"Succession" Recap: Mountaintop Dealmaking
In "Kill List," the fifth episode of the season, the Waystar team travels to Norway to complete the GoJo sale.
It’s not a coincidence that “Kill List,” the most conventional episode of the season thus far, opens with Kendall doing the same thing he did in the series premiere: listening to New York hip-hop as he rides in the backseat of a limousine driving him to Waystar HQ. The difference (besides the switch-up from the Beastie Boys to Jay-Z) is that Kendall isn’t entering Waystar at his father’s bidding. He’s now atop the Waystar throne, and he enters his new office on a warpath. He and his newly-promoted brother Roman waltz around the office with the confidence of two eight-year-olds who have been given unlimited access to a Chuck E. Cheese, proudly proclaiming “fuck off” to every lackey in their path. It’s a pale emulation of their father’s old catchphrase, and everyone knows it. Shiv, already recognizing the worthlessness of the Sibling Alliance Pact from the previous episode, watches her brothers’ incompetence with a scheming eye, ready to take advantage of them the moment that an opportunity presents itself.
When I say that this episode is a conventional one, I do not at all mean that in a negative light. Like many of Succession’s best, “Kill List” invents a simple theatrical device to bring each of its characters into a single Machiavellian location, in this case a GoJo company retreat in Norway, to which Lukas Matsson has demanded the attendance every upper-crust Waystar team member. Matsson claims that he’s inviting Waystar’s leadership for a “cultural compatibility check,” but the real reason stems from the “Kill List” of the episode’s title: Matsson is preparing for a corporate culling.
The Old Guard are the first to freak out, leading to some hilarious, cringe-worthy set pieces at GoJo’s pseudo-Viking country club. Hugo gets accused of overloading at the breakfast bar, and his defense (“I metabolize fast because I’m dynamic”) is almost as embarrassing as his failed macho takedown of GoJo’s deputy communications officer (“I heard you almost got a bronze at Sochi!”). Tom blunders into conversations with the grace of a headless Midwestern chicken. Greg fails to project a single ounce of sophistication before his Swedish peers. With these goons leading the charge, Waystar is a big old corporate joke, and Matsson and his peers picks up on it quickly, laughing at the nepotistic Roy family in their native tongue.
This last bit sets Kendall off. He accuses them of asshole behavior (“Maybe it’s funnier with subtitles,” he says, which it definitely is). “We’re just passing the time until you come up with a counter,” responds Matsson, pointing to the very real fact that neither Kendall nor Roman know what to do with the lucrative new deal that he’s offered them. Matsson wants to roll ATN into the Waystar deal for a significant price bump—a good deal by anyone’s metrics. The problem is that the Roy brothers, ever their dead father’s sons, don’t see how this fits into Logan’s old plan. Roman is especially concerned. “It’s Dad’s plan,” he murmurs repeatedly throughout the episode, driving home the fact that this squirmy boy is still trying to gain his father’s love.
Kendall is more open to the possibility, but it’s not high on his priorities. He, like Roman, hates the prospect of letting this 4chan tech-bro destroy their father’s legacy, but unlike Roman, he’s much less interested in maintaining his father’s old vision. With a self-aggrandizement matched only by his sister, Kendall would rather ruin the whole deal than face another moment with Matsson. “I like running the ship, I think we’re good at it, and I don’t want to stop,” he says to his brother when proposing that they tank the sale. He admits with a smile that doing so will be risky, like “a tightrope walk on a straight razor.” Roman accepts the deal, but he’s uncomfortable at the pleasure Kendall is taking in this potential suicide act. “Who likes tightrope walking on a straight razor?” he asks, and the answer is obvious: Kendall is only happy when he’s living at the edge of his career, risking it all to usurp the ghost of a father figure—a ghost that has now taken the form of an edgy Swede.
The only Roy sibling that Matsson gives any shine is Siobhan, who has been lurking in the background of this episode like a shark sniffing for blood. Shiv quietly inserts herself into Matsson’s periphery, and the two eventually find themselves in a secluded room opening up about their respective romances. Shiv tells Matsson about her collapsing marriage with Tom; Matsson opens up about a “joke” that he’s perpetrated against his ex-girlfriend Ebba whereby he sends half-liters (!) of his frozen blood (!!) to her front steps (!!!). It’s a sex act reminiscent of Roman’s dick-pic obsession, and Matsson likewise frames it a “nasty but friendly joke.” Shiv, having been raised in a family of patriarchal perverts, knows just how to respond. She offers Matsson some “informal advice” and an instant three-point PR plan to minimize his legal danger. (It is also here that Shiv mentions Gerri and Karolina by name, saving their hides for the titular kill list that gets released at the end of the episode.)
