Succession recap: Alexander Skarsgård smashes the Roys to pieces
When is a joke not a joke? When it's several liters of frozen human blood, apparently.
TV Reviews Succession
How much does a liter of human blood weigh?
It’s not the kind of question you expect to look up while reviewing an episode of prestige TV, but, hey, here we are. (About 4.6 pounds per liter, apparently; thanks, the internet!) By my back-of-envelope math, that means there are at least 10 pounds of Lukas Matsson sitting in a freezer somewhere— because you don’t throw it away, right? If your boss/former lover sends you his blood, collected and frozen a half a liter at a time, as a “nasty-friendly joke”? It’s a grisly, logistically daunting testament to the lengths that Alexander Skarsgård’s tech ogre will go to to win, to own something…or someone. What’s a measly $192 per share, compared to that?
Season four of Succession has wisely held Skarsgåard back so far, confining him to a single FaceTime call back in “Rehearsal” and some dicking-around-by-proxy last week. Tonight, “Kill List” finally unleashes the GoJo founder on the over-prepared (but also woefully unprepared) Roy Boys, who have no real defense against a guy who operates from the Logan Roy Alpha Male Playbook instinctually, rather than via cribs notes like the old man’s two wayward sons. Kendall can pump the Jay-Z all he wants, while Roman makes his acidic little comments. But in the presence of a genuine predator? They’re kibble.
“Predator” in multiple senses of the word, as becomes clear in the most riveting of tonight’s scenes: a late night assignation between Matsson and Shiv that looks—at least at first—like it could break bedroom-ward at any moment. But, no: Matsson is looking for a different sort of intimacy, confessing to a hilariously horrified Shiv re: the whole “sending my ex-girlfriend/employee bricks of my frozen blood” thing. As with last week, when Ken and Roman cut her out of the CEO position, the sexual politics of this all are both fraught and fascinating: Shiv doesn’t ping Matsson’s threat radar the way her brothers do, allowing her the paradoxical power of forging a backdoor with Waystar Royco’s new owner. (See also the fact that Karolina and Gerri are both absent from the titular “Kill List” at the end of the episode, while all the non-Tom Waystar men get the boot; from one angle, this is an entire episode about male insecurity writ large.) Shiv also scores the role of comedy MVP during this after hours rendesvous, delivering the funniest lines of the episodes—including the reminder that, “Deniability is difficult, given she has…so much of your blood.”
Honestly: Has Shiv Roy ever been this cool before, in her entire life? The easiest takedown on Shiv, typically, is that a lifetime of being the smartest Roy kid—not an exceptionally high bar to clear—has given her an over-inflated sense of her own savvy. But she works Matsson perfectly as she perches, calmness personified, on the arm of a chair, withholding the dreaded judgment, playing along with both his jokes and his “jokes.” She might hate the fact that her well-being has yet again devolved into managing and riding the waves of insecurity of yet another rich, emotionally broken man, but Sarah Snook makes it look as easy, and as practiced, as it unfortunately is.
Meanwhile, on the far other side of the flop sweat spectrum: Let’s check back in with the Kenny And Rome Show, huh? Both brothers are spiraling tonight, in complementary fashions: One (Roman) toward slavish recreation of their father’s last wishes and the other (Kendall) toward trying to cosplay as him. Together, it leads them to ultimately try to tank the deal with GoJo—which is, ironically (and with a little nudging from Shiv) exactly what’s required to save it, since what Matsson really wants, at the end of the day, is to win. If that means taking back ATN from a dead man’s grieving sons, so be it; if it means, in the words of one Kendall Roy, “stuffing their mouths with so much money that they shit gold figurines,” well, that works, too. As long as Matsson can see the looks on their faces in the end; as long as he, and they, both know that they lost, and he won. It’s the most Logan Roy move we’ve seen since the old man took that fatal trip to the toilet; meanwhile, “Failing Upward Into Infinity” might as well be the Roy kid motto, as the boys accidentally take on the aura of conquering heroes from their complete fucking up of their quest to fuck things up.
Speaking of callbacks to Succession’s very first episode: “Kill List” begins with a feint toward recreating it, complete with an opening that sees Kendall once again psyching himself up with rap in his company car before making a big entrance. (Also: Inappropriate urination, this show’s favorite blunt illustraion of power dynamics.) But even more than “Celebration,” “Kill List” feels like a determined riff on season two’s “Tern Haven,” the episode where the Roys visit their mirror universe counterparts over in the Pierce family. Rather than U.S. liberals, though, this time the Waystar bunch find themselves having genital-measuring competitions with a crew of hyper-confident, hyper-competent Swedes. That includes an increasingly harried comic performance from Fisher Stevens, whose Hugo—rightly, as it turns out—suspects he’s about to get fired in favor of Matsson’s in-house Olympian.
All of this is played primarily for comedy, with Frank and Karl, both happily on their way out, gleefully enjoying the sight of their younger colleagues melting slowly in a sauna. Matsson, meanwhile, briefly amuses himself by asking Tom, flailing yet again as it becomes clear ATN might be folded into the GoJo deal, to weigh in on French politics. (To be fair, M. Wambsgans’ defiant “I don’t know, and I don’t need to know” response is a remarkably confident assertion of the ATN brand, coming off at least a bit better than Greg’s efforts to convince anyone he reads The Economist.) Skarsgård demonstrated his gift for comedy last year, channeling a sitcom-loving take on Werner Herzog for Documentary Now!. But he might be even funnier here, whether dickishly needling Kendall and Roman with every power play in the book, or straight-facedly explaining that his blood-mail scheme “Became not a joke…and then a joke again. And now, it’s…apparently not a joke.” Matsson isn’t an especially complex monster, but he is a fascinating one. Outside of that one scene with Shiv, Skarsgård consistently plays him as that rarest of things in Succession Land: a person that no member of the Roy family has any capacity to hurt.
So they hurt each other, instead. The emotional damage of “Kill List” works mostly at the margins: The pissy little looks Kendall gets every time Roman reminds them they should fold Shiv in on decision-making; the anguish every time Connor calls or texts to remind them that their father’s body is still lying in a box somewhere (and may, or may not, now be in a kilt). Succession’s “one day, one episode” approach to its fourth season has frequently felt more like an exercise in formalism than anything else, but the steadily building pressure of the three kids’ unprocessed grief is starting to take its toll—most notably when Roman explodes at Matsson in the episode’s climax, Kieran Culkin giving another raw, emotionally affecting performance in a season that’s been steadily racking them up.. Each kid is clinging to a different life raft right now to keep themselves emotionally afloat, and it’s drifting them in three very different directions as the days pile on.
Honestly, “Kill List” is exactly what I was hoping for last week, as I called for Matsson to come crashing back into the show: A disruptive, aggressively funny hour of TV that leaves no one in an especially secure position. Waystar Royco is all but sold. Pretty much everybody is out of a job. The election is coming. So: What do these last five hours look like, with nothing left to squabble over except a lifetime of traumas and betrayals? How bad is this going to get?
Stray observations
- There’s a massive video screen showing Logan’s face in the Waystar Royco lobby; meanwhile, seeing Brian Cox’s back in the opening credits feels poignant—especially as it cuts to the footage of a younger Logan walking away from his kids.
- This is a good episode for terrible Waystar Studios movie titles: Kalispitron: Hibernation (which is a three-hour movie about a sleepy robot) gets pride of place, obviously, but I’m also fascinated by Eric Is A Sinner and Dirty River.
- A funny, quiet moment as Tom walks in on Frank and Karl both very deliberately putting on their compression socks on the plane; nobody wants a repeat showing of Logan’s grand finale.
- “Shiv, we’re death-wrestling with ogres.”
“You’re reading documents, is what you’re doing, Ken.” - Great speech from J. Smith-Cameron tonight, propping up the Waystar drones by reminding them that they were “raised by wolves, exposed to a pathogen that goes by the name Logan Roy.” Bullshit, but beautifully delivered.
- The pills Roman pulls out while unpacking are in a different bottle from the ones he found and downed in Logan’s office last week; I don’t think Succession is building to something there, but it’s hard not to get fixated on details.
- In his first minute on screen, Matsson emasculates the boys, goads them into a game of “Who’s got the biggest grief?” and flashes his abs. A really amazing shitheel performance. “No sorrys for Lukas?”
- Roman wants to hold on to ATN for sentimental reasons, but he’s also been working some kind of eldritch deal with Republican hate machine Jaryd Mencken for access at the network; with the election looming over everything, it feels like this part might get really dark.
- Shiv, on not holding on to Logan’s “pride and joy” news network: “Well, let’s just keep one of his old sweaters; less racist.”
- The Alliance might be breaking down, but at least Roman, Shiv, and Kendall are united in their horror at Greg trying to float “The Quad Squad.”
- The pity in Shiv’s eyes as she watches Tom try to ingratiate himself with the Swedes.
- I don’t speak Swedish; I assume saying “incest” while making a blowjob motion is actually a great compliment. (The line about the Hapsburgs, not so much.)
- “I just think, fundamentally, you’re wrong.”
“Well, I don’t care what you think. You’re a tribute band.” - Kendall does some low-key loathsome stuff in this episode, but nothing worse than asking “Can Pinky dance?”
- Roman, just now noticing how his brother is: “Why is that making you smile? That shouldn’t make you smile. Who likes tightrope walking a straight razor?”
