The fourth and final season of Succession has really tugged at the heartstrings. Kendall, Roman, and Shiv process their grief over Logan’s death in intensely human ways—improvised group hugs, dramatic eulogy breakdowns. In the capable hands of actors like Jeremy Strong, Kieran Culkin, and Sarah Snook, the Roys have become sympathetic enough to almost make you forget what truly terrible people they are. Almost. 

“He has wrought the most terrible things,” says James Cromwell’s Ewan in his scathing eulogy for Logan. As much as we enjoy watching them, the same must also be said for the rest of the Roys. Remember that time Roman and Kendall convinced an unhoused person to get Kendall’s initials tattooed on his forehead? Or when Shiv intimidated a female cruise division victim into not testifying?

While our hearts may be full of empathy for the Roys, as we head into Sunday’s series finale, we’re first taking stock of all the awful things they’ve done—and determining, for once and for all, who among them is the very worst. For those screaming out that the answer is obviously Mencken or Matsson, we’ve opted to keep the ranking in the family and their immediate orbit, focusing only on core Succession characters who’ve appeared on the series since season one—and have had more time to rack up dastardly deeds. Without further ado, here’s the very worst that Succession has to offer. 

Sure, working for a boss you know is up to no good is definitely a little bit evil, at best. But if anything, Logan’s core crew have mitigated the damage done by the rest of the names on this list. In the week since Logan died, Frank has been more of a supportive father figure to the Roy children than Logan ever was. Saucy Karl is spitting fire this season, but seems more concerned with getting to his Greek island than ruining anyone’s life. And Gerri should be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for putting up with Roman for so long. Sure, they’ve worked hand in hand with a greedy billionaire for multiple decades. But imagine how much worse things would be if they hadn’t been there. 

Poor Connor. The eldest Roy and literal also-ran is undoubtedly the least evil of his immediate family, if only because he’s the least important. By keeping his hands out of the family business and not working for Papa Logan at Waystar Royco, Connor has avoided a lot of the craven jockeying for power that has brought out the absolute worst in his siblings. Whether Connor’s distance from Waystar was his choice or Logan’s design, it has helped him in the long run; staying out of the fray is the best way to preserve your moral compass. 

That being said, Connor’s potential for evil was absolutely displayed in his ineffectual, ill-conceived, and ultimately unsuccessful presidential run. Arguably, the most evil thing Connor has done on the series is galvanizing his beloved Con-heads to support the white nationalist, fascist candidate Jeryd Mencken—all so that he can maybe be the ambassador to Slovenia in the new regime. But while selfish and brown-nosy, asking a million eccentric libertarians to vote for a dangerous candidate is pretty low on the list of Roy family sins. Also, Connor is a patron of the arts, serving as the primary investor in Sands, a play by his future wife, Willa. Supporting a flop playwright is one of the best things a person can do, landing Connor near the bottom of the evil list.  

“We’re calling Kerry a taxi to the subway so she can go home to her little apartment.” Enough said.

Yes, Tom has said some absolutely awful things to Shiv this season regarding their unborn child. But it’s hard to argue that she didn’t start the fire there; as the saying goes, it takes two to play “Bitey.” And other than his one major infraction against Shiv, Tom has been, well, a major simp for Shiv and Logan. During the big cruise ship scandal of season two—which saw the C-suite at Waystar Royco covering up a host of reported instances of sexual assault, abuse, and even deaths within the division—Tom was on the front line. Not only did he do Logan’s dirty work and instruct Greg to destroy incriminating documents, but Tom, after some coercion from Shiv, volunteered to be the sacrificial lamb, take the fall for the cruise scandals, and go to prison. Tom was more than ready to go down with the ship, which is more pathetic than pathological. 

Covering up heinous acts of sexual misconduct is bad. But other than that, the most explicitly malevolent thing Tom has ever done was sell Shiv and her brothers down the river by clueing Logan into their plan to take control over the board at the end of season three. Even then that dastardly, backhanded move blew up in his face when Logan dropped dead a few months later, leaving Tom—the perennial outsider—once again without an ally. (Greg doesn’t count.) Plus, you can’t be all that evil if Karl can read you for filth. 

