Succession – Kill List

By: Kelly Kearney

In episode 5 we head to Norway where the Roy siblings – joined with the Old Guard, attempt to settle the  Gojo deal with Matson on a mountaintop high above the “little people.” As the negotiations roll on, things become increasingly clear that Matsson might not be the right fit for Logan Roy’s company. Can the new CE-Bros kill the deal, steal Logan’s company, and get the board behind them? The markets are stabilizing after the shocking death of Logan Roy,  so it looks like we are about to find out!

“Kill the Swede”

“Let’s go kill the Swede!” We’re off to Norway but it’s not to explore the expansive mountains and taste the pickled fish, there is a new boss, or bosses, at Waystar and the CE-Bros have business deals on their minds. We open in New York with Kendall (Jeremy Strong) and what almost feels like a bookend to the opening scene in season one. Kendall is in the back of a car with his headphones and sunglasses on listening to Jay Z’s “Takeover,” a fitting anthem for the new co-King. Succeeding his father is exactly what this day is about as Kendall walks into the Waystar offices to a round of applause from the staff–some of whom worked for his father for decades. When he gets to his office he sees that Roman (Kieran Culkin) got to work early and he’s already prepping their staff while keeping a keen eye on the Old Guard. Their big day is cut short when Matsson (Alexander Skarsgard) summons the entire c-suite, CE-Bros, Shiv (Sarah Snook), and the “three ogres,” as Kendall refers to them, Frank (Peter Friedman), Gerri (J. Smith-Cameron), and Karl (David Rasche) to Norway for a weekend at his executive retreat. Inviting them all to his private mountain resort seems like good news for the Waystar/Gojo deal,  but it also means this will be a weekend of wrestling with power moguls while everyone jockeys for their golden parachutes; or at the very least, not to end up on the merger’s kill list. Post-sale, some of the Waystar attendees will leave the mountain without a job, while others will move on to the next iteration of Logan’s (Brian Cox)  legacy. Unsurprisingly, the Old Guard is worried about who might not make it to the other side, while Roman and Kendall prepare for their very first deal that could make or break their careers. One of the topics the CE- Bros are concerned with is whether or not Matsson is going to mention the movie studio which is now being referred to as the cash incinerator. It’s all thanks to some reshoots on an out-of-control robot movie with a budget that is climbing high above the film’s worth. They worry that could be a deal breaker for the merger when Matsson finds out.

Luckily for Kendall and Roman, Matsson couldn’t care less about movies, he’s more interested in their father’s baby, ATN. When the deal with Gojo was initially drawn up, ATN was not included in the package. Logan had big plans for ATN, as we remember from his final speech where he promised to make the right-winged propaganda channel meaner and bigger and called the staff pirates of the news world. Logan really saw ATN as a stepping stone to something new and he absolutely did not want Matsson to get his Nordic fingers on it. Now Matsson not only wants ATN he also wants to reconfigure the deal to reflect the addition with a much larger price tag. Once they land in Norway, Kendall and Roman get squirrely about the offer after Matsson bluntly refers to ATN as a “chop shop.” He doesn’t, “think news for angry old people works. Good parts, bad brand.” Matsson has his own ideas for ATN, which he compares to a cheaper Ikea version of Bloomberg News, and he is willing to pay way above their top asking price for it. Before Kendall and Roman landed and met with Lukas Matsson, they discussed with Shiv the price they were willing to take on the deal. That number was 144 billion– no less, but with ATN included, Matsson is now offering 187 million and a 50/50 cash stock going to the Roy sibs. This is a deal that is very hard to turn down. Right out of the gate, the CE-Bros have the opportunity to not only land the deal of the decade but negotiate a bump in the price if they’re willing to ignore their father’s last wishes and take the money and run. From the look on Gerri’s smiling face, the brothers know what the Old Guard would do, but is it what their father would do? That’s the question.

Daddy’s Memorable Sweater and Forget the Rest

Roman honors the deal they made last week to always keep Shiv aware of whatever’s happening with the business, the brothers rope their sister into the conversation and talk about whether or not selling ATN would be betraying their father’s legacy. Shiv makes a joke about what they could keep as a memory of their father instead, “Let’s just keep one of his old sweaters– less racist,” because she was never ideologically behind the brand of news and candidates ATN was selling in the first place. To toss it into the deal for an extra 40-something billion is a no-brainer for her, but Roman and Kendall aren’t so sure. After many back and forths about what to do, and swallowing down quite a few insults from Matsson– he refers to their new CEOs as a tribute band on top of the disparaging remarks he said about Logan to Roman at Kendall’s birthday party, everything about this deal starts to feel wrong. To the point that the CE-Bros decide to do the unthinkable and sabotage the deal. Who better to run their father’s company than them? They had a good thing going with The Hundred, and securing the deal with PGN; they could take what their father left them and turn it into the monster he hoped it would become. They have ideas and they have capital, and for now, they have the Old Guard behind them thanks to the stable market. The brothers decide the way to get this to work is to convince Mattson that they’re going through with the deal, and then when the tech bro least expects it, pull the rug out from under him and keep Waystar and ATN for themselves. Kendall breathes some reality into Roman by letting him know the road they’re going down is not going to be easy, “it’s a tightrope walk on a straight razor. 500 ft. reputational drop.”  If they win– they fly high, but if they lose and fall flat on their faces, they take everyone else with them.  Roman wonders if that’s the proper description for what’s going down because walking a tightrope on a straight razor isn’t, particularly something most people enjoy doing, but he’s starting to see the genius in Kendall’s plan. Whichever way this deal shakes out, the process to get there is going to be uncomfortable and some people are going to get burned.

