Dasha Nekrasova, Jeremy Strong, Nicholas Braun, Annabelle Dexter-Jones in Succession
Dasha Nekrasova, Jeremy Strong, Nicholas Braun, Annabelle Dexter-Jones in Succession (Photo: Macall B. Polay/HBO)

Amidst the chaos at Waystar Royco and the usual devastating Roy family drama—the FBI raid, Shiv’s open letter about Kendall’s mental health, Roman’s daddy issues—something else stuck out in the most recent episode of Succession: the dynamic between Cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) and Comfry (Dasha Nekrasova), Kendal’s new crisis PR rep.

“Disruption” finds Comfry and Greg partying with Kendall and his entourage, sipping champagne and reading out cringe-worthy tweets about Kendall’s attempted takedown of Logan (Brian Cox) in a limo on the way to a gala for the Committee for the Protection and Welfare of Journalists. At the after party, she fawns over the $40,000 watch Greg thinks Kendall is buying for him. They flirtatiously compliment each others’ wrists, and ultimately Greg buys a watch he can’t afford at least in part to impress her.

Later in the episode, as Kendall prepares to get skewered on TV by host Sophie Iwobi (Ziwe, playing a version of her own persona with maybe a little Samantha Bee mixed in), Greg and Comfry again discuss the watch. She’s less impressed by in now that he’s discovered that it doesn’t work, and Greg is clearly flustered by her apparent disinterest.

Nicholas Braun in <i>Succession</i>
Nicholas Braun in Succession (Photo: Peter Kramer/HBO)

This isn’t the first time the two characters have been paired for amusingly awkward banter. In the premiere, we’re introduced to Comfry by way of Cousin Greg. She and her partner are waiting to meet with Kendall, while nearby Greg is attempting to cancel his mother’s credit card. He attempts to make small talk, offering to pass along any relevant tweets he’s compiled in the few hours he’s been doing Ken’s “media monitoring.”

“We can find them,” she replies. “They’re on Twitter, right?” She then listens bemusedly as he unloads about his mother panic-buying smoothies and crypto currency in the wake of Kendall’s salvo against the Waystar Royco.

Does anyone else feel like a new power couple might be developing? From what we’ve seen so far, Braun and Nekrasova have fantastic chemistry. As Greg he’s perpetually confused and adrift, bumblingly eager to please. He is 100-percent the type of boy who would develop a crush on the attractive new blonde who is suddenly in his orbit all the time. Comfry, meanwhile, is hyper competent and maybe a little aloof. Still, she seems amused enough by Greg not to totally discourage him.

Dasha Nekrasova at the <i>Succession</i> Season 3 premiere
Dasha Nekrasova at the Succession Season 3 premiere (Photo: Theo Wargo/Getty Images)

Their dynamic is not dissimilar to that of Shiv (Sarah Snook) and Tom (Matthew Macfadyen): the Alpha female and Beta male. Tom, of course, has been something of a dubious mentor to Greg since Season 1. The two of them are the ineffectual outsiders even within the Roys’ inner circle, and they share a certain willingness to be led, a befuddlement that betrays a need to guided by the more capable power brokers around them. Maybe they also share an attraction to strong, aggressive, professional women who have the aptitude they lack.

Greg certainly needs someone savvy in his corner this season. He’s basically been buffeted around the company for the past couple years, a pawn in his family’s power games. But now he’s at the center of Kendall’s attempted coup—and potentially the government’s investigation in to Waystar Royco. He is, after all, the source of the documents pertaining to the cruise division’s abuses. But there’s no one, not even his grandfather (James Cromwell), who is really looking out for his best interest. Perhaps the best thing for him right now is to unwittingly bumble his way into a genuine—or as genuine as it gets on Succession—romantic alliance with someone like Comfry.

And what about Comfry? What might she potentially see in Greg? As with Shiv and Tom, the pairing seems lopsided, as far as power, money and influence go. But maybe she sees in Greg the same thing a lot of real-life women reportedly see in Braun: a sweet, boyish, nerdily handsome, non-threatening guy. Like Shiv, she may want a man who won’t overshadow her, who will support her, and whom she can, if need be, treat like a meat puppet.