Greg the egg? More like Greg the shred…der of important documents. Terrible Greg-esque joke aside, shredding incriminating cruise documents because Tom told him to definitely ranks as one of the more terrible things that Greg, Logan’s lowly great-nephew, has done. Greg definitely has an “I was just following orders” demeanor to him, from destroying the documents to firing hundreds of ATN employees on Zoom with little to no remorse. (“I look like I feel bad, but I don’t,” he memorably said.) That attitude doesn’t make Greg or his actions any less evil. 

Look closer, and you’ll also see that Greg’s general haplessness masks a more insidious side. Greg kept copies of those cruise documents, and gave them to Kendall to use against Logan—a snaky, yet shrewd move on his part. After one night of partying with Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård), he discovers Matsson and Shiv’s secret alliance and uses it to his own benefit, blowing up Shiv’s spot to Kendall and potentially destroying democracy in the process. Sure, he’ll bring a girl with a ludicrously capacious bag to a private family affair, but he’ll also backstab his blood relative to secure his spot. Despite his constant abuse, Tom also seems to have real affection for Greg, going so far as to include Greg in on the plan to take down the Roy siblings—which is an act of love, in a way. We’ve yet to see Greg express some similar loyalty to Tom. 

Over the course of the series, Greg has matured from a boy who smoked pot and then threw up in a mascot costume into a man. But that man is bad. Hell, he makes up one half of the Disgusting Brothers. If Greg successfully sues Greenpeace to reclaim the inheritance that Ewan gave away in the series finale, he’ll also get bumped up a few slots. But until then, he’s not the worst man. 

What other Roy has literal blood on their hands? Still, despite Kendall’s big whoopsie, he doesn’t deserve to be ranked higher than the lower middle of the “Worst Person on Succession” list. Why?

Well: Kendall has demonstrated a lot of bad behavior on Succession. He’s a spiteful divorcée and absentee father. He’s proven he’s not to be trusted in business—hiring then subsequently firing the entire Vaulter staff, and juicing the Living+ numbers. He helps install a white nationalist president on the grounds that they can do business together. Even on a smaller scale, Kendall isn’t great. He is responsible for the  “L to the O G” rap at Logan’s birthday party. He makes people play games like Good Tweet, Bad Tweet in limousines. He also likely accidentally killed his children’s pet bunny, telling the babysitter it was all right to feed the creature a bagel. Glenn Close is shaking. 

And yes: A man is dead, in part, because of Kendall’s actions. But Kendall did not wish for Andrew Dodds to die. He was an addict on a bender, and the worst possible thing that could have happened happened. A tragic accident—avoidable, for sure, but an accident nonetheless. Kendall is terrible, but he is not entirely to blame for his worst sin. But yelling at his assistant, Jess, before Logan’s funeral? That is 100% on him, and unforgivable. 

Oh, Shiv. To act morally superior to everyone else but ultimately be just as terrible as they are is not the wisest thing. While she definitely earned some “good human” points for trying to stop Roman and Kendall from calling Wisconsin for Mencken, Shiv immediately lost them again when she revealed in the very next episode that she’s happy to cooperate with the Mencken administration if she’s named CEO of GoJo. Shiv’s willingness to overlook some seriously bad stuff—like, say, Matsson’s penchant for sending bricks of blood to his lover/employee—in the craven pursuit of power is most definitely an evil trait. 

But even when we look beyond the Mencken and Matsson of it all, Shiv’s track record is far from spotless. She coerced Kira, a witness in the cruise scandal, into backing out of testifying at the congressional hearing led by her former boss Gil. Even Waystar Royco fixer Rhea Jarrell wouldn’t cross that moral line. But Shiv, like Logan before her, had no problem being hard on a woman if it meant protecting the family business. 

