “real” — important, worthy of concern — from those who are merely numbers on a ledger.It’s also a fraught term for characters who grew up in a, shall we say, low-trust environment. “Is this real?” Shiv (Sarah Snook) asks, with good reason, when Logan (Brian Cox) offers in Season 2 to let her take over his media empire. It’s the series’s refrain: This deal, this promise, this expression of love — can I take it to the bank?So when Roman (Kieran Culkin) manically refuses to accept the news — “What if it’s a big [expletive] test?” — yes, he is being irrational. But he is also operating by the logic of the only reality he has ever known. What isn’t a test with Logan? His last words to Roman were to order him to fire his lieutenant Gerri (J. Smith-Cameron), with whom Roman had a bond (and occasional rounds of masochistic sex chat). When Roman hesitates, Logan asks, “You are with me?”About Logan’s death, Roman keeps repeating, “We don’t know.” And the episode, written by the creator, Jesse Armstrong, and directed by Mark Mylod, cleverly puts the viewers in his position. We can see inside the plane, but we can’t see much of Logan, only the crew performing compressions on a body. Only when Shiv spills her frenzied last words into his cold ear do we finally see his face. I will admit to having wondered if Roman was right. Yes, it would be insane for Logan to fake his death. But a side effect of growing up Roy is learning to read your most intimate family moments as potential plot twists and fake-outs.Anger and bargaining, in Roy World, tend to operate as a team. There’s anger at Logan, of course. Each Roy child sputters a word salad of love and hurt and fury into the phone. But anger is also a reaction to helplessness. Kendall (Jeremy Strong) demands to have “the best airplane medicine expert in the world” brought onto the call, growing frustrated and incensed, as if he could cheat Death by demanding to speak to its manager.From the beginning of the phone call to when we cut to the corporate-response discussion aboard the plane is less than 20 minutes, and Armstrong packs a lifetime into it.Every line, every image, speaks to the moment and to decades of family trauma and relationships: Roman’s forcing himself to say that Logan was a good dad, then handing off the phone like it’s radioactive; Shiv’s becoming at once a terrified girl and a furious grown daughter; Kendall and Shiv’s holding hands as they go to break the news to their half brother, Connor (Alan Ruck), on his wedding day. (Ruck has done spectacular emotional work with comparatively little screen time, and he does it again here: “He never even liked me.”)By the time we return from the plane to the wedding yacht in New York, depression is creeping in. And acceptance — well, that too has a different meaning in this family.Logan (Brian Cox, left) as seen with Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) moments before Logan’s plane ride flies him into the Great Beyond.David Russell/HBOThe Roys live in an environment where everything is personal and nothing is entirely private. Your family is your family, but it’s also a business. Your father’s death is your father’s death — bound up with a lifetime of resentment and thwarted love — but it is also a “material event” that requires disclosure. (“Succession” is known for its clever, filthy dialogue, but it also has an ear for the bland brutality of business-speak.) Your emotions may be complicated and genuine, but their expression is inevitably tactical. As Kendall says, “What we do today will always be what we did the day our father died.”Your father is the man who loved you or hit you or molded you or disappointed you, but he is also an expensive corporate asset, an asset that has now failed. And its failure must be announced and adjusted to, even as you adjust to the fundamental reordering of the universe.The dialogue shifts seamlessly from shock to grieving to maneuvering. The firmament has shattered. God — or the devil, or both — is dead. That vacuum must be filled, and the deluge prepared for, whether you are family, staff or, like Shiv’s estranged husband, Tom (Matthew Macfadyen), an unhappy bit of both. “I have lost my protector,” he says, like a “Game of Thrones” bannerman realizing that his head may soon part company with his neck.It’s a bold and potent move for Armstrong, who has one of TV’s greatest actors in Cox, to give us none of this from Logan’s point of view. We don’t know what he was thinking at the end. We, like his children, don’t know what he felt or if he heard their last words. There is no closure, no satisfaction. He will forever be a question mark at the center of the universe.Instead, a scene from the season’s first episode amounts to