- “Well, obviously, first of all: good one.” I’ve already gushed about Snook’s performance in her big scene with Skarsgård, but that line read keeps killing me every time I hear it.
- Jess Watch: For half a second, I worried Jess was hooking up with Greg. But no: It’s just Kendall shenanigans.
- Tom and Shiv do a complicated little dance tonight, including some literal playground fighting. Shiv has all the power, but Tom gets the best line: “Your earlobes are thick and chewy. They’re like barnacle meat.”
- For half a second, I kind of thought they might throw Matsson off the mountain.
- Karl, on the kill list: “Tom? Tom must be on the list!”
- So, uh… What’s the timeline on Shiv getting a brick of blood in the mail?
215 Comments
I love Eric Northman.That is all.
Thank you.
Eric sending frozen blood bricks…totally on-brand.Of course, none of it would have been HIS blood, but still.
The Scooby Doo’s line was so good.Shiv and to some degree, Roman, landed the deal (even if that wasn’t Roman’s intentions) but I think Mattson will fuck all the kids over by the time the seasons out. It was fun seeing Shiv, who has actual work experience outside of her fathers employment, use her handling skills. It’s also this lolz duality of her issues with the Fox News ATN shit, will also aligning herself so similarly to her father.
Oh, Mattson is definitely going to fuck them Roy kids. What’s interesting is the guy is clearly insane, so the way he chooses to fuck them will likely be wild. He could do anything.
This may have been Shiv’s finest moments. Last week having all but force to agree to let the brothers take the dual corporate leadership, and totally off her game, she triumphed in just 12 hours. I thought Snook looked physically different, her face void of angst and instead she was a Bond girl: cool, seductive and whip smart. And she had Mattson cupped in her hands and best, she knew she was winning. Quite the tightrope walk and never wobbling.The writers coming up with “blood bricks” was so twisted but perversely realistic. Skaarsgard was amazing, and he delivered with just enough of the sweaty and wired after several bumps.Calling Kendell a tribute band was a chef’s kiss.
“And she had Mattson cupped in her hands and best, she knew she was winning. Quite the tightrope walk and never wobbling.”I had the exact opposite reaction..I actually think that was all Mattson playing her. He seemed to be playing chess with all the kids playing checkers.
Agreed. I think Shiv handled herself well, and maybe Matsson was impressed with her, and maybe-maybe the blood story is real, but more than anything I think he’s just looking for a back channel he can dump the minute the deal is signed.
Except she said more money would give him the win, and he took her advice on the two women from Waystar to keep. He ultimately delivered on those things. Further she wasn’t actually drinking and she did not actually snort any coke. She was on fire and in control.Plus he thought she was cool……….
I mean, he said “she was cool”, but I don’t take anything Matson ever says at face value. He’s always seemingly up to something.
Wasn’t she drinking? I was paying attention, because she’s apparently pregnant. I could have sworn she had a couple of drinks.
I mean, she held drinks in her hands and put them to her mouth. They very pointedly never got emptied though. Just like she takes the coke and toys with it in her hands without using it. She’s pretending.
She may have taken some sips, but she definitely didn’t finish the drink.
I will say, I think Mattson telling you you’re cool is not necessarily a good sign. It’s like in an action film when the villain tells one of the characters, “I like this guy!” just after killing one of their own henchmen.
Wasn’t it an obvious nod to the fact that Shiv is playing the Cool Girl for him? Topped off with the “send me a picture of their faces” play on the idea of sending nudes. And I actually think that she did earn a kind of win, but it was the kind of “win” you get from Logan. The win of being his creature but maybe grabbing something for yourself along the way Succession knows all billionaires are empty. I think it’s dangerous to see Mattesen as a perfect genius who can play them all all the time.
This was how I saw it, too. It was a Pyrrhic victory for Shiv, and she’ll lose in the long run. Not because Mattson is some genius, but because he is better at this than all of the Roys are. The Roy kids have spent their lives pretending to be what they thought their daddy wanted. None of them is capable of running the business. Mattson is an asshole and an empty billionaire, but he’s at least one that knows how to run a company. In that regard, he doesn’t have to be playing 3D chess to beat the Roys. He just has to be moderately good at checkers.
I mean, he mocked “more money” because it’s painfully obvious advice. Which is really all a Roy is capable ofAnd the offer was aimed at the Board when it was more money. It was taking the kids off the field
Except she said more money would give him the win, and he took her advice on the two women from Waystar to keep. He ultimately delivered on those things. Further she wasn’t actually drinking and she did not actually snort any coke. She was on fire and in control.The deal isn’t done, and she said all of that before Roman’s outburst on the mountaintop.
With no papers having been signed, and no shares having been exchanged, my expectation is that the deal is either blown up to the detriment of the Roy’s (why release a putative list of firings if not to stir dissent before the deal is done?), or he completes the deal but then purposefully ruins Waystar/Royco just for the fun of it.
Also, thinking about what happened in the season finale of last season in regards to the kid’s and their trust, I don’t think they actually have control of their shares (or the board seats, since they need a supermajority). Caroline (their mother) renegotiated the terms of her divorce agreement with Logan, which prevented the kids from stopping the GoJo deal last season, due to the majority of their shares being in a trust that Logan still controlled (hence why Kendall wanted Logan to break the trust and buy him out; Kendall couldn’t sell the shares on the open market). So with Logan dead, it wouldn’t surprise me if Caroline is now in control of the trust, and Mattson makes an end-run around the kids. Kendall is a known addict, Roman just blew his top, and Mattson compelled a pregnant Shiv to snort coke (even though she never took a bump). He’s a tech guy, so I’m sure there were cameras and microphones all around the place. If he can show that the kids are unserious dilletantes, whomever is the trustee (presumably Caroline) can easily exercise control over the block of the kid’s shares or their board seats.
My two cents is the prior episode established the kids needed the board support of Stewie/outside investors to win a vote on being interim CEOs, and Stewie made it very, very clear that support was conditional on the kids delivering the deal.So Kendall and Roman were delusional to think if they tanked the deal they would get to stay in charge of the company, but got saved from themselves, at least for now.
Not only is he deal not done, but I get the feeling Mattson is letting everyone on the plane have this moment of unearned triumph before he pulls the rug out (meaning he wanted the pictures to later show what Ken and Rome looked like when they THOUGHT they’d won). If he knows about the Menckyn campaign’s explicit alignment with ATN — and there’s no reason to think he doesn’t, depending on the source of the rumors Shiv received — then he also knows the network is a “toxic asset” and the whole of Waystar-Royco is probably worth closer to $100 a share than $192.
Matsson is totally playing Shiv and allowing her to think she’s playing him.He got her to text a picture of her brothers’ faces immediately after he went over their heads to the board.If he ever wants to turn Kendall and Roman against their sister, all he has to do is show them that image — because where else would he have gotten it?The siblings showed constant weakness the entire time they were at the retreat, proving unable to resist airing out their petty grievances with each other in front of Matsson and team. Now Matsson knows that Shiv deeply resents her brothers for squeezing her out of leadership and she’s totally willing to sell them out.
Yeah
exactly, all this “Shiv is at the top of her game” is so misguided.
Mattson is very smart, and Shiv will probably end up with egg on her
face again. She’s being played as well.
I don’t think Mattson is the mastermind supervillain Doctor Doom-like 14th-dimensional chess master here. Maybe I’m wrong, but the show hasn’t convinced me I am, I guess.
Agreed. The thing is, a lot of what’s considered brilliant business acumen on the show seems to be illusion either way. There’s nothing Shiv could have done or not done in that scene that couldn’t be read as Matsson manipulating her once Matsson is established as a great businessman. Sometimes we can tell for sure someone’s just screwed up or fallen short (plenty of those in this ep) but scenes like this aren’t necessarily so clear. Shiv wanted the deal to go through and it did. Kendall and Roman didn’t want it to go through and it did. Matsson did what he wanted in that moment. Nobody had to be that brilliant here.
I got the same sense.
Him telling Shiv a story that would not only tank the deal, but potentially result in him having to leave his own company, has to be a long-term play. Coke, LSD, and high altitude be damned, he’s too smart to be that honest without it being a move.
I also thought that he knew that she was pregnant, and offered the coke as both a test and a play. He knew about the marriage issues, so it’s not a far leap to presume that he has done enough recon on her to surmise she’s pregnant. If she accepts the offer of coke, he then knows that she’s willing to go against the wishes of both her brothers and the old guard. He even stroked her ego by mentioning how she reminded him of Logan.
Here’s the Succession-twist—he was actually telling her the truth, but it was still a play.
I think it’s a play but Matsson isn’t as good at playing women as men. He falls back on inappropriate jokes and line-crossing to try to shake them up and put them in their place. But Shiv (and his Comms employee) have had a lifetime of being put in their place that way, so it’s not entirely effective.
Whoa! NOT taking coke doesn’t mean you’re pregnant, right? It could be “I just don’t do coke!” Do all rich people snort coke?
Yes. No way Mattson wasn’t playing Shiv like a fiddle. She’s not as smart as she thinks she is.