Back in New York, Connor (Alan Ruck) is having one of his hard butter Looney cake moments while handling the funeral arrangements for their father. He’s not the only one showing signs of unraveling after Logan’s death, Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) and Greg (Nicholas Braun) both secure a spot on the plane to Norway but the two of them have never felt more on the outside looking in. The Disgusting Brothers are still trying to ingratiate themselves into the family dynamic– with Greg even trying to float a name for themselves, “The Quad Squad.” What’s interesting about the Quad Squad is how Greg sees himself as the fourth Roy Beatle and yet, Sporus has left no room for his buddy Nero (Tom). When this series began, Cousin Greg was sort of this red herring. He was the comic relief–the broke forgotten cousin living on his last $20 in the hopes his very wealthy great-uncle would carve out a path for him in the business world. Greg was, for all intents and purposes, innocent;  rejecting the volatile world his family ruled. Now he has evolved into this slimy and insidious parasite who latches on to anyone with the power to toss him some scraps. The most obvious example of this is when he attached himself to the widow Marcia (Hiam Abbass) and egged on her cruelty toward Logan’s mistress. Kerry (Zoe Winters) just for some brownie points in whatever inheritance his uncle left the woman. That cluelessly clumsy cousin is still embarrassing himself–that won’t change, but at least the conniving genetic code that made him a Roy still managed to do him a solid and doodled his way into Logan’s will. Now, “Greg the Egg,” is slithering his way into the Gojo deal by allowing his cousin Kendall to place the blame on him for the recent string of hit pieces coming out about Logan’s competency. Apparently, everyone is talking about who the unnamed source is claiming Logan was phoning in the business from his sick bed. After last week’s final moments, we know that the unnamed source is Kendall– who went behind Roman’s back to blackmail Hugo (Fisher Stevens) into leaking rumors that the CE- Bros have been running the show ever since their father’s stroke. Roman explicitly told Karolina and Hugo to never talk filth in their father’s name, but Kendall went right ahead and did it anyway and now he needs a scapegoat…a very tall and clownish one.

Silent Sex and Half Frozen Blood Bricks

Negotiations go back and forth high above the clouds and for the most part. Shiv is in the spectator’s role, having no official title in the company. She’s been pushed to the side– at least publicly, but behind the scenes, she’s acting like a marionette pulling Matsson’s strings. She meets with the tech bro alone on the first night of this deal-making business retreat and she discovers the man is exactly what her father thought he was– a bit of a kook, unserious, and also venomous if one gets close enough to strike. This is why it’s surprising when Shiv becomes a victim of his charms and engages in some flirtatious banter while sharing a few lines of ketamine and a drink to loosen Matsson up. Shiv is trying to prove to him that she can play ball. She winds up keeping her cool when he talks about his crumbling relationship with the head of Gojo’s PR– a woman named Ebby. Apparently, he had a relationship with her that soured and after the breakup, he sent her, “a half-liter frozen blood brick as a joke.” The man is certainly eccentric, as he talks about his preferred sex position and is barely engaged and listening to podcasts while the woman does all the work. He even tries to offer some sympathy about her recent loss by confiding in her about how his father killed himself and he found the body. Shiv, who is sort of a master at the smile and nod, is concerned about the bloody mail he sent making its way to the public rumor mill. As someone who made a living fluffing the reputations of powerful men like Senator Gill Eavis, she gives him her best management advice and tells him to stop sending bodily fluids to subordinates because it could tank his career. Right away Mattson likes her and tells her that her non-judgmental attitude is appealing. This opens the door for her to confide in him a little about her crumbling marriage, which opens the door to the topic of who should stick around after the deal goes through and whose name will grace, “The kill list.” In a surprising moment of feminist solidarity, Shiv mentions keeping Gerri on as General Counsel and bringing Karolina over to replace his bloody bad decision. Both women have made careers of cleaning up after terrible men, and they could make this Ebby thing disappear. That seems to delight Lukas as much as it does the Gerrolina fans.

Later, when she meets up with her brothers, Shiv doesn’t reveal any of the details of her conversation with Matsson. Not that they care,  the two brothers are too busy slipping away from the pack to plot and plan their next moves. As the Swedish crew is busy watching rough cuts from that exorbitantly expensive robot movie, the Old Guard is engaging in what can only be described as corporate hunger games i.e. Gerri Kellman girl bossing her way into the men’s sauna while Frank and Karl in their support socks and fluffy robes bow out of the race–KILL LIST BE DAMNED! The two men aren’t interested in wrestling for the job titles they were no longer all that attached to anyway. A little goodbye package in the form of Karl’s Greek island and that golden parachute is enough to satisfy those old buzzards but they do get a kick out of watching their co-workers through the sauna’s window boiling for the opportunity to kiss Matsson’s ring. Karl refers to them as “Peking Ducks hanging in the window” because it’s always food with that guy!