his last testament. Restless and unsettled at a birthday celebration that Kendall, Roman and Shiv have chosen not to attend, Logan ends up at a diner with his body man, Colin (Scott Nicholson), whom — is it possible to pity Logan Roy? — he calls his “best pal.”To his wary companion, Logan launches into what now sounds like a deathbed monologue. “What are people?” he asks Colin, and then answers his own question: “What is a person? It has values and aims, but it operates in a market. Marriage market, job market, money market, market for ideas, et cetera.” And while he is a winner in the judgment of the market — “a hundred feet tall” where most people are “pygmies” — he doesn’t seem to feel like one.At last, he asks Colin whether he believes in the afterlife, and again, Logan supplies his own answer. “We don’t know,” he says. “We can’t know. But I’ve got my suspicions.”Those suspicions were confirmed or denied on an airplane floor thousands of feet above the Atlantic Ocean, a most appropriate choice for “Succession.” The series is about people untethered to place, who move from vehicle to vehicle, from one antiseptic luxury space to another.So this is a most fitting end for Logan Roy — to die in no country, in the expensive no-space of a corporate jet, his last moments relayed to a yacht docked off the financial district, where the market will weigh and digest his death as it does all human effort and sorrow. As Roman says, a plunging chart line on his phone indicating Waystar Royco’s share price: “There he is. That is Dad.”There is one vehicular transfer left for Logan Roy. We end the episode at Teterboro Airport, where his shrouded body is deplaned and loaded into an ambulance. Kendall looks on, taking a private, pensive moment before what comes next: The period when his father’s passing becomes a news event, and most likely, a contest.Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance belong to us all. But for a Roy, there is a sixth stage of grief: ambition. More

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      ‘Saturday Night Live’ Introduces a New Donald Trump

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      James Austin Johnson took on the role of Trump in an episode that also featured appearances by Dionne Warwick and Tracy Morgan. Kieran Culkin of “Succession” was the host.The last time Cecily Strong played the Fox News host Jeanine Pirro on “Saturday Night Live,” it seemed like she might be saying goodbye to her longtime TV home. (She did, after all, end the segment by singing “My Way” and dousing herself in a giant box of wine.)But to the benefit of the show, Strong did not leave “S.N.L.,” and she was back tonight playing Pirro in the show’s cold open. She’d get a more memorable moment in the spotlight later in the night — for now, the segment belonged to a rookie cast member, James Austin Johnson, who has rapidly become one of “S.N.L.”’s most versatile celebrity impressionists and brought his capable sendup of former president Donald J. Trump to the program for the first time.Strong began by interviewing a guest she introduced as “an American brave enough to stand up and say, screw you science — I know Joe Rogan.” That turned out to be Pete Davidson playing the Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who tested positive for the coronavirus earlier this week and confirmed, in a combative interview on Friday, that he was not vaccinated.Davidson, as Rodgers, defended his ambiguous remarks about his vaccination status. “I never lied,” he said. “I took all my teammates into a huddle, got all their faces three inches away from my wet mouth, and told them trust me, I’m more or less immunized. Go team!”He added, “At the end of the day, my record is still 7-1. Meaning, of the eight people I’ve infected, seven are fine.”Strong also interviewed Alex Moffat, playing Glenn Youngkin, the Republican governor-elect of Virginia. When she asked him to provide a definition of critical race theory, Moffat answered, “It’s simple: It’s what got me elected.” Pressed for more clarity, Moffat added, “It’s not important. What’s important is parents.”He introduced Heidi Gardner as a member of his parental task force on education, and she cited some of the books she wanted removed from the state’s curriculum, including “Pride and Prejudice” (“Prejudice is fine, but pride is a term that has been co-opted by the gays,” Gardner said) and “The Great Gatsby” (“Too much jazz”).Strong brought out her surprise final guest: Trump, as played by Johnson (who is already holding down the recurring role of President Biden on “S.N.L.”).