I’m frankly a little shocked at all the love Shiv is getting here. She’s as bad as any of the Roys, even if she has far less actual blood on her hands. She’s the most arrogant of an arrogant group, yet has done the least to deserve it. She’s spent 3 seasons feeling as if she should be CEO of a major, publicly traded corporation despite having no experience in that corporation, in that industry, running anything, or managing any people. Kendall is a loathesome, murdering dipshit, but at least he ran large parts of the company, and Roman was COO, giving them some reason to believe they’re capable.Shiv is the most arrogant of an arrogant group, and while she may be significantly smarter than Kendall and Connor (not significantly than Roman), she’s done the least to merit it.Her failure has the most schadenfreude attached to it. None of them expect to fail, but few seem to think they deserve victory as much as Shiv.
Idk if it’s so much love for Shiv, just an awareness that she left the company because she knew she was never going to be treated equally in that industry as her brothers. I’m sure a lot of her skills are transferable from working business deals in politics. So she represents the inherent hyper individualism of the #girlboss in that to succeed you have to align yourself with the same patriarchal values that harm you (no she’s not a victim, but this season in particular is exploring how hierarchies operate within gender). Her sense of entitlement is coming from some place a little more complicated than her brothers.
I know I gave you some shit last week for the sexism theme-pushing but I’m totally on board with you here and find the idea of Shiv’s so-called “most arrogant” label fucking goofy. The truth is that every character on the show is given moments of brilliance and stupidity in almost equal measure and it’s hilarious how hard people in these episode responses go in for character-loyal or character-hating takes. Even Greg, who I absolutely hated in Season 1, has been shown to have strengths and weaknesses. The balance is one of the pleasures of the show.
Shiv is the most arrogant of an arrogant group, and while she may be significantly smarter than Kendall and Connor (not significantly than Roman), she’s done the least to merit it.So you see a woman kept out of the same unearned positions of power that her brothers were handed just because she has a vagina and your response is, “Stop complaining, you’ve never gotten the experience you needed from being handed an entry-level vice-president position!”If she fails, Logan was right to be sexist because women are bad at jobs. If she succeeds, it highlights that Logan is a crappy judge of character and his ruthlessness hasn’t helped. If anyone should faceplant into a soft down pillow, it’s the character least eager to stab people in the back and bury the bodies.
So you see a woman kept out of the same unearned positions of power that her brothers were handed Sure, except that both Roman and Kendall have worked in the biz for several years, including Kendall out in Asia for years in the “trenches”.Either way, they are both more experienced in this field than Shiv.
None of that changes how arrogant and entitled she is. You’re making it out as if she’s sympathetic. She isn’t. She’s every bit the monster the rest of the family is.
But is she the most arrogant of an arrogant group? You really haven’t addressed that.
But neither is he.Nobody on this show, which everyone should recall is at least *in part* a comedy, is as smart as they think they are.
They were both trying to play each other in that scene, who actually won remains to be seen but I’d say Shiv was at least in the game with him. Kendall and Roman were out matches from the moment they stepped off the tram.
I initially thought the same thing, but for what purpose? It’d make sense if he was trying to tank the deal himself, but I guess he could’ve hoped that Shiv would run back to her brothers and tell them to try to get out of it, setting up the situation where he gets to humiliate them on top of a mountain and spend a bunch more money? I’d buy it a little more if that’s what actually happened, but even then it seems like a bit of a stretch.
After this it feels like Shiv will win the ‘succession’. But I assume there will be turns and twists yet.
“After this it feels like Shiv will win the ‘succession’.”
Because Mattson is using her to try and fuck over Rome and Ken?
I think the safest assumption to make at this point is that none of the Roy kids will “win,” if the definition of winning is that the emerge as the head of Waystar or of whatever corp they build with Pierce. I think the show has been pretty clear from the outset about that. Yes, it gives us moments where we see the humanity of these characters, where we root for them to be OK or to break out of destructive patterns, but just as quickly those moments are gone and their fatal flaws take center stage once again. I think the most likely scenario for the end of the show is all three end up estranged, out of the business, but still obviously rich. Beyond that, I don’t actually know what winning would look like for Kendall and Shiv. With Roman, I think this season has clarified that a bit—he seems the most ready of any of them to leave the “game” behind. Or he was until the days before Logan’s death. I would like to see him actually achieve something like what Connor tried to do (but was too egocentric to see through): Take his money and go live peacefully somewhere. But I don’t think the show is going to go that way. Like his siblings, Roman is so screwed up that he’s almost guaranteed to get in the way of his own happiness. He’ll fail because that’s what he’s done all his life, despite his occasional best efforts. Because I think that’s been the thesis of much of the show so far: growing up with incredible wealth and power sets you up to fail, but without consequences. So nobody wins, but they won’t lose either.
I think there’s something in here, if I can articulate it, about Shiv constantly being underestimated by her brothers and others at Waystar, but that not mattering because Mattson doesn’t rate any of them. Being the least important Roy doesn’t put her at a disadvantage with him because he sees them as all equally irrelevant. But on a one-to-one basis, she’s the most interesting one to him, so she has an edge there.
“ about Shiv constantly being underestimated’
Are we talking about the same Shiv who has literally never accomplished anything?
I think one of the through lines of the show has been that shiv’s true gift is being able to navigate powerful mercurial people. She isn’t built to be in charge, but more like a top consigliari.
Skarsgaard has a real talent for entitled douchebags who may just actually be crazy (see: Atlanta).
And Big Little Lies
The very last shot of the episode, of Shiv, was a very different confident Shiv.
It’s unclear how much, if any, she ingested but I think it points to her seeming ambivalence to be a parent. Maybe she drinks and does coke, or maybe she just flirts with the idea of doing it. Either way, I think she’s not sure what she wants yet.
No mention of Shiv’s consumption (or lack thereof) of alcohol and assumedly coke throughout the episode? We know she’s pregnant, and fairly far along, but her reaction to being told the foetus is healthy and there are no problems obviously shows she’s looking for an easy out without actually proceeding with an abortion. We see her with a glass of whisky in her scene with Mattson, and handling coke, but as far as I could tell we never see her actually partake in either. She’s drinking coffee in the group scenes while most others are having beer, and it’s not until the end that she actually drinks when sharing champagne with her brothers on the jet.The deliberate filming style of the show leaves it ambiguous as to whether she ever actually drinks out of shot, but that she is still willing to drink to Mattson’s apparent victory over Ken and Roman does show her priorities. I think it could also tie into the potential rekindling of her relationship with Tom, especially now that he has demonstrated the ability and will to go toe to toe with her manipulative sparring, abusing their child while still in the womb goes back to her own parental issues and is another power she holds over Tom that he can never match.
I think the point is if people find out she is pregnant, then they’ll try and handle her, when this episode showed how capable she is of handling herself and others. She already saw the double standard in her grief being treated differently than her brothers.You have to be boozing pretty hard on the regular to see some fetal alcohol syndrome, a drink or two on a retreat isn’t going to harm the baby (cocaine actually has very little impact on development except low birth weight, but I don’t think she was actually skiing with mattson).
It was definitely intentionally ambiguous. I interpreted her body language with the coke as almost sleight of hand so that Mattson wouldn’t realize she wasn’t actually taking any. The drinking was less clear to me, but I’m leaning toward she wasn’t actually drinking either and was just playing the game.
That’s what I was thinking as well.
I noticed it the most with that last “sip” of champagne where you can tell she made it look like she took a sip but didn’t actually drink anything. Kept her lips closed but tilted the glass up.
I should have tagged that in the Strays, since it definitely caught my eye. I think for sure she’s just fiddling with the coke so that Mattson assumes she’s taking some, which would suggest she’s also faking the drinking.
Yes
Aside from respecting her own pregnancy, I don’t think she’d ever snort coke in front of Mattson no matter what. That getting out could wreck her status. The drinking could easily be non-alcoholic, or she just belabors ever drinking any of it in front of people. Her brothers are both acknowledged damaged goods, but she’s clean and doesn’t get theslack they always seem to be granted.
As entertaining and high-quality as this is as a production, the resolution of this Mattson plot to this point is actually kind of eye-roll worthy. Like a Disney production, the males are emasculated with Roman being denied ACTUAL credit after cultivating all of this for so long, while we are privy to Shiv just stepping in and makes it all happen in one casual meeting with Mattson. After all of these machinations, Mattson just hands them umpteen billion dollars based on Shiv’s “nudge” comment… Really?? It’s certainly not un-entertaining, and definitely great acting, but it felt a bit unearned in a writing sense, based on the history of this show.
I’m not so sure that it’s Shiv’s comment that convinces Mattson to increase his bid. I think Roman’s outburst was an unintentionally great negotiating tactic. By displaying genuine emotion, he made Mattson realize that Roman and Kendall could actually walk away from the deal entirely. Mattson knows that he’s not great at dealing with emotional situations so Roman’s outburst represents a significant risk to him. And it works as a tactic because it’s not a tactic; Roman is dead serious when he says he’ll do everything he can to delay they sale. To be fair, Shiv’s comment does help, because she almost literally predicts what happens the next day. But I don’t think that Mattson thinks that an extra $5 / share will change Roman’s mind. He’s simply following through on his threat to go directly to the board because that extra money makes the deal too good to refuse and also demonstrates that he’s committed to the deal. I’m not sure how Kendall and Roman can possibly argue against closing the deal ASAP now.
