From last week's "ludicrously capacious" bag to the cringiest rap ever, Succession has gifted us with some deliriously comic moments.
Among these, it's hard to overlook, mostly because he is really tall, Cousin Greg's bumbling appearance before the US Congress in the finale of season two.
Taking the stand, American actor Nicholas Braun delivers some of the most befuddled lines that his canonically confused character has ever said.
Greg is appearing before a congressional hearing into sexual misconduct at a subsidiary of Waystar RoyCo, the conglomerate run by ageing, terrifying chief executive Logan Roy (Brian Cox).
When asked whether he is the executive assistant to Waystar's Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen), Greg replies: "Yes. Yes, if it is to be said."
And after he's asked for clarification: "Uh, if it is to be said, so it be, so it is."
Reflecting on the four seasons of the Emmy award-winning dramedy now that it's coming to an end, Braun told ABC RN's The Screen Show that this was his favourite scene to shoot: "Testifying was an extremely exciting acting experience for me."
Series creator Jesse Armstrong had only told Braun about the scene the night before they shot it.
For Braun, that wasn't a problem: "I [usually] only learn my lines the night before, because I like being on the edge of not knowing them, not being too rehearsed.
"[But] also it was exactly what Greg is going through, trying to prepare last minute for congress."
The end result is the kind of car crash moment that has made Braun/Greg a fan favourite (and also a sex symbol; there's a Greg the Egg sex toy that'll get you off every time his character appears on screen) on the most talked-about show on television.
A couple of episodes into the show's final season, the former child actor and now two-time Emmy nominee talks about how Succession has changed his life and why he thinks we'd all probably become disgusting brothers in the end.
The role of a lifetime
Braun's father Craig was a hugely successful creative designer who won a Grammy in 1974 for co-designing the cover of The Who's Tommy.
But by the time his son was six, he had quit design to pursue acting.
Braun, whose parents were divorced, would spend weekends with his father in New York, helping him rehearse for auditions.
"I don't know when I started acting [exactly], [but] we were both coaching each other on auditions," Braun recalls.
"I probably wasn't a very good coach at six, seven, eight years old but eventually, as a teenager, I was."
By 11 he had appeared in his first film, but he spent the next two decades playing either minor roles, or bigger parts in forgettable TV and films (including Disney's Sky High and Kevin Smith's Red State).
In 2021, he told The Guardian that before landing Succession in 2018 (aged 30) he had thought briefly about quitting acting.
Speaking to ABC News Breakfast this week, he reflected: "Succession changed everything for me."
Incredibly, Braun based Greg, in part, on a friend's dog, which he had been looking after when he auditioned for the role.
"He was an Australian shepherd, so thank you guys for breeding this dog," he jokes.
"[But there was] something about his personality; he's nervous, but he's so sweet and excitable and wants to be next to you all the time. So sometimes as Greg in a scene, especially early on, with my floppy hair and my puppy dog energy, I would think about [this dog]."
Braun also channels his own awkwardness into the character: "[I] ratchet up my own anxieties 30 per cent and that's Greg."
The actor has worked closely with Armstrong throughout the seasons to script and mould his character.
"I love to tell him what I'm feeling and where I think things could go [with Greg], and it's a really great process," he told The Screen Show.
The corruption of Greg
When Succession begins, Greg Hirsch, the grandchild of Logan's brother Ewan, is employed as a costumed mascot (funnily enough, a dog) at a Waystar amusement park; soon, he is flung into the uber-wealthy, brutal and corrupt inner circle of the Roys.
"He is doing that thing that I think we often do, which is try to blend in. And yet you sort of fail at that sometimes. He wants to be like them, but he doesn't have the skills, he doesn't have the language, he doesn't have the confidence yet," says Braun.
By the end of season three, he has thrown in his lot with Tom, who has betrayed his wife Shiv (Australian Sarah Snook) to his father-in-law Logan, agreeing to be Tom's "attack dog" aka "Gregweiler".
In the first episode of season four, Greg is proudly calling the duo "the disgusting brothers".
Braun says: "If we were all dropped into the Murdoch clique … you don't want to be turned, but I think if you're in this world long enough, it just becomes the way, you can't fight it … [either you] fall victim to it or you get knocked out.
"The fact that he [Greg] sticks around and he's that ambitious and he's willing to mirror some of these people and their personalities shows how bad he wants to stay in it, or just how addicted you can get to this lifestyle."
Braun compares this dynamic to Trump and his acolytes: "There are a lot of people in the Trump world that just wanted to be close to it, and it changed their personality and it changed their moral compass.
"You look at a few people [politicians], and I don't really want to name names … and you're like, 'You used to be a good guy, I used to like you and think that you were a good Republican maybe, and now you're one of the bad ones.'
"When you're in the nucleus of global influence, it's hard to say no to it … it's contagious and that's because there's a lot of allure to being at the top — even if it's evil."
While the series is clearly skewering the Republican world of the Trumps and the Murdochs (Braun knows some of them watch the show and some hate it, but can't go into specifics), it's equally unforgiving of its liberal characters, and the actor says it's watched by people across the political spectrum.
"I think everybody can see themselves in this family."
He recounts visiting a 24-hour sandwich shop run by a Korean American family in New York, where he lives.
One of the women who worked there told him: "We love Succession so much. Our dad is like Logan."
Braun continues: "And he was over stocking a freezer and he didn't even respond, he was kind of a grump … So even this family making sandwiches and running a deli, they see themselves in the Roys."
Negotiating a Gregxit
After filming wrapped on this final season, Braun told Entertainment Tonight: "We're all pretty bummed. I was sad as hell [on] my last day … It's been the greatest working experience of my life. So saying goodbye to those people was really tough."
While the cast got behind the idea of a spin-off, particularly one that focused on Greg, after Armstrong teased it, the creator has since walked back the idea.
Braun says: "I love playing Greg, I'd play Greg as long as Jesse wants to write for Greg and write the show, but I think it might cheapen what Succession is as a story to make a spin-off.
"It's just too special … and the way that the fourth season ends is absolutely unreal. And so I think to try and launch Greg off in some new thing wouldn't make sense. It would dilute what Succession has been for everybody."
Succession has led Braun to roles in the 2020 film Zola (an adaptation of a viral tweet thread) and the highly anticipated Cat Person (adapted from the viral New Yorker short story), which premiered at Sundance in January.
It has also led him to a career-shifting realisation.
"I love acting, I've been doing it my whole life," he told ABC News Breakfast.
"But inspired by Jesse Armstrong, I want to write, I want to direct, I want to be part of the making of things, because the making of Succession has been so inspiring and exciting."
Episodes of Succession land Mondays at 1pm AEST on Foxtel and are available to stream on Binge.