“I just wanted to congratulate Glenn Youngkin and mostly myself on a tremendous victory in Virginia,” Johnson said. “You know what Glenn? We did it together.”Moffat uncomfortably replied, “You don’t have to say that.”Johnson went on to deliver a discursive monologue, complete with a “Pardon the Interruption”-style topic list and countdown clock, in which he rambled on about “Star Wars” (He claimed to have told George Lucas, “You need to do it with swords — the lasers are not enough”), “Dune,” Timothée Chalamet, Jason Momoa, “Game of Thrones” and, finally, the state of Virginia.An impressed Strong asked him, “How do you keep that all in your brain?”Johnson answered, “I had my ears sealed so nothing comes in or out.”Opening Monologue of the WeekKieran Culkin, who plays the sarcastic media scion Roman Roy on HBO’s “Succession,” naturally used his opening monologue to crack some jokes about his role on that hit series. Roman, he said, is “one of the nicer characters on the show — which still makes him one of the Top 10 worst humans on TV.”Culkin also reminded viewers that he had previously appeared on “S.N.L.” some 30 years ago when his brother Macaulay had hosted the program, and that 9-year-old Kieran had been hoisted aloft by grown-up cast members during the show’s good nights. Did a 39-year-old Kieran repeat the tradition at the end of this weekend’s broadcast? You’ll just have to watch and see. (OK, fine, he did repeat it.)Surprise Celebrity Cameo of the WeekThis is why you watch an “S.N.L.” sketch all the way to the end. It seemed, at first, like a typical outing of “The Dionne Warwick Talk Show,” a recurring segment in which Ego Nwodim plays a delightfully kooky version of that enduring pop singer. And as usual, she was joined by guests that she doesn’t recognize or particularly care about, including Chloe Fineman as Miley Cyrus, Culkin as Jason Mraz and Ed Sheeran as Ed Sheeran.But just as the sketch seemed to be winding down, Nwodim said, “I’m sick and tired of interviewing people who are not icons. Please welcome: me.” And out strode the real-life Warwick, who sat down in a chair opposite her. Nwodim asked the singer, “Dionne, why are you perfect?” Warwick replied, “My darling, I am not perfect. I’m just very, very good.” Their brief duet of “What the World Needs Now” that followed was almost too generous but we’ll take it anyway.Weekend Update Jokes of the WeekOver at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che riffed on the passage of President Biden’s infrastructure plan in the House of Representatives, and the results of Tuesday’s elections.Jost began:Our top story tonight, like it’s been for as long as I can remember: infrastructure. Last night, the House passed President Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, which should be enough to clean as many as two of LaGuardia’s bathrooms. The infrastructure bill will also expand internet access across the U.S., which is great news, because when has more internet ever been bad for America? [His screen displays a photo of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.]Che continued:Democrat Terry McAuliffe lost to Republican Glenn Youngkin in the Virginia governor’s race. But on the bright side, losers from Virginia usually get a statue. [His screen displays a photo of a monument to Robert E. Lee.] Political experts say that the Republican victory in Virginia’s governor’s race was fueled by white women who didn’t go to college. Which just so happens to be the same exact group I target on Tinder.Weekend Update Character of the WeekHere, as promised, was Cecily Strong’s true standout moment from the episode.At the Weekend Update desk, Jost began with a prelude about the recent Supreme Court arguments on a restrictive Texas law that bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. He then introduced Strong as a character called Goober the Clown Who Had an Abortion When She Was 23.While she sprayed Jost with water from a trick boutonniere and tried to make balloon animals, Strong talked about how common it is for clowns to have abortions and how they feel more comfortable discussing the subject with one another when they learn that other clowns have had them. It was not the easiest subject to mine for comedy. But as Strong explained, describing a doctor who jokingly asked if she had gotten pregnant on her way over to the clinic, “It’s not like a funny ha-ha joke, but like a funny, you’re not an awful person and your life isn’t over now joke. The best kind.” More

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      Succession Season 3: What You Need to Know From Season 2

