Who has the healthiest unhealthy relationship on Succession?

You knew this was coming, correct? There was only one couple who would rule above them all when it came to their unhealthy habits. After all, when any given phone call conversation between these two devolves into deliciously vicious name-calling (“little bitch boy” is our current fave Shiv nickname for her soon-to-be-ex), you know you’re dealing with a couple with serious, serious issues. Some of these issues are new, of course, bred out of the tension that painfully dissipates when a divorce seems imminent. Yet there’s no denying this was a married pair who never quite had anything remotely close to a healthy relationship. You can try to blame Shiv’s unending ambition (and compare it to Tom’s falling-upward approach to life; talk about a mismatched pair!), but you’d miss what fundamentally set these two to fail. Namely, they don’t speak the same language. Shiv, like the rest of her family, operates from a place where everything is a transaction. Pity that when Tom finally woke up to realize what that dynamic could do for himself and his marriage (not to mention his career) that he understood such marital transactions are only unilateral when it comes to a Roy. Shiv was never going to play second fiddle even if she was clearly dissatisfied with having such a seemingly unambitious man for a husband. That she tried to have her cake and eat it, too (what was that open-relationship attempt if not a last ditch effort to balance the scales?) only shows how little she thought of Tom. It’s sad that even in trying to meet her at her vicious level, Tom still finds ways of selling himself short.

We couldn’t really talk about couples and pairings in the world of Succession without talking about these self-described “Disgusting Brothers,” right? And yes, the fact that such a moniker is only uttered in shameful hushed whispers should be enough to convince us that these two bachelors are hopeless when it comes to recognizing both how they come off to others and how pitifully they come off to themselves.Arguably, though—and perhaps this is what comes from being in the trenches hushing up corporate malfeasance—Greg and Tom are quite a rare (platonic, inseparable) coupling in the media empire landscape they occupy. Not just because they seemingly get along and like one another (how rare is that!) but because they want what’s best for the other. That they also quite blatantly encourage one another’s most base instincts and support their most “disgusting” character traits should give us pause. Theirs is a toxicity rooted in kinship which is what makes them all the more dysfunctional in the process. Shouldn’t they each pursue, instead, someone who’ll bring up their better inclinations, even if we question whether either of them have them?

Is the bumbling, mumbling giant of a man that is cousin Greg capable of having anything other than a toxic relationship with, well, anyone in his life? Jury’s still out. His grandfather can’t stand him. His cousins routinely ignore him. And to judge by the kinds of girls he goes after—not to mention the kind he bags (wink wink)—Greg is easily making a reputation for himself designed to flatter only the most insufferable of tech and/or finance douche bros.Considering he’s rarely looking for anything other than “she’s pretty,” it follows that Greg is not adept at making any kind of deeper connection with any girl he’s coming into contact with. Then again, anyone so deftly skirting the line between uncool nerd and wannabe alpha male (are there any other kind?) is destined to mostly engage with women who, in flattering him with attention, will do nothing more than embarrass him.

If you’re going to enter into a sexual (romantic?) relationship with your boss, you better know what you’re getting into. And Kerry may be many things (say, a not-ready-for-prime-time TV anchor in the making) but clueless is not one of them. That she’s yet to maneuver herself away from still being a glorified assistant who elicits snickers from family and colleagues wherever she goes is in no way indicative of her own involvement in Logan’s, um, affairs. But if Kerry has learned something under Logan’s tenure it is that the Roy patriarch is incapable of having literal, reciprocal conversations. Logan is forever speaking to and for himself, with everyone else becoming audience or unwitting (and often silent if not silenced) scene-partner. That alone makes him all but incapable of any kind of relationship we’d term “healthy” by any measure. It’s been wise, of course, for the Succession writers to these two share together, letting us instead color in their close-knit dynamic from hints of how they handle themselves in public. And we gotta say, from where we’re standing, their relationship may be mired in ethically murky territory but at least they’re frank about the quid-pro-quo that characterizes it.

No other pair on this list can be said to have bonded in such a wildly inappropriate way as these two. The May/December office romance none of us could have anticipated (seriously, so much of it was clearly built on the strength of the crackling chemistry between Kieran Culkin and J. Smith-Cameron in that first season) slowly blossomed into one of the most affecting dynamics through much of the show’s run. Yes, their affair (would that be an apt word?) is taking a back seat this final season—need we blame Roman’s penchant for unsolicited dick pics?—but there was something gratifying about watching such a seemingly mismatched pair find one another and skirt the line of propriety with such reckless abandon.Moreover, while Roman has clearly struggled with his own past relationships (Tabitha, anyone?), Gerri brought out … let’s not say a softer side of this petulant man-child (see: said dick pic) but a vulnerability that allowed him to not hide behind his put-on facade. Weird as it may feel to say, Gerri got to see the Roman he rarely allows himself to be. No mean feat considering he, like the rest of the Roys, thrives on curating their own affectless public personas.