'Succession' Season 4 Episode 7 Review: Money and gossip run the show in Shiv and Tom’s party
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: “We watch history, we make history and then we become it.” Kendall Roy emceed a party hosted by Shiv Roy and Tom Wambsgans a night before Election Day at their place, where he remembers watching his father make history, which now he wants to do before he becomes a part of history. The main objective of the ‘Tailgate Party’ by the Roys is to honor a long-standing tradition of bringing all the corporate and political celebrities under one roof before America decides the man responsible to see them through for the next four years. But at this juncture, Kendall and Roman do not care about the White House but focus on their mission to sabotage Lukas Matsson’s acquisition of their own house, Waystar Royco. The Roy brothers now have a new plan to kick Matsson out of the contention to raid their company.
The plan is to be executed at Shiv and Tom’s party where all the heads of the regulatory bodies of the US government will be present. Kendall and Roman want to sway them away by making them believe that Matsson’s GoJo is a shady organization and if they look closely, they might find some more dirt to kill the acquisition of a US company by a Swedish entity. Kendall and Roman are at the job too, looking for dirt on Matsson. But they would have loved to do the ego massaging of the big government guys without Matsson present around them and making his own case, which he unfortunately was.
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Turns out, the little sister, Shiv Roy, continues to feed inside information about her brothers to the Swede who arrives unannounced at the party. The rest of the episode is a power play between Matsson and the Roys, fighting tooth and nail to get the better of each other as election coverage takes a back seat. However, the only man interested in election coverage is Connor Roy, fighting for a seat in American politics.
Is Lukas Matsson a cracked shell?
Matsson's towering demeanor hasn’t been able to scare the Roys off. He’s wealthy, arrogant, and a developed-world Viking who likes to raid and acquire wherever he goes. He has Shiv playing both sides, getting all the information about Kendall and Roman’s moves, but he has a crack in one of his shells, and unfortunately for him, that’s what the Roy brothers were looking for. Matsson hijacked Shiv and Tom’s party and sweet-talked all the big players to make them believe that GoJo is a solid deal for Waystar, with Shiv’s help who learns about Matsson’s fault in the lines. Apparently, Matsson has amped up the subscriber numbers for GoJo’s India operations which could tank the deal if the Waystar shareholders learn about it. The source of this news? Matsson’s communications president Ebba who Matsson tortures for different unfulfilled reasons. All is not well for the Swede now as the Roys have exposed his dirty little secret and look to go in for the kill.
Matsson was in play at the party making moves to secure the deal as quickly as possible. But now Shiv is in a bigger conundrum about who to choose and Kendall knows what to do — go “Reverse Viking,” ie buy Matsson’s GoJo, take the fight to him, and turn this deal completely around. The only person who knows about Kendall’s plan is Frank, vice-chairman of Waystar.
Shiv and Tom let it all out
The Roy brothers invite Nate, Shiv’s ex-fling who also has ties with the Democratic Party, to seek his help in their endeavor to dethrone Matsson. However, Tom doesn’t like it. Not one bit. But witnessing Shiv sandwiched between Matsson and Nate talking over the Swede’s plan for Waystar when he acquires it, sets Tom off. To top it off, Shiv parades him playfully as someone who might be fired when ATN is restructured. It’s a Mexican standoff towards the end of the episode when Shiv and Tom let it all out against each other, leaving nothing to fate. Tom vents his anger by stating that Shiv can never carry anyone’s child. It’s enough to see how brutally hurt Tom is by Shiv using him for her motives.
On the most important night of American politics when the nation decides who leads them, the Roys and the Matssons of the world were taking cheap shots at each other and using every pawn available to their advantage. Kendall found the chink in Matsson’s armor through her communications president Ebba while Matsson has given Shiv a free hand to ask for anything that she likes. Three episodes are all we have left to witness the dance of power between the Roys and Matsson.
