There ain’t no party like a Succession party, because, in the words of Shiv, “it’s basically just money and gossip.” And that is what I live for!
So when the season’s seventh episode was set to take place at Shiv and Tom’s election eve party, I was ready for the drama.
It may actually be the Monday before the election, but for the Roy family it’s more of a Throwback Thursday. First, Shiv and Tom seem to have fully rekindled their romance. As they prep to host their election eve shindig, Tom serves Shiv a fancy tray of breakfast and offers her a gift for being “a foxy little minx.” I want to say you can do better than that, Tom, but I honestly don’t think you can. The gift? A scorpion encased in glass. I guess if you’re rich enough to buy anything you want, you have to start getting creative. Shiv is just as confused, and Tom’s explanation doesn’t help things: he says the arachnid is meant to symbolize her. “I love you but you kill me and I kill you.” Romantic!
Meanwhile, Kendall is going down the road of prior romance himself — dragging his neutral-clad ass all the way up to a Birch Coffee on the Upper East Side (yes, I did look at the street view of every Birch Coffee in Manhattan because I needed to know if it was one I’d visited before) to meet with his ex-wife, Rava. Also known as the only truly decent person to ever willingly associate with a Roy. Rava tells Kendall that their daughter Sophie is freaking out over tomorrow’s election — she’s stuck in a tough place, both associated with ATN and being actively harassed by the network’s supporters, as Rava shares that a Ravenwood fan slung a racial insult at their daughter on the street. Ken has a typically even-keeled reaction: insisting that Rava’s parenting is to blame and emphasizing that he is supporting his family by having business on six continents. Rava suggests a simpler approach: calling his daughter. Wait… is Sophie Kendall’s Connor? Are all first-born Roys destined for neglect?
After the blow-up, