Spoiler alert: this recap is for people watching Succession season four. Don’t read on unless you’ve watched episode five.
From Hungary to the Highlands, from Tuscany to superyachts, Succession’s overseas trips are always a treat. Now the swansong series reached its midway mark with high-stakes negotiations in Norway. Here’s your serious Scandi spread from the episode entitled Kill List …
‘Let’s bleed the Swede’
Summoned to meet GoJo tycoon Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård), “CE-bros” Kendall (Jeremy Strong) and Roman Roy (Kieran Culkin) stopped off at Waystar Royco HQ en route. An “In memoriam” portrait of their father, Logan (Brian Cox), hung in the lobby. There truly was no escape from the omniscient patriarch’s grumpy gaze.
“What’s bubbling? Short-range toplines?” Kendall asked in trademark business brospeak. The studio division was burning through cash thanks to a ropey robot movie called Kalispitron (first mentioned in series two). Sister Shiv (Sarah Snook) was twitchy about being sidelined from “Boomers v Zoomers” confabs. She was also concerned about leaks implying that Logan had been losing it before his death, little suspecting the smear campaign came from Team Kendall. Her brothers were focused on squeezing an extra $4 a share from Matsson. As Kendall put it: “$144 is the magic number, we’re hoping for $148. That’s the whole game.”
Word came that Matsson wanted the wider Waystar exec team to fly over for his annual corporate retreat. It was a “cultural compatibility check”, “musical electric chairs” to decide who they’d retain after the acquisition. As they boarded private jets, Karl (David Rasche) and Frank (Peter Friedman) pointedly donned compression socks to protect against Logan-style embolisms. Wise are those corporate greybeards.
GoJo Vikings v Waystar Wolves
Arriving at their Nordic eco-resort – this place, in fact – the incomers were shown to swish cabins stocked with GoJo “merch”. For the second episode running, Roman – resplendent in a Logan tribute cardigan – was glimpsed popping pills. Don’t self-sabotage, Romulus. Corporate bonding activities included axe-throwing, archery and saunas (“poor bastards, hanging in the window like peking duck”).
While the negotiating team took a cable car up the mountain to meet Matsson, the rest encountered their opposite numbers – “a Nasdaq master race”, “Fulbrights coming out of their ass” – over an awkward buffet brunch. Nervous-gabbling Hugo (Fisher Stevens) was intimidated by his rival comms director, a former Olympic skier. PR chief Karolina (Dagmara Domińczyk) complimented her counterpart’s fresh complexion. The shamelessly venal Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) wasted no time in brown-nosing. It was even more excruciating when he sucked up to Matsson. Remember laughing at someone’s shorts in Sun Valley? Er, nope.
Deal or no deal?
Skarsgård was brilliantly ghastly as the Elon Musk/Daniel Ek-esque mogul playing mindgames. He ridiculed the Roys for bringing “the village elders”, despite asking them to do exactly that. “Fuck him and his dude-bluff,” snapped Shiv. He dressed like a hipster hobo, fished for sympathy over his father’s suicide, spoke Swedish and wound up the Roy party mercilessly. Cocky on home turf, he cruelly enjoyed watching the out-of-their-depth duo flounder. Suddenly Matsson sprang a surprise. He wanted rolling news channel ATN restored to the deal, offering $187 a share for the whole caboodle. Kendall looked tempted. Roman was outraged. There followed 13 seconds of tense silence – rare for a show as dialogue-dense as Succession.
The “boiled eggs” salivated at the prospect of a payout. Shiv was keen to offload the “toxic asset” – not least when it emerged that ATN had aligned too closely with far-right presidential candidate Jeryd Mencken. “It was Dad’s pride and joy,” argued Roman. “He died trying to keep it.” “Let’s keep one of his old sweaters,” retorted Shiv. “Less racist.” Matsson said ATN’s business model (“news for angry old people”) wouldn’t work long-term. He’d make it “more Bloomberg … Ikea-ed to fuck”. When Kendall suggested he didn’t understand what he was buying, Matsson slapped him down by mentioning his season one failure with media startup Vaulter.
Nose out of joint, Kendall wanted to torpedo the entire sale. They’d relished running things themselves (guys, it’s only been a weekend) and feared Matsson would destroy everything Logan had built. Roman wanted to consult Shiv. Kendall didn’t. They’d need to make Matsson walk away, so the board didn’t suspect they’d deliberately tanked the deal themselves. Kendall smiled, relishing the recklessness.