By displaying genuine emotion, he made Mattson realize that Roman and Kendall could actually walk away from the deal entirely. Mattson knows that he’s not great at dealing with emotional situations so Roman’s outburst represents a significant risk to him. And it works as a tactic because it’s not a tactic; Roman is dead serious when he says he’ll do everything he can to delay they sale.The problem with this theory is that Waystar isn’t the one with the negotiating power, GoJo. Waystar absolutely needs this deal, and the Roys as individuals need this deal to be taken seriously. Remember, it was Waystar that was going to purchase GoJo until their stock tanked, and then Gojo countered with an acquisition of Waystar. This isn’t a merger of equals, so Waystar walking away wouldn’t be perceived as strength by the market (or weakness on the part of GoJo): it would be seen as impetuous and untested dilletantes failing in a situation where their late, formidable father would’ve dominated.
Further, Mattson can always do an end-run around the kids and go directly to the board. The kids believed they had the ability to tank the Waystar sale last season, until Logan convinced Caroline to renegotiate the terms of their divorce agreement. This gave Logan the supermajority he needed to go ahead with the sale, regardless of what the kids wanted to do with their block of shares, or their board seats. With Logan dead, his board seat goes to Marcia (presumably). If the kids walk, Mattson makes his offer to the board and the public shareholders, and he can still get Waystar without needing Kendall, Shiv, or Roman.
Financially, he’s entertaining them because a proxy battle and a hostile takeover would be more expensive (as it would drive up the price of the shares in the open market), not because he likes them or think that their presence is at all beneficial other than the perceived continuity that have a Roy in Waystar would provide. But make no mistake, Waystar is not in a position of power when it comes to these negotiations, and Mattson is worried not that the deal would fail after a delay, but rather that the delay would simply cause the deal to become more expensive than he’d like.
It’s humorous how some on here just think it’s the Roys and Waystar that need board approval. I am sure Mattson’s Company has its own board that has to sign off, and spending the incremental $5 per share (and who knows how much that means in real $$ or euros but it has to be a lot) just because he wants to stick it to Kendall and Roman is just silly and lazy. He has already declared how much HE needs the deal to happen (quickly). Neither side has the power over the other. Logan for whatever reason wanted to sell the company when before that was unthinkable. Then he decides to just keep ATN and make it into something even bigger and better.The 3 sibs come along, torpedo the Pierce deal, making them spend way more on it than it was worth, but that is all subject to them getting funding from selling Waystar.The idea that Kendall and Roman had to keep ATN, buy Pierce etc is a terrible one and never would have worked. But it would have made for a great season 5, which sadly we will never get.The recap person here saying Mattson destroyed Kendall and Roman is laughable. He is watching a different show. They both did well at spots, but Shiv playing here own game clearly helped Waystar win. Decisively. Plus she has the blood story in her back pocket. What will be really interesting is what happens if the season 1 accidental death comes back to harm Kendall. I can’t imagine that going away.
I am sure Mattson’s Company has its own board that has to sign off, and spending the incremental $5 per share (and who knows how much that means in real $$ or euros but it has to be a lot)The math is pretty simple.
The price the kids wanted for Waystar minus ATN was $144 a share. Matsson offered $187 a share for Waystar + ATN. Him going up to $192 represents a roughly 2% increase in the deal price (as he was going to walk without including ATN in the deal).
Lets assume that Waystar + ATN is valued at roughly $50bn (I got to this number by a comment from Karl that the kids each have a 5% stake in the company. At roughly $2bn each, $6bn total, their combined 15% reflects a valuation of around $40bn, but I’ll be generous and say $50bn for the sake of easier math) . That 2% increase is only $1bn more (or, even if you assume it’s worth $100bn, that’s still only a $2bn increase). Serious money to us mortals, but not an increase that financially changes the stakes in terms of the acquisition.
Further, you’re assuming that everything Mattson is saying is true, and not merely designed to elicit the response that he wants from the Roys. Remember, the Roys wanted to keep ATN. Shiv even says early on in the episode that the goal is to do Pierce-ATN, meaning that they needed the Matsson deal to go through so that they’d have adequate financing to complete the Pierce deal (right now their shares are locked in a trust, and per previous seasons, and episode 1 of this season, they can only sell their shares either back to Logan, or as an entire block in a acquisition/merger of Waystar). By Mattson getting them to include ATN in the overall Waystar deal, that makes the Pierce acquisition/merger unlikely (they won’t get the financing necessary, and Matsson doesn’t really have an incentive to also buy Pierce).
The recap person here saying Mattson destroyed Kendall and Roman is laughable. He is watching a different show. They both did well at spots, but Shiv playing here own game clearly helped Waystar win. Decisively. Plus she has the blood story in her back pocket. What will be really interesting is what happens if the season 1 accidental death comes back to harm Kendall. I can’t imagine that going away.Again, as I and others have stated, the deal isn’t done. Looking at how long real-world deals take (even ones that are lucrative for both sides), them clinking champagne glasses is incredibly premature, especially as the market knows that Waystar needs this deal more than GoJo (hence why their shares, even with the GoJo deal still being on the table, dropped 20% when Logan died; the market simply doesn’t trust the kids in any leadership capacity). If GoJo and Matsson back out, or the kids refuse to play ball when the combined boards (perhaps inevitably) says that they will replace the kids in any management position they’d want, Waystar shares are going to tank (just as the share price of the acquisition target almost always tank when a deal is scuttled).
When it comes to the blood story, that wouldn’t hold water unless she got Ebba to corroborate it, and since Ebba likely stands to make a whole bunch of money if the deal goes through, what good does Shiv knowing it do? The only way she deploys it successfully (assuming its true) is if Matsson threatens to walk, and she blackmails him into completing the deal (and presumably make her the head of ATN or co-CEO). She does that, and you know what happens? Ken and Roman start a proxy battle which prolongs the deal and makes everything messy (which is why I personally think Matsson told her, because he knows that Shiv’s ambition and predilection to be spiteful could, in a roundabout way, always give him what he wants).
The reality is that the kids are conflicted between their desire for enough fuck-you money that isn’t tied to their locked-up shares in Waystar (which they can only sell back to the holding company, the family trust, or as part of a acquisition from another company) and their desire to be relevant aside from their money and their last name. Unfortunately, they’re in a Morton’s fork situation, because either outcome in regards to the deal prevents them from doing either. Deal goes through, they get their payoff, but they’re pushed out of the combined company, and while their payoff is significant, it’s not enough for financing a separate Pierce deal. Deal fails, Waystar shares tank, they’re financially locked to the holding company and family trust, but they control Waystar and ATN during the inevitably proxy battle to get them removed for ruining the deal (in other words, Stewy, Sandi, and the other board members and shareholders boot them out).
All in all, Logan and Caroline changing the divorce agreement essentially means that he’s still controlling them from beyond-the-grave, the one thing they certainly didn’t want. Remember, Logan needed a super-majority to push through the Gojo deal at the end of last season. The kids thought they could stop it. However, it seems clear that Logan, in changing the divorce agreement, either deprived the kids of their board seats, or gave Caroline (and or Peter, her new husband) a board seat (or a fuckton of money to simply vote with him and not with the kids). Logan’s dead, and with his board seat presumably going to Marcia (or someone who’d vote how he’d like, dead or not), the kids are in need of support from people outside of the family (like Sandi and Stewy) to do anything in regards to the deal. They simply aren’t negotiating from a position of strength.
Oh agreed it was 100% spite money from Mattson!
True that the deal is not final. I was referring primarily to the writing / editing that gave us, the viewers, the wink-wink that Shiv got him to “nudge up”, and Shiv got her way with the employee list, and Shiv was quietly chuckling on the plane at her two siblings when they were dumbfounded about their own not-really success. They edited it like she made it happen since we never saw a scene where Mattson reacted to Roman’s outburst, but we were clearly led to believe that Shiv got whatever she asked for from her exchange with Mattson.
I think we all realize that in the very end of the last episode Greg will be recounting his rise to the top of ALL of this to The Economist.
You’re imagining things that aren’t there. Mattson immediately dismissed her comment about offering more money because it was blatantly obvious. Shiv didn’t entirely get her way with the employee list; she explicitly told Mattson to keep his PR chief but he’s keeping Karolina instead. And Shiv taking the picture of Kendall and Roman wasn’t about a woman emasculating a man, it’s about her being horrible to her siblings because she feels like they kept her out of the loop. She’s a horrible person who does horrible things to her family members, just like everyone else in the family. It’s not some woke conspiracy attack on manhood.
Dismissing your idea and then using it anyway is VERY common treatment of women in the workplace, ask me how I know. I think Shiv did have influence, as seen in the titular “kill list”. This is soft power.
After all of these machinations, Mattson just hands them umpteen billion dollars based on Shiv’s “nudge” comment… Really?? It’s certainly not un-entertaining, and definitely great acting, but it felt a bit unearned in a writing sense, based on the history of this show.I think you and a few other people are jumping the gun a bit with this particular line of reasoning.
The reality is that the deal isn’t done. Mattson’s $192 verbal offer is just that…a verbal offer. Kendall, Shiv, and Roman still have to get board approval, still have to rangle with their individual trusts when it comes to selling the shares, and given that Mattson has deployed a “to fire” list (which I believe is designed to sow dissension amongst the old guard and the kids), we’re nowhere near the point of certainty.
