Succession: 10 Best Cousin Greg Episodes

HBO’s Succession boasts a cast of complex and problematic characters, from the troubled heir-apparent Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) to the vicious political consultant Shiv Roy (Sarah Snook). However, none of them are as dark a horse for taking over the company as Greg Hirsch (Nicholas Braun), commonly referred to as Cousin Greg.

A fan favorite, Greg is an outsider to the inner workings of the Roy family, and initially appears to be in over his head. Yet, the more he learns about the Roys, the bolder he becomes, rising through the ranks while masquerading as Tom Wambsgans’ (Matthew Macfadyen) right-hand man and, more often, punching bag. These episodes capture Greg’s best moments in the series and highlight his improbable successes.

Season 1, Episode 1: “Celebration”

In the pilot of Succession, the audience gets introduced to Greg at his lowest. He smokes weed in his car, barely pays attention to the management training program he’s been enrolled in, and when he has to perform as a mascot, proceeds to get beaten up by kids and vomits through the eyeholes of his costume.

Right away, the audience knows Greg is a loser, but his mother (Mary Birdsong) gives him one more chance to prove himself by sending him to New York City for Christmas. Once there, Greg wades through mostly indifferent family members to find patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox), tentatively securing a job. Despite initially coming across as a bumbling idiot, it becomes clear Greg may be more capable than he first appears.

Season 1, Episode 4: “Sad Sack Wasp Trap”

This episode brings about the beginning of Greg and Tom’s “friendship” (if one can call it that). For some reason, Tom decides to confide in Greg about problems in the cruise division of Waystar RoyCo. Naturally, Greg immediately informs Gerri (J. Smith-Cameron), and when Tom tries to prove Greg spilled, he doesn’t crack.

Greg has had to make hard decisions before, but they’ve been laid out for him by circumstance. This is the first instance Greg makes a decision on his own accord, showing that he is capable of strategizing on the same level as the rest of the Roy family. What Greg learns is that no one expects him to make this kind of move, making him even more dangerous when he does.

Season 1, Episode 5: “I Went To Market”

Having fooled Tom once, Greg makes another half-thought-out yet powerful move in this episode that brings ramifications that will last multiple seasons. When Tom asks Greg to help him shred copies of documents related to the cruise scandal, he complies. But, he also makes his own copies.

Add on that his grandfather, Ewan (James Cromwell), tells him not to trust the Roys after storming out of Thanksgiving, and Greg’s got himself the beginning of a defense against his family should he ever need one. This episode includes some of the first longer scenes with Greg and Tom, and the first time Greg and Ewan have talked onscreen.

Season 2, Episode 3: “Hunting”

The episode opens innocently enough, with Logan’s potential biographer and Greg at the beginning of a meeting. There’s only one problem: it’s Greg. He’s nervous, sweating, and before he knows it, he’s said incriminating things about Logan without remembering to say it’s off-the-record.

This increasingly irks Logan, who knows someone in his inner circle leaked. It all climaxes in Logan initiating “Boar on the Floor,” one of the worst things the Roys have done to Greg, while the company heads are all on a corporate retreat in Hungary. When another mole is revealed, it absolves Greg of blame, but the whole incident teaches him a valuable lesson about what could happen if he’s ever caught out of line.

Season 2, Episode 4: “Safe Room”

Greg shines in this episode for finally playing the card he’s had in his hand since season 1. After a hilarious exchange while stuck in a safe room, Greg suggests to Tom that maybe he doesn’t deserve to be his underling anymore. In response, Tom yells one of his many strange phrases in Succession “I will not let go of what is mine!” while pelting Greg with water bottles.

Later in the episode, Greg tries again, this time using his copies of the cruise ship documents as blackmail. Tom’s attitude on the issue completely shifts, now offering Greg a new title and a lofty raise. Incredulously, Greg yet again learns when the right time is to make a move without biting the hand that feeds him too hard.

Season 2, Episode 7: “Return”

At this point, Greg has majorly fooled Tom not once, but twice. Can he do it three times? It’s the question he asks himself when Tom forces Greg to show him the documents and burn them with him. In a split-second decision, Greg shoves a handful of documents down his pants when Tom turns around to grab matches.

By now, Greg has realized that Tom is an ally, if not his friend. Keeping the documents won’t help Greg get a lot more out of his co-conspirator. However, those documents still carry a lot of power with the rest of the family, and sure enough, they help embolden Kendall Roy to make a counter-move against his father a few episodes later when Logan demands Kendall become a “blood sacrifice” in one of the worst things the Succession family has done to him.

Season 3, Episode 4: “Lion In The Meadow”

Responding to Kendall’s attempt to unseat him, Logan finds himself calling in Greg to bring him into the fold of the Roy’s joint defense agreement. While Greg pushes his luck, asking “What’s it worth, in terms of the ‘me’ of it all?”, Logan lets him relatively off-the-hook, ringing up his indecisiveness to stupidity rather than strategy once again.

Tom, jealous that Greg is getting promoted, stops by Greg’s ‘office’ (really a broom cupboard), to congratulate him. While they have nice but passive-aggressive banter, it’s not until Tom later faces abuse from Shiv that he returns more emotional. With Greg on the rise and Tom potentially falling for the cruise scandal, Greg struggles to handle the shift in their corporate dynamic.

Season 3, Episode 5: “Retired Janitors Of Idaho”

For the first time since season 2, it appears as if things could fall apart for Greg this episode. When Kendall’s move starts to go south, he threatens to “burn” Greg, who’s been playing both sides, unless he withdraws from the joint defense agreement and comes back to Kendall’s side.

As if it couldn’t get worse for Greg, his grandfather Ewan, one of the least morally corrupt characters in Succession, gives his inheritance to Greenpeace after Greg dispensed with the lawyer Ewan initially retained for him. Other than vowing he’s going to sue Greenpeace, there’s not much Greg can do but take his lumps. It could’ve been worse though; Greg still has the position Logan promised him.

Season 3, Episode 6: “What It Takes”

Almost by accident, in this episode, Greg is included in the Roy family’s talks for the Republican Party’s nominee. Greg, of all people, is the one to shut down Connor Roy (Alan Ruck) as a possibility. Later, when Tom takes Greg out for dinner, he tells Greg he can hang his scandals on him like Christmas tree ornaments.

Greg, now cleared of his problems and considered a voice worth listening to (sometimes), appears to be on the rebound from the previous episode. Sure, his inheritance is still going to Greenpeace, but he was able to trash talk another Roy family member in the inner sanctum and get away with it.

Season 3, Episode 9: “All The Bells Say”

Perhaps the most confident he’s ever been, in this episode Greg is picking up merger rumors, flirting with two beautiful women, and is even able to talk off Roman Roy (Kieran Culkin), usually a conversational saboteur, from embarrassing him in front of one of his romantic interests. This is all before he makes a game-changing power move.

Tom, tired of being sidelined, mysteriously beckons Greg over and asks him if he wants to “make a deal with the devil.” Following Tom’s passionate plea, Greg commits to allying with Tom in a way they’ve never said out loud before together. As it turns out, Greg made the right call, as Tom’s betrayal of the Roy children puts him in Logan’s good graces.

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