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      Two years have passed since Season 2 ended, and the alliances and schemes were as layered as an insult from Roman Roy. Here’s a quick catch-up guide.Because of the pandemic, the HBO drama “Succession” has been on hiatus for two years. People who had never seen “Succession” when it racked up seven Emmys last year had plenty of time to catch up ahead of Season 3, which premieres on Sunday. But fans who haven’t seen an episode since the Season 2 finale aired — back in October 2019! — could maybe use a refresher.In that finale, the emotionally unstable corporate stooge Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) detonated a bomb under his family’s media empire, delivering damning evidence of a criminal cover-up at a news conference where he was supposed take the blame. It was an unforgettable cliffhanger, capping an eventful Season 2.Here’s a quick overview of what this show’s major characters and companies were up to before Kendall knocked everything askew.From left, Sarah Snook, Strong and Brian Cox in the Season 2 finale. Who will be the sacrificial lamb?Graeme Hunter/HBOWaystar RoycoThe show’s primary setting — and its main plot driver — is the media conglomerate Waystar Royco, a powerful corporation known primarily for its Fox-style conservative cable news channel, ATN. (The similarities to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation are, to put it mildly, intentional.) The company is also active in online media, publishing, entertainment, theme parks and cruise ships. Through the first two seasons, Waystar has been under attack from politicians and business rivals, and has been the target of multiple attempts at both negotiated mergers and hostile takeovers.In Season 2, news leaked that top Waystar executives had buried internal reports about a longtime associate in the company cruise line: Lester McClintock, nicknamed “Uncle Moe” (as in “moe-lester”). McClintock, now dead, had a history of sexual harassment and assault — and possibly murder. The scandal has led to embarrassing media investigations and congressional hearings. It’s what ultimately prompted Kendall to betray his father, Logan.Brian Cox as Logan Roy, in one of his quieter moments.Graeme Hunter/HBOLogan RoyIn the series’s first episode, Waystar’s irascible, monolithic, octogenarian founder, Logan Roy (Brian Cox), was felled by a stroke. The timing wasn’t great: He had just been about to announce a plan of succession, which would have seen him stick around as his company’s chief executive while his third wife, Marcia (Hiam Abbass), would have the power to name his eventual successor. The medical crisis set off a scramble, dividing the Roy children and Waystar’s inner circle of advisers.Logan recovered … sort of. (He has had multiple public moments of unprovoked fury and foggy memories since the stroke.) By the start of Season 2, he had called in enough favors and played enough on his family’s sympathies to bring most of his loved ones and his associates back together — although Kendall’s power-play in the Season 2 finale proved how tenuous that truce actually was.A complicated and volatile man, Logan had a childhood in Scotland marred by want and abuse. His relationship with his children and his underlings has been pretty raw at times, with Logan defaulting almost by habit to psychological manipulation and fits of rage. His capriciousness has tested his marriage to Marcia, who toward the end of last season grew frustrated by her husband’s rumored affair with Rhea Jarrell (Holly Hunter), a rival media magnate he tried — and failed — to sway into running Waystar.Strong with Nicholas Braun, who plays Cousin Greg, in a scene from the coming season.David M. Russell/HBOKendall and GregOne of the few members of the Roy family who seem genuinely excited by corporate jargon and robber baron blindsides, the longtime Logan loyalist Kendall rebelled in Season 1 after realizing that his father had no intention of naming him as next in line. He then orchestrated a plan to steal the company from his father before a relapse into substance abuse — culminating in a tragic car accident at his sister’s wedding — led a newly contrite Kendall back into the fold.In Season 2, Kendall settled into a role as Logan’s shameless hatchet-man, willing to humiliate himself and to eviscerate the undeserving to promote Waystar’s interests. But his dad’s demand that Kendall take the fall for the cruise ship scandal went a step too far, prompting him to pull the big switcheroo in the season finale’s climactic news conference.Kendall’s unlikely accomplice in that ambush is his cousin Greg Hirsch (Nicholas Braun), the grandson of Logan’s disapproving brother Ewan (James Cromwell). The gawky, bumbling Greg is a frequent target of the Roy family’s jokes and bullying — a fate that he accepts as a trade-off for access to their money, power and drugs. In Season 1, he smartly held onto some damning documents about Brightstar’s troubles, anticipating the moment when he could use them as leverage.That moment arrives after the family openly considers adding some “Greg sprinkles” to whomever they serve up on a platter to take the fall for the cruise fiasco. And after Kendall finds himself in need of a plan.Matthew Macfadyen and Sarah Snook as Tom and Shiv, whose marriage is … very complicated.Zach Dilgard/HBOSiobhan and TomIt’s hard to say who in the Roy family has been most hurt by Kendall and Greg’s betrayal, but the situation is pretty dire for Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen), the husband to Logan’s daughter, Siobhan (usually called Shiv, played by Sarah Snook). A former executive in Waystar’s parks and cruises division — and Greg’s immediate superior — Tom not only knew about Uncle Moe’s crimes but also helped in the cover-up.At the end of Season 1, Tom learned — on the day of his wedding, no less — that his then-fiancée, Shiv, wanted to have an open relationship. He suffered through that arrangement for most of Season 2 before finally admitting his unhappiness in the finale. A major part of Tom’s frustration has to do with his taking a thankless position at ATN in hopes of setting himself up for more responsibility down the line … only to find that Logan had secretly named Shiv as the big Waystar successor.As for Shiv, she quickly learned last season that her dad’s promise to let her take over was a ploy to keep his left-leaning feminist daughter under his control rather than allow her to cozy up to political enemies. As soon as Logan saw the potential advantage in setting up Rhea as the next in line, he let Shiv dangle. Ever since, his daughter has been staying publicly faithful while working behind the scenes to sabotage her rivals and get back onto Logan’s radar as a future Waystar boss.Roman and Gerri (Kieran Culkin and J. Smith-Cameron): also complicated.Peter Kramer/HBORoman and GerriThe Roy family’s unexpected Season 2 all-star was Logan’s youngest son, Roman (Kieran Culkin), a notorious cynic and an unapologetic slacker, who suddenly set out to prove to his father that he could make smart deals on Waystar’s behalf. While Kendall has wanted to lead the company into a new era and to protect his dad’s legacy, and while Shiv has wanted to distance Waystar from its toxic reputation, the incorrigible troll Roman relishes the idea of running a powerful organization that annoys a lot of people.Roman surprises even Logan by securing enough foreign money to take Waystar private — before advising his father to reject the deal and to try working with someone closer to the family’s political interests. For his industriousness, Roman is named Waystar’s sole chief operating officer (a position he previously shared with Kendall) in the Season 2 finale.Throughout this shift toward ambition and guile, Roman has been quietly assisted by Gerri Kellman (J. Smith-Cameron), a longtime Waystar lawyer who has worried often that her boss might throw her to the wolves to save himself. As she has whispered ideas in Roman’s ear, the two have developed a freaky quasi-sexual relationship, in which Gerri turns him on by playing the demanding mommy figure.Justine Lupe and Alan Ruck as the aspiring playwright Willa and the Roy brother from another mother, Connor.Zach Dilgard/HBOConnor (and company)Kendall, Shiv and Roman are Logan’s children from his second wife; but the siblings also have an older half brother, Connor (Alan Ruck). Connor has never been that active in the family business, opting instead to spend money and promote himself as a libertarian firebrand.In Season 2, these hobbies create headaches for Logan. Connor announces a run for president of the United States, arguing for free market reforms that wouldn’t serve Waystar’s interests. At the same time, he pours much of his fortune into the Broadway dreams of his ex-sex-worker girlfriend, Willa (Justine Lupe), who has written a flop play. Logan handles both of these problems at once, agreeing to cover his son’s showbiz losses in return for his dropping the presidential campaign.Connor is a minor “Succession” character compared to some; but while this show’s cast is huge, the creator Jesse Armstrong has had a long-term narrative use for nearly everyone. A case in point is Stewy Hosseini (Arian Moayed), who was introduced in Season 1 as an old friend of Kendall’s with enough money to help get Waystar out a financial jam; he has since become a pesky enemy, determined to hold onto his stake in the company and to outlast the Roys on the board.Anyone could end up being a power-player in “Succession” Season 3. This is a show where loyalties shift overnight, and no grudge is forgotten. More