Remember, Waystar and GoJo have been doing the acquisition mating dance for months by this time (Waystar was originally going to buy GoJo, and then GoJo countered by offering to buy Waystar minus ATN when it became clear that Waystar couldn’t get the financing). It’s unlikely that Mattson, as you said, made the $192 per share offer because of boredom, or because he genuinely likes Shiv and wants the best for her and Waystar. It’s a play, and because these mergers and acquisitions are incredibly complicated (especially when you’re dealing with a company like Waystar which has a lot of divisions that aren’t particularly related to one another in a purely business sense), my sense is that he’s playing on the desires of Kendall, Roman, and Shiv to be more powerful than they are (note the comment after Mattson tells Ken and Roman that he’s trying to make them incredibly rich, and Ken replies, “Already rich”) and he’ll let them take an undue and preemptive victory lap even though the deal isn’t close to be done.
The reality is that Mattson knows that Waystar needs this deal more than GoJo does. If he walks away from the deal, the price of Waystar is going to tank, which would make a whole host of things difficult for everyone from the Roy’s on down. You’re talking about having to sell entire division at much lower valuations, and likely the break-up of the company into its constituent parts. The Roys get kicked out, Waystar is broken up, and GoJo continues on because they’re a tech company in the digital age, while the former Waystar is a dinosaur
Waystar definitely needs the deal more than GoJo does. But that doesn’t mean that GoJo doesn’t need the deal quite a bit as well. He definitely seems to really need the content that he can acquire through Waystar. I think it’s a real risk that Roman and Kendall screw the deal up somehow, which would be bad for both parties.
So was it actually unearned or do you have some weird MRA issue with Shiv being given a moment to shine on the show? The whole “Disney/emasculated” comment feels pretty douchebro drumcircle.
Read the post. MRA ??? Fuck you going to a male-rape-apologist insinuation over a TV show discussion. What the hell is wrong with you? Her character is capable of doing much more, but they practically Mary Sued her for this after Roman had been the one behind everything for two seasons. They wrote that she pulled this off in a relatively lightweight conversation devoid of nearly all technical business information, with a flirtatious vibe – and Mattson throws about 20 billion at them no questions asked, AND her brothers were made to look like “simps on the plane”. Yeah – that’s about everything Disney these days.
I don’t see how Shiv was being presented that way here. The emasculation was all from Matsson the whole ep. Him winning just happened to be more along the lines of what Shiv wanted. Sure it gave her something over her brother who’d cut her out of everything up until that point, but she hardly needed to be a Mary Sue for this and the main reason she came out looking better than her brothers this time was that they wanted different things.
This is such an unhinged response. Yes, person who unironically used the term “simp”, I’m insinuating that you got some crushed up InfoWars Super Male Vitality powder under your nose. WTF does Disney have to do with anything here? And before you answer, take a deep breath and let the two wolves inside you settle down.Roman was “behind everything”? How? When? He made the approach to Mattson and there were mentions of off-camera socialization but that’s *it*. That’s hardly “behind everything”. Shiv didn’t “pull this off”. You are jumping to some weird conclusions here. For one, this entirely discounts the effect that Roman’s diatribe might have had. We know that Mattson is mercurial and prone to indulging troll behavior. For two, Mattson could have been playing Shiv with the late night solo confessional. I don’t think he was but it’s possible. What fucking “Mary Sue” was even close to going on here? I’m of the mind that Shiv genuinely does not have the corporate chops to act as CEO or COO but I’m ALSO of the mind that she’s way more qualified to handle people than either of her socially inept brothers. As supported by her successful political career. Do you think what she did with Mattson was significantly different from what she’s done with her candidates in the past?Generally I just don’t get whatever weird hate boner you’ve got for how this episode handled Shiv. And I don’t know how you think it looks like anything but sexist bullshit. Especially when you tie it to the Mouseketeer stick up your ass.
That’s very obviously not what happened. Shiv’s advice was non-advice and Mattson even called it out as such. He threw a bunch of money at them because he’s a petulant dick, saw that they were sloppily trying to outmaneuver him and just wanted to make them fail.
That getting out could wreck her status.Ha, no it wouldn’t. I was shocked with the ease and flagrancy that many professionals/executive tout their drug use, it’s often not at all hidden and no one really cares. I’m in Los Angeles and in CA it’s like weird if you’re a rich/important person who isn’t constantly on something.
Her perceived unwillingness to have an abortion sort of shows she may not be looking for an easy out, doesn’t it?
It seemed pretty obvious that she was carefully appearing to consume those things without doing so. Her glasses never get empty, she handled the coke but never uses it…
She didn’t do any coke and she was fake drinking, or else just taking the tiniest of sips. She wasn’t “abusing the child while still in the womb.” Calm down, dude.
i dont think she ever actually did the coke
She didn’t drink at all, the level of liquid never changed. Maybe she took a tiny sip, but she definitely didn’t take a shot.She also just fiddled with the coke, she never actually used it.
Gerri says “raised by wolves, exposed to a pathogen that goes by the name Logan Roy” that was a bad line the one they used in the trailers was better. in the trailers she says “ we were schooled by a barbarian who goes by the name Logan Roy”. Thats the better line they didn’t use. The show has been doing this were they film good lines and scenes and just use them in the trailer. It’s getting annoying
Trailers are often cut before the actual show/movie is. So which shots make it into final edit hasn’t yet been decided. This is why trailers sometimes use different lines than the finished product.
Also there is Hope for Tom and Shiv to reconcile. They still got that chemistry and Shiv asks him to dinner in the plane on the way back.
Also, I am convinced Shiv protected Tom from the kill list. It had to be part of Shiv’s negotiation with Lukas. There is not other explanation for Tom not getting shit canned.
I think this is probably true, but remember Kendall and Roman offered to fire Tom on Shiv’s behalf, yet agreed that he was actually a very good worker and it wouldn’t be for cause. Tom is spineless, but he’s smart, relatively young, and clearly dedicated to his work. From GoJo’s perspective, it probably makes sense to keep him on compared to conniving (and expensive) older people like Karl and Frank. They also might have been impressed with his blustering ATN chauvinism and realized he was the right fit for that particular job.
I loved how the scouting report they apparently gave everyone on Tom was “Tom of, uh, Siobhan.”
Kendall and Roman note Tom is actually good at the job. His power rival at ATN was the one with the secret line to the fascist likely president. He also, after the initial awkwardness, managed to make a somewhat non-dipshit impression on the Swedes. His connection to Shiv certainly helps and I’m sure if she wanted him gone he would be but I don’t know that we know enough to say she’s the ONLY reason he’s still around. But maybe!
Mattson is weird but coming from season 3 it’s almost like a different character. In season 3 he was much more reserved and subtle compared to this season.
Significant blood loss with do that to you.
Last season GoJo was the minnow/target and during the course of the season got slightly bigger than WRCo. enough to offer a takeover of most of it (with ATN spun off). He’s now obviously big/rich enough to just swallow up the whole thing while paying a premium. So his ego has just gotten bigger. Also, not sure he was that much different here than he was at Ken’s birthday party and here he was on his home turf with his people and all the cards to play.
It would be nice if the writers could throw in a line here and there about stock prices and market caps. Logan offered to buy Pierce for what, $25 billion? A year later the kids are buying it for $10 billion. I guess that reflects the declining value of print media but also doesn’t make Logan look like a master strategist. Or Nan. And in season 1 Stewie offered to buy out Kendall’s shares for $500 million. A few years later Kendall’s share is worth around $2 billion. That’s a pretty rapid increase for legacy media.And deal structure. If Mattson didn’t buy ATN it would still belong to the existing Waystar shareholders. The kids wouldn’t just get to keep it.
“Logan offered to buy Pierce for what, $25 billion? A year later the kids are buying it for $10 billion. I guess that reflects the declining value of print media but also doesn’t make Logan look like a master strategist. Or Nan.”
A big part of that was Nan playing Logan’s ego, so I think it reflected better on her than him. I think it was probably a wild overpayment back then just because it was something he wanted, rather than a real valuation. And now that I’m thinking about it, her pulling out speaks a little better of her too, since she did pass up a shitload of money based on principle. She’s not as principled or anti-money as she pretends, obviously, but there is a line somewhere.
How principled is she if she’s back negotiating with Logan again? Apparently there were no other bidders aside from the kids. And I realize his previous offer had a significant premium but I thought fair market was in the $18 to $20 billion range, not $6 to $8 billion that he offered this season. I think I would be pretty pissed if I were one of the “cousins”.
Sure, it’s depreciation in addition to what I said, no question.
That’s an interesting observation. Mattson to me has always come off as chameleon of sorts, constantly adapting his behavior to whatever it needs to appear to be in any given situation (I’m reminded of “Too Much Birthday.”). That makes it hard to pin down who he is, what is . He’s always “on,” always playing angles and shifting who he is and who he is pretending to be (as journalists had been bothering him with that kind of thing, pinning him down). It’s like how wrestlers stay in character even when they are just out and about and not being recorded. It’s part of the job.Mattson is like that. Logan was like that as well. Mattson’s true character has much less to do with what he says and much more with what he does (or does not do). For example, forcing them on that trip a few days after the death speaks volumes. And the Roys making that trip and getting dicked around, or rather allowing themselves to be dicked around, also speaks volumes.The question is if the kids, or even just one of them, is able to step up and succeed for the first time alone and without their father. All three have been learning throughout the season and been shaped, but these final post-Logan episodes are going to be the true crucible to see who, if anyone, succeeds.I so look forward to it because I have no idea where they’re going to take it next week much less in the finale. It’s keeping me on my toes.