Can Pinkie dance? Sure she can
While the brothers fumbled the ball, Shiv was on manoeuvres. Matsson took a semi-predatory shine to her. Over late-night cocaine-and-Scotch – pregnant Shiv didn’t actually snort and only took tiny sips – he confided in her about a potential sex scandal. He’d had an affair with his comms chief, then sent her bricks of his frozen blood after they split. An incredulous Shiv offered damage-limitation advice but didn’t use the intel against him. Yet.
Next morning, she indulged in some S&M-adjacent negging with Tom. She kicked gravel at his box-fresh sneakers. He flicked her ear playground-style. She made him jealous by purring that Matsson was “very conventionally attractive” and made Tom look like “a spelunker”. This once passed for flirting in their dysfunctional marriage. When Roman and Ken offered to fire Tom from ATN – he’d feared “being whacked by the cast of Bugsy Malone” – she demurred and asked Tom out for dinner. As presumed father of her baby, is she plotting a joint power-grab?
Much-needed succour for Tom because has the Nero/Sporus dream died? He’s been increasingly snappy with cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) – happy to crack off-colour gags himself, then hopping on his high horse if Greg joins in. As the Disgusting Brothers drifted apart, Greg defected to the siblings’ side, coining them “the quad squad”. If it is to be said, so it be, so it is.
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Take it to the ridge
The siblings’ unsubtle sale-sabotaging schemes – leaking to reporters that company cultures clashed, hastily arranging a Kalispitron screening – were too transparent. In a mountaintop meeting, Matsson accused them of “Scooby Doo-ing me” and going to “Hanna-Barbera business school”. He’d work around them and go directly to the Waystar board. “Your dad was a prick but at least he knew what he wanted,” he sneered, ostentatiously urinating against a rock.
It proved the last straw for Roman, already rattled by Connor (Alan Ruck) texting a pic of Logan’s corpse from the embalming room. Heartbreakingly on the verge of tears (Culkin rivalled Snook and Skarsgård as this episode’s MVP), he lambasted Matsson for dragging them to Norway within days of their father’s death. He accused him of effectively killing Logan, called him an “inhuman dogman” and vowed never to sell to him.
Buckle your seatbelts for one last twist. As Team Waystar flew home, Matsson called Frank with a revised offer – a $5 bump to $192 a share. The jubilant greybeards hailed the baffled siblings as “conquering heroes”, telling them Dad would be proud. Had Matsson paid a premium for ATN to spite them? Their accidental tactic had worked. They’d failed upwards. Gloating Matsson asked smirking Shiv to take a photo of their shellshocked faces. Just time for a look at GoJo’s kill list. Surplus to requirements were Ray and Mark (whatever, we only just met), Hugo (“that slalom motherfucker”), Frank and Karl (blow cushioned by golden parachutes). Wot, no Tom? Shiv had surely saved her hapless estranged husband.
The heir apparent
Shiv? A Shiv/Matsson alliance with Tom sprinkles? If the acquisition goes ahead, she put herself in pole position to take the “Roy at Royco” reins. No wonder she looked so pleased with herself.
Line of the week
Matsson’s withering dismissal of Kendall was up there: “I don’t care what you think, you’re a tribute band.” But the prize goes to the in-flight pep talk by Gerri (J Smith Cameron): “Sure, they’re young and fit but they’re European. They’re soft. Hammocked in their social security safety nets. Sick on vacation mania and free healthcare. They may think they’re Vikings, but we’ve been raised by wolves, exposed to a pathogen by the name of Logan Roy, and they have no idea what’s coming to them.” Go, Ger-bear.
Notes and observations
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Echoes of the first ever episode as Kendall arrived at the office to a rap soundtrack. This time it was Takeover by Jay-Z (“I got money stacks bigger than you …”).
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Poor Willa (Justine Lupe), spending her honeymoon in a funeral home, deciding whether Logan in a kilt “looks like a fucking Bay City Roller”.
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Good to see some female solidarity amid the backstabbing. Shiv protected Gerri and Karolina from the chop, while Karolina saluted Jess for procuring the kill list.
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This was the fifth episode directed by Andrij Parekh, who won an Emmy for season two’s Hunting – AKA “the Boar on the Floor one”. Was Tom and Greg loitering by the hog roast a callback?
Norse gods or total Viking helmets? Rejoin us here next Monday but in the meantime, emperor penguins, please posit your thoughts and theories below …
