“Therein Lays A Tale”
Happy Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon Firing Day!
Less than a week after Logan’s death, before he’s even in the ground, the gang is off to Norway (not Sweden) to Bleed the Swede. What we got was essentially Business Midsommar.
Succession episode 4.5, “Kill List”, starts with a mirror image of the pilot’s first act, as Kendall rides in the back of a limo listening to New York hip hop (this time Jay-Z’s “Take Over”), arriving at the Waystar Royco offices. Last time we were presented with this image, Logan pulled the rug out from under him regarding, well, succession. However, Kendall (and Roman too) are in charge this time. Hugo asks Kendall for a photo op, Kendall clocks his father’s empty office, and the brothers have new support staff.
Shiv and the Boomers drop in, where we all learn that Matsson wants the whole c-suite to join the brothers in Norway for GoJo’s company retreat. Road trip!
Tom and Greg are in on it too, with Tom sporting a gorgeous turtleneck, egging on the entire crowd to make fun of Greg. At this point, Greg has no one left to protect him, not even his bestie Tom.
On the plane, Frank and Karl are putting on their compression socks (heartbreaking), Kendall and Roman are moaning about the production disaster that is Kalipsitron II (I always forget Waystar makes movies), and Shiv is concerned about negative articles about Logan that are making the rounds. The kids’ sudden protectiveness over their father’s legacy is fascinating to me. I understand that no one wants to see their recently-deceased father dragged through the mud, but… remember the last three seasons of the show?
In a show of brotherly solidarity, Kendall and Roman offer to ax Tom as a “nice thing” for Shiv, which she politely declines like being offered Pepsi when you asked for Coke.
Hugo, Karl, and Frank are all concerned about meeting their GoJo counterparts, members of the “NASDAQ master race”, but Gerri isn’t concerned. After all, she and her compatriots trained under the unique viper known as Logan Roy. They’ve got grit.
The cohort arrives in a beautiful mountain locale in Norway, and everyone immediately starts complaining about the dirt. Kendall and Roman can see each other from their rooms, and poor Ken “already got mud” on his “sneaks”. Word arrives that Matsson wants to meet at the top of a mountain, so the central players, including an extremely nervous Frank, hop in a cable car. En route, Roman receives a call from Connor and Willa, who are at the funeral home, informing him of plans for Logan’s burial. Marcia wants him in a kilt, and Connor needs carte blanche to make decisions. After all, he “had to cancel on a room of working-class whites in Cleveland”. He is granted permission, and ungraciously hung up on by his siblings.
Meanwhile, the Bizarro worlds clash. Hugo tries to big dog everyone, Tom learns that everyone just thinks of him as Shiv’s husband, and everyone takes too many pastries. Hugo insists that he “metabolize[s] fast because” he is “a dynamic”, but it is abundantly clear that he and Tom are deeply emasculated by their counterparts.
On top of the mountain, Matsson more or less dismisses Shiv and the Boomers, for a boys’ chat. He expresses what appear to be condolences to the brothers, and then overshares about his own father’s death. After an incredibly intense and awkward game of hardball, we learn that Matsson is expecting a bargain with the Waystar sale in the wake of Logan’s death, and that he wants ATN (which Logan was planning on spinning off) as well. The boys insist that keeping ATN separate is in line with their father’s wishes, but when they go to their counsel, whose presence Matsson takes as a sign of weakness, Gerri effectively congratulates them on getting 187 million dollars out of a 144 million deal. Not bad! But the boys’ pride….
Shiv has already headed down the mountain, and when her brothers tell her about the deal, she encourages them to let go of ATN, calling it a “toxic asset”, which is undeniably true. The boys want what Daddy wanted, and Shiv insists that she has a “24 hour migraine” and a hole in her heart and wants to get the deal done.
Tom and Greg mingle next to a pig on a spit, and Tom gives Greg some intel on Matsson. The company’s weird vibes are par for the course, and Matsson fucks like Leo. Tom edges in on a conversation with the Swedes, who are discussing the future of France. Tom blusters his way through it, but Greg has actually done the research, having read an article in The Economist. Matsson meets Greg for the first time, and marvels at how everyone working at Waystar is related. I guess the ol’ family business is foreign to the Swedes, who giggle to each other in Swedish, calling the Roys “incestuös”, attracting Ken’s attention.