“In season 3 he was much more reserved and subtle compared to this season.”
Logan Roy is dead. Maybe you missed that?
He’s gone from micro-dosing to just dosing.
I think it’s a couple things.1) He’s emotional.2) He’s dumb.I think the mystery around Mattson was the most interesting thing about him, but he’s revealing that he’s a troll willing to throw billions down the toilet just to commit to the bit.People are coming at this from the angle that Mattson is smart. But Mattson got nothing out of this deal except making Roman, the guy everyone forced to be his point-person, suffer. That’s it. He burned an ant under a magnifying glass and paid tens of billions of dollars for the privilege.Kendall literally wanted to throw the whole thing at him the second he sat down in that chair and the only reason Mattson was able to hurt him was by giving him far more than he imagined he would ever be able to get AFTER insulting his family for hours. This was about Mattson wanting to feel like a big man and stick it in Logan’s eye once and for all.Mattson just keeps making blood bricks and handing them out and it keeps costing him money. He just can’t stop. I don’t think the show is setting up a bigger shark to put them in their place, I think the show is setting up a bigger toxic waste dump to give them leukemia by standing near it.
Honestly in a lot of ways he’s just another dumb billionaire like every other dumb billionaire we deal with in the real world. He’s just Elon Musk but 5% smarter (which is still dumb as a rock).
Given how his Season 3 characterization had more than a bit in common with Elon Musk, one has to wonder if there have been some rewrites to mimic his utter meltdown.
Mattson spends a ridiculous amount of money to get a worthless media company kept out of his hands to spite him and then watches all that money spin down the toilet. It’ll be hard to tell this story without tripping over Musk’s idiocy and peeling back some unrevealed layers of Mattson’s BS.
I thought it was clear in Season 3 that he was a nutjob – but he was dealing with Logan in Season 3, who he actually respected, so he probably put a lid on his wildest eccentricities and dickishness. Not so much when he’s dealing with the boys.
Mattson’s a pretty minor character in season 3, but he seemed to respect Logan as an adversary and equal so my guess is he kept his weird bullshit in check because it’s a risky approach to business negotiations. He has no respect for the kids, so he’s free to fuck around and do coke in front of them.
It seems like they’ve rolled together Skarsgard’s and Brody’s characters from S3. He’s adopted the outdoor ruggedness and confrontational aspects of Josh Aaronson.
The guy pissed on a phone and left it in a urinal. He’s been a monster since he first appeared.
Pissing on the phone of your potential acquisition’s COO within the first hour or so of meeting him doesn’t seem all that reserved and subtle to me.
I actually thought Roman had made a good realization.Lukas was weirdly desperate to get the deal closed, whatever the cost.Next week I hope Roman and Shiv exchange notes and realize that perhaps Lukas is hoping the purchase might somehow shield him from an impending scandal.
I wasn’t quite sure what Shiv’s angle was in terms of keeping that info for herself when Kendall asked for a debrief.
My guess is she desperately wants this deal to go through and would love to be rid of the right-wing news network. Maybe she knew telling Kendall would give him leverage to keep ATN.Or maybe she was just wise enough to keep that as her own secret weapon to use someday— assuming it’s even true, which I wouldn’t be surprised if he was making it up on the spot.
I think you’re on point with her ATN discomfort. She wants to jettison it so hard.
Since they keep doing little reprises of earlier scenes (this one has the callback to Ken rolling in anticipating to be named successor in S1E1), I wonder if Gojo needs to “bulk up” to avoid a takeover like in late S1 and early S2.
My husband and I were geeking out about the Norway locations in this episode! We went there for a couple weeks for our 10th anniversary awhile back. Their hotel with the little pods, river and sauna is Hotel Juvet (also seen in Ex Machina), which is a wonderful rustic place to stay but very expensive! The tram and fancy building on the mountain are about a two hour drive away, with the village Loen at the base. My husband and I hiked up instead of taking the tram, took us about four hours. Mattson’s fancy mountain building is actually a fancy restaurant, which we dined at extremely wet and dirty. I tried to surreptitiously dry my socks with the hand dryer in the bathroom. The wait staff didn’t bat an eye at our disgusting state, which was nice. Highly recommend both locations!
this is a flex
A better flex than any of the Roys managed, to be fair.
And how!
Thank you for sharing this. I’ll add it to my list of places I want to visit.
Kendall complaining the rooms were small and that mountains make his sneaks muddy made me hate-laugh at him so hard. What a rube.
Now I have to go research this hotel and bump Norway up a few slots on the travel wish list.
“Their hotel with the little pods, river and sauna is Hotel Juvet (also seen in Ex Machina)“
You know, right when they got there I thought it might have been the same place as Ex Machina. Glad to have some confirmation!
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the way it was depicted here is much closer to how it actually looks.
when i saw this episode i was immediately reminded of ex machina. im glad my suspicions were confirmed
WTF Tom, don’t flick your wife’s ear.Also. Karl is awesome.
That actor does not miss a line reading.
Trust him…he knowwwws what he’s doing.
Dude was Sledgehammer.
Shiv deserved it for how poorly she treats him.
It might not fit some people’s definition, but that’s physically abusive to me. Not to mention it, he’s no saint.But it brings me to another incident: Shiv asking him to dinner when they get back. Is this her just working on him? Or did she suddenly get some new respect for him because of the way he punched back? Or did she finally just decide well heck I guess I’m having this baby so might as well keep things friendly.
I mean, yeah, the takeaway is that Shiv and Tom have a toxic relationship where they like hurting each other juuuuust enough. But they have too little selfcontrol so it all ends up messed up. Also, after have to play the “I’m a cool girl who can hang with the boys” to cater to Mattesen’s ego, Shiv maybe appreciates that Tom won’t require that.
I’d take an ear flick every day over the emotional abuse they inflict on each other. They’ve both earned a lifetime of those ear flicks, IMO.
Are you kidding me? Abuse? What’s abuse is how shitty Shiv treats Tom every second of every day. She is the worst character on the show. She’s just as bad as the rest of the family but has this ridiculous air of superiority in her mind.
People seem have a short memory for the times when Tom has been cruel. I don’t have zero sympathy for the guy, but that physical response crossed the line for me. Plus when he tries to assert himself he does it so ham-fisted, such a dumb thing to do and a dumb thing to say.
Sorry, have you actually watched the show? They ALL have a ridiculous air of superiority. If you want to talk about hypocritical *moral* superiority let’s talk about Ewan. He’s a thousand times worse than Shiv on that score. Intellectual superiority? Jeez, where does the queue begin and end?She’s no “worse” than anyone else in that cast.
I listened to the Ringer’s podcast who compared Shiv’s “keep him on a string” with Tom to learning from Lukas. I see it more as what Logan would do with the kids and it is pretty sad (but typical) to see that cyclical familial pattern.
She does have to eventually tell him the pregnancy news…right?
It might not fit some people’s definition, but that’s physically abusive to me. You are not a serious person.-Logan Roy
But you love me??? ❤❤❤❤❤
Shiv can emotionally abuse Tom relentlessly for years but a simple earlobe flick (also provoked by Shiv) is where you draw the line? You lot are so unserious.
Countersigned.
Not saying this is a defense for adults, but Shiv scuffed his pretty white shoes first. So I thought the whole thing was intentionally supposed to play like two kids engaging in playground-style petty verbal and physical abuse. And it did seem like maybe they were both feeling something for each other, at least in the moment, that they were not willing to express openly.
Fikret stays winning
I thought this was a very impressively written episode. It was about as bad-vibes as Succession has ever gotten, which is saying something, and it all rang true. Mattson’s dialogue in particular could not have been easy.
The fact that a failure for Ken and Roman means making millions (billions?) of dollars means that no matter what happens by the end of the series, they’ll ultimately be just fine.
Hard to imagine happiness is in store for all of them by the time of the finale.
Wow. Imagine *actually* thinking that money makes you happy.That’s adorable, sweetie.
I would argue that if there’s anything we should all understand from watching this show it’s that no matter how rich these people are they’ll always be miserable.
Oh absolutely. I don’t see a happy ending for them at all. But they’ll still be fine. They’re used to not being happy. Especially Connor, who ironically will probably get the closest thing to a happy ending.
As Kendall says in the episode “We’re already rich”. It’s not about the money, it’s about the power.
I’m still a little confused on the machinations tonight. Shiv won by suggesting he offer more money? And Kendall lost because it was too much money to turn down? I feel like this was just natural way things are going to go and all could’ve been done with a couple texts.
Kendall didn’t “lose”. Yet. Offering more money essentially in front of everyone (rather than as he had been doing privately) forces Kendall and Roman to take the offer to the Board. So that was Mattsen’s next move. But Kendall and Roman already tipped their hand. Even after the money is ostensibly offered and accepted, they can try to tank the deal (make Mattsen walk) by dragging their feet during the actual finalization process.
Kendall lost because he was shown that he was irrelevant to the deal (“a tribute band” “not a serious person”). Matsson offered enough money that no one in their right mind would side with Kendall and Roman, effectively cutting them out of the deal-making process.