As for Tom: While Shiv’s currently the most injured party in their relationship, she absolutely was the one who took the first shots. Beyond trying to convince Tom to go to prison on behalf of Waystar Royco, she had a full-blown affair with her coworker Nate, and also proposed that she and Tom open up their relationship on their wedding night. While there’s nothing evil about nonmonogamy, timing is everything, and Shiv’s always seems to be a bit off. Similarly, knowing what is good and doing what is good are two completely separate things—and, despite her best girlbossing, she can’t ever seem to get the twain to meet. Shiv Roy: an important reminder that women can be just as smart and bad as men.

Everybody loves Roman. He’s funny! He’s irreverent! He can fit in your pocket! While all of this is true, he’s also the worst of the Roy children, and one of the worst people that Succession has to offer. A potty mouth and dirty mind are Roman’s best qualities; they also obfuscate what a morally corrupt, messed-up person he is.  

Take his relationship with Gerri, for instance. Their flirtation and potential May-December romance was absolutely incredible to watch. But when we learn that Roman has sent Gerri “many, many” pictures of his penis in a not entirely consensual manner, the enterprise swings from harmless flirting to sexual harassment. 

Remember that time Roman (and Kendall) goaded an unhoused person into tattooing Kendall’s initials on his face? Or the time Roman helped Kendall stage the vote of no confidence against Logan, then turned on his brother at the last moment? Or the space shuttle launch he rushed, which ended up costing a few people a few of their appendages? The darkest parts of Roman are revealed in his allegiance to Mencken. On its surface, theirs is a business relationship. But really, it seems to run deeper for the nihilistic, Proud Boy–adjacent Roman, who is kind of into Mencken’s fascist streak. 

All that aside, the worst thing that Roman ever did probably happened in the series’ very first episode. After Logan’s 80th birthday, the Waystar Royco gang helicopters out to play a rousing game of softball. There, Roman says he’ll give a small child—the son of domestic workers for the Roys—a million dollars if he hits a home run, going so far as to write out the check in front of him. When the kid gets tagged out rounding third by Tom, Roman rips up the check in front of him, laughing along the way. If that’s not evil, I don’t know what is. 

It’s not nice to speak ill of the dead, but an exception must be made for Logan Roy. Many, if not all, of the sins of the Roy children can be traced directly back to their dearly departed dad, and the love he was unable to give them. Logan’s ills are also global: He pumped the world with sensationalist news headlines that play in the show’s opening credits (“China Hack Could See 40M Americans Entombed In Their Electric Cars”) via ATN, and handpicked Mencken for president at the Future Freedom Summit. 

But it must be said that Logan—may he rest in peace?—was pretty terrible on a micro level as well. A serial cheater who cared more about profits than his progeny, Logan emotionally and sometimes physically abused his children and grandchildren, slapping Roman across the face and trying to strike Kendall’s son, Iverson. Only someone with a seriously unchecked sadistic streak could come up with a game as cruel as Boar on the Floor. Logan was rarely wrong—his kids really aren’t serious people—but he was really bad, and he seemed to relish in it. You could tell he really meant every “fuck off,” he delivered. Hope hell is hot enough for him.

But ultimately, Logan is dead. And it’s hard to be evil from beyond the grave. Someone who is still with us, however, is Caroline Collingwood, ex-wife of Logan Roy and mother of Kendall, Roman, and Shiv. Simply put, she makes Mommie Dearest look like Mother Teresa. Her profound absence and indifference from her children’s lives launches her into this list’s top slot. 

At the very least, Logan was there to damage his children emotionally. Does Caroline even love them? At best, she tolerates them, mostly for the sake of what they can do for her. When Kendall is ready to confess his secret about the waiter’s death, she keeps him at bay, asking if they can discuss it in the morning before leaving without saying goodbye. Without using full sentences, she shows Shiv how much she disapproves of her pregnancy. While it was Tom and Logan who schemed to thwart the siblings united takeover of Waystar, it was Caroline who changed the terms of her divorce agreement with Logan to ice them out—and all in exchange for a townhouse in London, as if she didn’t already have enough. 

In just a handful of appearances, Caroline Collingwood has emerged as the coldest and most ruthless of the Roy clan. Cheers to you, mother darling.