Roman Snaps but the Deal is Done…or is it?

In a glass gondola crawling upwards to the top of the world, Roman gets a text from Connor and it’s a photo of a very dead Logan being prepped for the funeral. It isn’t exactly the image Roman was ready to see–especially when we saw him earlier, entranced with the airplane floor knowing it was the exact spot his Dad gasped his final breaths. Roman said he’s “pre-grieved” but everything about those hidden moments seems to suggest he’s gearing up for an epic meltdown. The photo Connor sent, the voicemail he left tearing into his father for making him fire Gerri, and what he believes was ultimately what killed the man, lead to one explosively furious moment on the mountain between the brothers and the Swedish interloper. In the clouds the 3 billionaires try beating around the very obvious bush, avoiding a simple handshake on a deal that will make them all even richer. Matsson wants an answer from the brothers and uses the news leaks about Logan as proof the boys are in over their heads. It’s when he starts to tear into their recently deceased Logan that Roman has had enough. He ditches the plan to string Matsson and goes nuclear, unleashing a fury of spitting insults and threats. Roman, in what is undeniably an Emmy-winning moment crafted by Kieran Culkin, rips into Lukas by saying the deal is off but then backtracks to say they will throw so much sand in the gears that it will drag this thing out forever. If he thinks about ratting them out to the board, Roman will just say this is a negotiation tactic because, in the end, all he wants to do is crush the Swede; crush him before he takes his father’s company, crush him for ridiculing their family, and most importantly crush the guilt he has over that voice message and place all the blame on Lukas. He actually does that, showing Lukas his cards for a second, when he accuses the man of dragging out this deal long enough that the stress killed their father. Roman is just throwing everything at the board hoping something sticks. When he’s done tearing Matsson apart, they leave the deal and their new roles as CEO on top of that mountain. Lukas’ parting words to Roman are both a threat and a warning that this choice will destroy him, with the silent part ringing loud and clear; Matsson will make sure of it.  While that might be true, Kendall has a sliver of hope that his brother’s meltdown will have the opposite effect, and the pause in the deal can be spun as a negotiation tactic long enough for the two to think about what comes next. On the plane ride home they find out just how Mattson took that deal-ending talk when he circumvents the CE-Bros and goes right to the board with an offer of 192 million for the company– including ATN. Everyone onboard the plane cheers because they assume Roman and Kendall secured this massive deal. The final price goes far beyond the figures their father could ever dream of, but why and what is Matsson really up to? Behind his mockery and derision of the Roy family’s legacy, something about his motives reeks of desperation. It’s almost as if his own business is crumbling and without Waystar and ATN, it could bottom out.

With the champagne flowing on the plane, Matsson places a secret call to Shiv requesting a photo of her brothers’ miserable faces. She opens up her phone and without anyone noticing, snaps a photo and sends it to her new pal in Norway. She also approaches Tom, who she seems to be on more stable ground with after a very flirtatious and hilariously insulting moment they had in Norway, and asks if he’s free for dinner when they get back to New York. Is she going to tell him about the pregnancy or gloat over what happens next? Gerri gets an incoming text from Matsson with the dreaded kill list and we now see how influential Logan’s, “Pinky,” can be. On the chopping block are Hugo, Karl, Frank, and Ray. Staying on with the new Waystar/Gojo are General Counsel, Gerri Kellman,  her venomous shade-throwing work wife, Karolina, and Tom Wambsgam! It looks like Matsson took Shiv’s advice and ditched his Comms woman and the drama she could bring him, for Logan’s Polish press maven and his legal secret weapon. If anyone is going to cover up Lukas’s bloody mail trail it’s the legal brains and press pen only those two women can deliver. It’s still unclear if the deal is actually going to go through and it might have very little to do with the CE- Bros or Shiv’s behind-the-scenes involvement. Something is off with Matsson agreeing to overpay for the company and on top of that, he is cutting deals with Jared Menken, that flashy- faschie President wannabe who is determined to turn the country’s democracy into an autocracy. A lot of wheels are turning as we head into the climax of this groundbreaking series, but if there’s one thing we as viewers have learned so far, it is that the women on this show always rise to the top. If that means stepping on the backs and necks of the men in their lives to get there, so be it. Shiv is finally a real player in this game now, are Gerri and Karolina, and while they may seem like they’re on the outside of this Boy’s team, they can run this race right to the finish line and no one will see them coming. Logan Roy must be turning in his grave…or he will be the minute Connor quits his micromanaging and puts their dad in the ground. Let’s hope Willa has a recipe for that looney cake because, from the looks of it, Connor won’t be the only one needing a slice.