The part I’m confused about is that there are two separate questions at play in the episode — can the kids maximize Matsson’s offer vs. can any of these kids somehow tank the deal while retaining the CEO role and ruling over Logan’s empire?To the first point, Kendall and Roman proved that they were absolutely the right guys for the job. Because they really wanted to tank the deal, they fully convinced Matsson they were willing to walk away from the table, so he had to keep raising the numbers. Had the Old Guard sent Karl in there, he would have ejaculated all over himself at the first (lower) offer, because the Old Guard just wants a golden parachute and isn’t too picky about the final price.But to the second point, I’m not seeing what Kendall or Roman’s endgame would be. They were appointed as interim CEOs to close the Matsson deal. If there’s no deal, the board would just put someone else in charge. I’m not getting how they could ever tank the deal but retain their role(s), and if the point is that they’re delusional and don’t understand that, it didn’t seem all that clear from the way the stakes were presented.
They would have to tank the deal by making Mattson walk away. After that their plan requires that nobody figures out it was them and for the board to say “well we were just keeping you around to finish this deal because it’s what your dad would have wanted, but now we’ll just let you run the corporation going forward”.It’s pretty delusional but that’s their endgame and it’s not entirely impossible.
But wouldn’t allowing Matsson to walk away constitute such a massive failure as to eliminate them for consideration going forwards? They had one job, to close the deal. If they can’t do that, they’re obviously unqualified to be CEOs.It’s a moot point now as they failed to tank the deal, but it felt like a catch-22 scenario where successfully tanking the deal would have resulted in their ouster anyway.
Yeah it’s incredibly unlikely that they’d be able to pull it off but that’s where Kendall and Roman are stuck mentally. It’s obvious to everyone that the best option is to take Mattson’s money and fuck off to some remote island. But Kendall and Roman can’t bear the thought of not being able to run daddy’s company (beyond being mere caretakers during the sale). They see running the company as their birthright and their vision is more or less to roll everything back to the beginning of the series, with Kendall CEO and Roman as COO (now co-CEO). They figure that’s how it should be have gone down anyway, so naturally everyone should be on board with that. Plus they’re assuming that they’ll make Waystar more profitable, which would keep the board and investors happy. It all makes perfect sense in their heads.
Yeah, the kids not understanding it was always their Dad actually keeping them around despite being f’ups, and then learning the hard way they will be out as soon as they f’up again, seems perfectly consistent with what we know of them.
To the first point, Kendall and Roman proved that they were absolutely the right guys for the job. Because they really wanted to tank the deal, they fully convinced Matsson they were willing to walk away from the table, so he had to keep raising the numbers. Had the Old Guard sent Karl in there, he would have ejaculated all over himself at the first (lower) offer, because the Old Guard just wants a golden parachute and isn’t too picky about the final price.I think you’re forgetting one important thing: Kendall and Roman wanted to keep ATN out of the deal, but they capitulated when they realized that Mattson would likely back out of the deal if ATN wasn’t included (which is why Mattson mentioned that Waystar’s stock price dropped 20% in the wake of Logan’s death, so the original deal, sans ATN, for $144 would be a serious overpayment). ATN was their baby, and they had to give it up just to keep Mattson at the table, so it isn’t as if he moved from $144 a share to $192 at the end because of Kendall, Shiv, and Roman. The original $144/share was for Waystar without ATN. The $188-192 was for the entire company, ATN included, so any perceived maximization of value came at the cost of losing the most important part of Waystar to the family: ATN.
But to the second point, I’m not seeing what Kendall or Roman’s endgame would be. They were appointed as interim CEOs to close the Matsson deal. If there’s no deal, the board would just put someone else in charge. I’m not getting how they could ever tank the deal but retain their role(s), and if the point is that they’re delusional and don’t understand that, it didn’t seem all that clear from the way the stakes were presented.The only way they’d return their roles would be to do something that would fundamentally damage Waystar and crater the value of the company to any potential purchasers aside from GoJo: a proxy fight ala season 1 when Kendall tried to get Logan removed. It would be messy and damaging, but if the kids could convince enough other board members and shareholders, it could theoretically work. Highly unlikely considering the kids themselves are the least valuable part of the company, but you never want to piss off people who own around $6-10bn worth of your company stock (those numbers are going off of Logan’s buyout offer of Kendall’s shares from his trust last season, and assuming that Shiv and Roman got an equal amount, and the value has risen in the interim)
The other thing they could do is call for a break or divestiture of certain divisions of Waystar and simply run those. Kendall and Roman wanted ATN, so they could attempt to spin-off ATN from Waystar and run it as a completely non-related entity (which is exactly what their original plan was with the GoJo deal: sell the other parts of Waystar, keep ATN and run that themselves)
there role is to get the best deal, if they “tank” it they’re in violation of laws/SEC rules, they mentioned that in a side-comment as well. They are now “stuck” in the deal/offer because it’s so good that they’d be perceived as deliberately/selfishly tanking it now against the board/shareholders best interests
“Shiv won by suggesting he offer more money?”
Why do people keep saying Shiv won?
Undoubtedly it’s correct that Roman and especially Ken “lost” because their goal was not to give up ATN and, eventually, to kill the deal entirely, and they failed due almost entirely to their own amateurish, transparent buffoonery. But only 3, maybe 4 (depending on what Shiv knows or thinks she knows), people on Earth (plus the audience) know for a fact how badly they got screwed, because only that many people know what Roman and Ken were genuinely after, and what they genuinely wanted. The ironic thing is, if they had gotten what they wanted, they would have been so screwed—they are not equipped to run ATN, let alone the entire Waystar empire, plus the possibility of lawsuits for turning down a good deal. The best outcome for them, and ostensibly for the shareholders whose interests they are, was the one they ended up securing by accident. So Matson “won” by overpaying for ATN because he really wanted to screw over Ken and Roman, Ken and Roman “lost” but fell ass backwards by their own incompetence into probably the most “competent” outcome they could possibly have secured. The upshot, as always, seems to be that the rich and powerful are by and large clueless, bumbling idiots, who more or less buy the appearance of competence and capability.
I can’t remember the exact moment, but there was a certain point during the discussion between Mattson and the brothers where I said out loud “god all these people are idiots!”
What we really learned is that money is Mattson’s superpower but he’s an incompetent sociopath. ATN is just another one of his blood bricks.We got a price the moment they arrived. Kendall whittled it all down to the price and the moment Mattson gave him a number he nodded twice to convey behind Roman’s back that the deal was made.Roman, however, was absorbing every jab and poke that Mattson was throwing at them and he made ATN more than an asset — he made it his father’s legacy and memory. So the fight ended up being the guy most connected to Mattson hating Mattson more than anything and not wanting to give him what he wanted.And that’s the important part here. Kendall took the deal, Shiv jumped on the deal, the oldheads were begging for the deal, and Roman wanted Mattson to hurt.But every scene we kept seeing Mattson take petty swings at Kendall’s family, which gradually tilted the deal out of his favor. If Mattson had just SHUT UP he would have been able to buy ATN and all.But this is why his former consigliere is so important. She has absolute power over Mattson because he doesn’t know how to act like a normal person. Mattson lost BILLIONS OF DOLLARS in the deal over a joke he couldn’t stop making just like he admitted in that room with Shiv.And, sure, in the personal fight that this is, he won by insulting Kendall and Roman. But he MADE IT a personal fight in the span of one episode. They were on his side until he specifically did everything he could in his resentment to make them hate him. He literally invented an enemy he had to defeat in the span of about twenty minutes of show time and he won by giving them more than they ever wanted.As a businessman, Mattson is a total idiot. He has no idea what he’s doing. He throws around power like it has infinite momentum and ends up just giving that power away to everyone around him because he can’t stop.That’s this guy’s life. He’s just a gold-plated wrecking ball who doesn’t GET people and while it may cost him money and power, he still has plenty to throw around — for now.
Thank you for this really well-written summary of his character. I haven’t quite had the words to describe him until this point but I think you really nailed it.
I’m surprised no one picked this up – GoJo is virtually bankrupt. Roman highlighted it at the end of the episode that Mattson was dicking around for 6 weeks and now it’s like go-go-go. The original Logan deal was 144 all cash – this is 192 50/50 cash to stock meaning he’s folding ATN in while paying $50 less a share. GoJo DESPERATELY needs Waystar’s money so if this deal goes through: GoJo collapses, Mattson jumps onto the Waystar life raft while paying $92 a share, and all of the kids get absolutely fucked.
following.
Alexander Skarsgård is one of the top 3 working actors right now, dude is an absolute beast.
I am very interested in the slow unravelling of Roman Roy that’s happening in these episodes. It’s clear that anything to do with his dad is still touching raw nerves, and I think his confrontation with Mattson is the most honest we’ve seen him all season. I’m not sure where this is leading him, but I’d say nowhere good.
He’s going to be arguing with himself like Gollum by the end of this. Culkin did an amazing job of showing on his face how Roman’s internal struggles have broken into all-out war at this point.
My mother in law keeps saying she thinks that Kendall is gonna wind up dead before the end of the series, which I greatly disagree with. (They’ve already teased that card; doesn’t make sense to play it again.)But Roman? The way he’s going I think all bets are off.
Oh yeah, if I had to pick a Roy kid that ends up dead at the end of this, it’s Roman. Kendall is a cockroach; cockroaches always survive. Roman is sensitive and has spent his whole life putting up walls to hide that sensitivity (and to hide from abuse). Something has broken in him with Logan’s death, and I wouldn’t be surprised if in the end he ends up dead.