Matsson responds to her business ops with a sly smile. He appreciates that Shiv isn’t “judgy,” and that she, like Logan can take a joke (which is to say, laugh off the abuse allegations of having sent someone multiple liters of frozen fucking blood). The comparison between Shiv an her father puts a pep in her step, causing her to approach Tom with som sexy (?) abuse-banter. She steps on his shoes. He whacks her earlobes. She calls his body “wiry” in comparison to Matsson’s. Shiv, having reestablished a position of power via Matsson, is ready for a bit of foreplay.
The dealmaking, and the episode, come to a head atop a mountain, where Roman and Kendall paint Waystar as a failing industry. They mention how their new franchise movie—Kalispitron, sounding like the worst possible meeting between Transformers met The Eternals—has gone way over-budget, requiring reshoots and redone CGI. It’s a brazen attempt to tank the deal, and Matsson immediately recognizes it. “I preferred doing this with your dad,” he says in a dismissive tone that gets to the hard of the brothers’ anxieties. “I mean, he was a prick, but at least he knew what he wanted.”
It’s a perfect description of Logan Roy, but the comment sets Roman ablaze. He finally lets loose on all the feelings that have been brewing since his father’s death, calling Matsson an “inhuman fucking dog man” for not having been able to just wait a single week from their dad’s passing. Kieran Culkin, who is fantastic in this monologue, builds Roman’s anger to a point of childish refusal, openly telling Matsson that they will never sell to him for the simple reason that Roman hates him. Matsson’s response—a calm, cool, and collected “You just fucked yourself”—is unwavering, and frankly seems accurate. If there’s ever a lesson to be learned from Succession, it’s that honesty and morality will only lead to failure—and Roman has just ousted himself as a loyal son.
It comes as something of a surprise, then, when Matsson calls Frank on their flight back home to inform them that he wants to buy Waystar and ATN for $192 per share—a significant five-dollar bump from an earlier. It’s an offer too good to deny, and everyone aboard the flight begins celebrating. Did Roman’s negotiations work after all? In a sense, yes—Matsson clocked how much he’d need to push the bid in order to acquire Waystar—but the reality is more cunning. Roman revealed just how much he idolizes his father in his mountaintop speech, and Matsson clocked it. He saw just how much the Roy brothers would rather play toy soldiers with their father’s empire than sell it, and he won’t let that happen. When Matsson calls Shiv at the end of the episode, asking her to take a picture of her devastated brothers, it’s an act of pure spite. Shiv is up for it, too. She looks ready to sweep the throne.
Notes and Quotes
There’s been a trend in this season of finishing each episode with a shot of whoever is furthest ahead in the family power rankings. In the first two episodes, it was Logan. In episodes three and four, it was Kendall. In this episode, it’s Shiv. What might that say for the remaining five?
Alexander Skarsgård, who delivers a towering performance in this episode, has the abs of a man who never left the set of The Northman. His ripped Viking bod is not to be trifled with.
When Matsson has sex with random hookups, he listens to podcasts with noise-cancelling headphones. Roman has officially been trumped as Succession’s strangest pervert.
Then again, maybe Matsson has more in common with Matsson than we first thought. His confefssion of such intimate, abuse-allegation details to Shiv reveals a desire for a sin-absolving sex mommy akin to Roman’s strange relationship with Gerri.
Cousin Greg on the future prospects of France, based on an article he read in The Economist: “Old Lady France? Fucking don’t fucking bet against the old fucking, uh, the baguette. The baguette might be mightier than the bagel!”
Also Cousin Greg: “Quad Squad. It’s Quad Squad type shit.” Can Nicholas Braun be the hype man on my forthcoming indie hip-hop album?
Matsson with some casual misogyny: “Ebba is like an estrogen air freshener we keep around to try to keep us smelling clean.”
…and Ebba with a crafty response: “It’s okay—I keep notes. When I walk, it goes in my book, or they pay me off.”
Karl and Frank making fun of the Swedes while sitting outside a boiling sauna is all the evidence I need for a Karl and Frank spinoff show. They’d make a fantastic Odd Couple-style sitcom pairing.