He and Matsson decide to go business mode then and there, and Ken takes off his glasses. Lukas insists the Roys don’t want ATN, which he plans to reform. Matsson also invokes the Vaulter deal to belittle Kendall, calling the entire company a “tribute band” with no name recognition, an indication of how much chopping up and reselling he plans on doing.
Everyone hits the sauna, and Shiv meets seemingly the sole woman working at GoJo, Ebba, who runs communications. She says that she’s on board with any masculinist impropriety, as it’s merely memoir fodder for her. Between this and his attempt at a sexual harassment joke on top of the mountain, it’s clear that Matsson chooses not to talk to women too regularly.
Matsson turns his weird Aryan charms on Shiv, looking for intel on her brothers’ opinion on the deal. At a bonfire party that night, Kendall complains to Roman that Matsson is going to tank everything Logan built (even though that’s what Kendall wanted in Season 2) and that he wants to sabotage the deal. The brothers agree to push Shiv to the sideline and play some mind tricks on Matsson.
Meanwhile, Shiv and Matsson get cozy. They drink vodka, he offers her blow… which she almost takes. The world’s most ambivalent pregnant woman! He sympathizes with her and Tom’s relationship troubles, offering a story about sending “half-liter frozen blood brick[s]” to a girlfriend as a botched running joke. She asked him to stop, and he kept doing it, and now there may be legal movement around it. The girlfriend in question? Ebba from comms. Is this some advanced hardball tactic to get the Roys to move the deal faster? Or is he actually nuts?
Ken gives Greg a burner phone that he will use to leak a story that the deal is going south, and sets up an early-morning screening of the rough-cut version of Kalispitron for GoJo staff, hoping to poison the well. Tom and Shiv have a brief encounter, where she kicks dirt on his shoes, he flicks her “chewy” earlobes, and she brags about her one-on-one with Matsson. Ah, young love!
The brothers head back up to the mountain to meet solo with Matsson. On the way, Roman receives a text from Connor, who has sent him a picture of Logan’s corpse lying in the casket. Yikes. On the mountain, Matsson accuses them of “Scooby-Dooing” him by actively sabotaging the deal, which to them is just slowing the process down. After all, their dad just died. Matsson says that Logan would be embarrassed by them, and goes to piss on a rock. Roman makes some faces, and then reams Matsson out for his lack of patience, offering an “I fucking hate you” and getting in Lukas’ face. Matsson claims they’ve destroyed the deal and flies off in his helicopter while the brothers cable-car down.
The final deal is 192 million dollars for Waystar, including ATN. Matsson accepts while the Waystar crew is on the plane back to New York, and he covertly asks Shiv to take a photo of her brothers’ faces now that the deal has gone through. While the champagne is sipped, the kill list has gone out. Frank, Karl, and Hugo are all on the chopping block, likely because they ate all of Matsson’s pastries.
Shiv and Tom chat once again. She mentions that ATN is in trouble now, and that it’s time for Cyd to go. She asks if he’ll get dinner with her when they’re back in New York, and she dangles his job and their reconciliation on a string in front of him.
But, the deal has gone through, it’s off to the board now, and Shiv takes a big gulp of champagne and smirks to herself.
Isn’t it fun when the whole team gets to go away for a bit? This episode was stuffed full of business jargon, but it was fun to see how the Waystar and GoJo teams are truly from different worlds. From Hugo’s aggression to Gerri’s sage quietness, the episode ran the gamut of business approaches.
Most heartbreaking of all, of course, is seeing how Shiv is turning into her father. Taking secret meetings, actively manipulating her (albeit estranged) spouse, and walking around with the world’s largest chip on her shoulder. While I do think it’s unfair that her brothers have cut her out of business dealings, I would take that chance and run with it. That sauna looked great! I would just be hanging out on the company’s dime if I were her.
Seeing Roman finally lose his composure after playing his grief so close to the chest was fascinating, as well. He has insisted that everything his fine, but I suppose it was in everyone’s best interest that he reamed Matsson into taking a better deal.
Speaking of Matsson, is he nuts? Or was the blood brick story a ploy to make the Roys, and particularly Shiv, look like flat-out liars. Alexander Skaarsgard plays Matsson with a cool disaffectedness that feels so right for a man who has everything he could ever need at his disposal. I don’t like, however, seeing him and Shiv get close. Hopefully it’s just business, but I want him to stay away from her!
Next week is an investor’s meeting. Finally, Kendall gets to put on a show. Hopefully, they can keep the deal moving along, Shiv finally tells Tom about the Tomlette, and Gerri continues to pull the strings.
See you next week!