I thought the line of the night went to Roman:“If a deal falls apart in the woods and no one hears it is it an SEC violation?”
“About 4.6 pounds per liter, apparently; thanks, the internet!”
This is yet another good reason to use the metric system. One litre of a liquid that is mostly water will generally weigh about a kilo.
1000 g = 1000 ml. And incidentally, 1 calorie raises 1 ml of water by 1 degree C.
Shiv effectively playing the Cool Girl was satisfying in how it shows the emptiness of Alpha Male posturing in some contexts. Matteson can easily dominate Kendall and Roman, but he’s got a blindspot where even semi-competent women are concerned. It’s interesting.
“Matteson can easily dominate Kendall and Roman, but he’s got a blindspot where even semi-competent women are concerned.”
Right, he’s got a blind spot, which explains why he was able to use her to fuck Roman and Kendall. He just has No cLUe wHat hE’s DoiNG!!!
“Your earlobes are thick and chewy. They’re like barnacle meat.”I mean…who can write a line like this? Bravo.
Barnacle Meat is gonna be the name of the hot new sea-shanty pirate metal band
Introducing the new sea-faring alternative to Farmers Only:Barnacle Meet
“Tom and Shiv do a complicated little dance tonight, including some literal playground fighting.”Here’s how the word “literal” works: it’s not literal if they’re not LITERALLY fighting in a playground.“Shiv has all the power, but Tom gets the best line: “Your earlobes are thick and chewy. They’re like barnacle meat.””You thought that was a good line?
I think the connection Roman has with Menken will tank the deal – the candidate running up a stink about foreign influence on the news (and actually afraid of losing the inside track he has) will delay the deal/make it too costly for Matsson. He‘ll have 1-2 more episodes & the rest will be about the empire struggling & being divided – possibly with Shiv&Tom in charge of ATN (take that Menken).Ceterum censeo, please ungrey me..
Previous comment -“I’m surprised no one picked this up – GoJo is virtually bankrupt. Roman
highlighted it at the end of the episode that Mattson was dicking around
for 6 weeks and now it’s like go-go-go. The original Logan deal was 144
all cash – this is 192 50/50 cash to stock meaning he’s folding ATN in
while paying $50 less a share. GoJo DESPERATELY needs Waystar’s money so
if this deal goes through: GoJo collapses, Mattson jumps onto the
Waystar life raft while paying $92 a share, and all of the kids get absolutely fucked
Did anyone notice that Roman appeared to be wearing a VERY ‘Loganesque’ sweater (dark blue cableknit) in once scene?
So, “The Hundred” is still gonna happen, right? LOL no wonder the kids are fighting so hard to hold on to their dad’s legacy.
“Da Family”“Da fuck?”
God that was good. He’s so desperate for an in and they couldn’t give less of a shit.
My god this season, outside of one episode, has been tediously boring. They’re basically giving Shiv and Roman the same exact acting directions. Hell even the death episode was just talking talking talking.
Everyone is entitled to their opinions, of course, but I can’t imagine anyone that’s loved the show from the beginning finding this season boring.It’s been brilliant.
Yeah, I have found it pretty gripping.And very funny, which is important since it is still a comedy at the end of the day.
i was worried last week because there was definitely something missing with the first post-cox episode (which was probably a feeling they deliberately evoked) but this recent was one of the best episodes of the last two seasons IMO.
What show have you been watching? Cuz this corporate malfeasance dramedy has been almost entirely talking talking talking.
34 episodes so far, and only ONE car crash . . . .
I’m really loving Frank and Karl leaning into old guy who doesn’t give a shit mode this episode. Those compression socks would be embarrassing to a younger guy, but it’s a long flight and there may be a lot of walking when they get there. Hell of that was me I’d probably throw ony plantar fasciitis splint and take a nap!And when the new offer comes in you can see them mentally calculating the impact to their parachutes. That Greek island is within reach!
I know a lot of the audience is rooting for Roman, feeling like he has become a better person, but Mencken is the fly in the ointment. Roman is backing and propping up a racist fascist. I find that unforgiveable.
Seriously, I can’t believe everyone seems to have forgotten about this. And since they explicitly mentioned the election, I have the feeling the show hasn’t.
Not seeing people ignore it in the comments here, but I have in the past. It’s a pretty big deal! He’s like is Tucker Carlson was a hair’s breathe away from being president.
I don’t know that anyone has “forgotten” about it as much as the show hasn’t brought it up much and it kinda fades into the background of general “Oh right, Roman is a fucked up guy in a lot of ways.”Like we all recall his joy at having NOT killed anyone with his satellite launch fuckup, right? And whether or not we like the sick puppy stuff he WAS sending a coworker unsolicited dick pics.Nobody forgets what a shit he is. We just also allow these characters some humanity. Which is great, because that gives them depth. Like good characters should have.
Absolutely. They are all sociopaths in their own ways.
True Blood, all the blood sacrifice stuff in The Northman and now this: what is it with Alexander Skarsgård and blood?
Look, I haven’t read the recap yet, but I can’t get past this blood weighs “about 4.6 pounds per liter” thing. Good heavens… I don’t know what Internet you were using to answer this question but, that is about double what it actually weighs here on Earth. OK, going back to read the rest now.
General AV Club Review question: For Succession and House of the Dragon, why is the listed cast in the panel with the episode’s grade exclusive to male cast members?
I feel like we’re watching Kieran Culkin grow on screen. In that confrontation scene with Mattson, I thought “Well, I have never seen that from him before.” It’s been pretty great to see.
Quick shout out to Eili Harboe’s performance as Ebba (recipient of blood bricks). Not a lot of screen time but it was intriguingly ambiguous, and then we got the backstory (if it wasn’t all BS) and it particularly clicked.It sure seems like more could be made of all that. Or not. But I wouldn’t mind if we got more Ebba, because I thought she was the most nuanced/interesting of the GoJo staff.
[clicks teeth]
I haven’t watched the series till the end of last year. I started watching this season it irritates the shit out of me. It is 50 minutes of dithering every week. Every single thing turns into a poll question and questioning the results to death…
Yes, that is kind of the point.
Matsson*, as in “Mat’s son”. If you keep making this unprofessional typo next week, I will be sorely, sorely disappointed.
Gerri’s speech was good, and delivered with just the right amount of lack of conviction to not inspire anyone.
I’m not so sure the kids got played by Mattson. I think they learned something from watching their father all those years, will unite in their defense of what he built despite their very mixed feelings and are going to come out on top of this deal. Side note – Roman is much smarter than he is given credit for. It’s just a hunch that they are the players and not the played but either way I’m curious to see how it turns out.
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Greg’s failed attempt at familial over-familiarity – “The Quad Squad!”
Im late, but a moment I’m seeing go unmentioned is Jess’s double take and look of utter confusion when Greg says Quad Squad in front of her.
“One (Roman) toward slavish recreation of their father’s last wishes and the other (Kendall) toward trying to cosplay as him.”in case you missed it, Roman is actually the one (literally) cosplaying as Daddy, as he dons Logan’s infamous oversized blue sweater towards the end of the episode. (this is also a nod to Shiv’s earlier crack about, “keeping one of Dad’s old sweaters, less racist” after the boys decided they were fine with the potential consequences of blowing up the deal.)personal comedy highlight for me was Shiv calling Tom a “spelunker” – their flirt-fighting is adorable. it’s mirroring how Shiv interacts with her brothers, which is interesting. they say the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference. welp, sure seems to me like Shiv’s anything but indifferent towards Tom, even going so far as to make sure he was saved from the Swedish axe.
For half a second, I kind of thought they might throw Mattson off the mountain.Missed this comment by the author. I’d bet on Mattson picking Roman and Kendall up and throwing them both off the mountain over the reverse.
hKenMaybe I’m giving Kendall too much credit but I couldn’t help wonder if Mattson going so high is actually what Ken wanted in the end. At the beginning of the episode they just wanted more money and I can’t help but think about Mattson talking about how transparent they’re being about tanking the deal combined with the comment later when they’re all in the airplane about how you can’t tell how the deal went based on Kendall’s face, you need to look at Roman.
I think that’s referring to how Kendall does have more going on here than what he’s showing.
The expressions on Roman’s and Kendall’s faces is identical to the moment when Michael and Dwight found out, for reasons they could not understand, that their desired rescue of the Scranton branch had occurred.Shiv is the only Roy child in which Mattson sees Logan. There was some borderline flirtiness but I think deep down Mattson was missing the Logan Roy energy. Props to the hair and makeup team who kept Skarsgard’s hat head in perfect form scene to scene and shot to shot. That’s real commitment to continuity!Notice that neither Roman nor Kendall have taken a seat at Logan’s desks (the one in the office and the one in his apartment/townhouse). Both times, the chair gets a look but no attempt is made to sit down. These guys aren’t up to taking the throne. Logan would have bee-lined for the chair the moment he saw it. So would Shiv.
anyone else think the setting for this episode is where they shot ex machina?
I thought Roman was going to push him right off the mountain too.Just for a fleeting moment.
Anyone noticed that Kendall wears stocking hats a lot and always looks really weird in them? A real prison lifer vibe when he’s rocking the black stocking cap