This week, after I wrapped up my umpteenth media appearance waxing philosophical on the Disney-Jimmy Kimmel-F.C.C.-Trump drama, and the attendant implications for free speech, regulatory overreach, and corporate responsibility in an era of encroaching autocracy—you know, the important stuff—a denizen of the Toscana crowd reached out with a more pressing inquiry regarding the fate of the Republic: How does this affect the Iger succession plan?

Yes, sigh, it’s an industry town, but these myopic preoccupations aren’t without their significance. For those in the business, the most intriguing subplot of l’affaire Kimmel was how it affected The Walt Disney Company—a venerated, century-old, family-values brand that has somehow repeatedly found itself at the center of the Trump-era political vortex—as well as the players involved. Zeitgeist-level fuck-ups like these are trials by fire for executives, and have a way of defining and redefining reputations. Given the stakes, the public scrutiny here seemed to fall almost entirely on Bob—a universally revered figure during his first term as C.E.O. who has had a harder go of it in his second. And while most of Iger’s challenges stem from navigating the business through this transformational moment in media, it’s obvious that his handling of the political dynamics has put a slight blemish on that once inviolable legacy. Iger, you’ll recall, was the first media executive to greenlight a multimillion-dollar settlement with Trump over a lawsuit Disney very well could have won, ostensibly because it would have cost a lot more (money, time, and potential reputational damage) to fight him. But, as the Kimmel saga demonstrates, Trump’s street levy is a recurring tax. In the end, Iger changed course, determining that it was riskier to capitulate than to give his late-night host free rein to push back against Trump—which Kimmel is doing, with admirable abandon, and will soon be doing again on Sinclair- and Nexstar-owned stations. But as my partner Matt Belloni has noted, Iger’s initial mishandling of this admittedly difficult situation misjudged the brand-damaging backlash to Disney. And beyond doing the right thing in the moment, it’s a C.E.O.’s job to see around those corners.

But Bob wasn’t the only person in the room. Dana Walden, the Disney Entertainment co-chair and TV chief, who is on the shortlist to replace Iger as C.E.O., was intimately involved in the decision to preempt Kimmel as well as the subsequent negotiations over how to bring him back on the air. Indeed, while myriad lawyers and agents always hover around such negotiations—in this case, late-night executive producer Rob Mills was also involved—the reality here, I’m told, is that this was really a three-way discussion between Bob, Dana, and Jimmy.

In an alternate universe, where Jimmy did not come back and the backlash swelled to even more epic proportions, you can imagine Bob sending Dana out to take the reputational fire. In this case, she seems to have avoided that fate by delicately and deftly placating all sides and negotiating Jimmy’s return. Nevertheless, her role in the initial decision to preempt the show will stick to her and Iger, alike. “That she didn’t stand up for First Amendment principles is a huge negative in Hollywood,” one media executive observed. How does that affect her succession chances? An informal survey of nearly a dozen current and former Hollywood executives suggests it’s probably net neutral. “Surprising misstep for Bob,” one of them observed, “but maybe this was a dress rehearsal for Dana?” Probably. In any event, with Iger taking the heat and Jimmy back on the air, she seems to have dodged that outcome while simultaneously demonstrating that she’s still learning the ropes. “That place is just not ready for primetime without him,” said another very senior media executive. The episode may also highlight a larger vulnerability. Among the internal candidates for Iger’s chair, at least according to the conventional wisdom, the real bakeoff is between Walden and parks chief Josh D’Amaro. As I’ve noted before, the theme parks business is not nearly so exposed to this sort of mishegas as the entertainment business. (Obviously, the alligator attack at Disney World is a notable exception.) If there’s a Brendan Carr of the global attractions trade, I couldn’t name him. And there’s no Penske Media for theme parks, either. (Theme Park Magazine and Amusement Today are likely not on your digital coffee table.) What the Kimmel affair really demonstrated is just how proximate Dana is to the trickiest aspects of the position. Whether that’s an advantage or a vulnerability is up to James Gorman and the board to determine. There’s a latent element of sexism in the entire Disney succession drama, whether anyone wants to acknowledge it or not. A potential Walden appointment would be historically significant, of course, but it’s facile and lazy to give her credit for simply surviving a widespread media crisis. After all, a White House–inflected late-night skirmish isn’t really any harder to manage than a very public and very prolonged succession bake-off. In the end, Walden might not have gotten it right on the first try with Kimmel, as often happens when the C-suite is forced to intervene in these matters, but she resolved to nail it in the end. Will that resilience be rewarded? Or will it be a superficial bona fide amid a search process that has presumably focused on far more profound issues—such as, you know, the future of Disney in an unprecedentedly transformative time for the industry? “In the end I think it’s close to a wash,” one Hollywood executive said of Dana’s handling of the Kimmel drama. “You could argue maybe net negative or positive but not by much. But also, I personally believe that Josh gets the job regardless.”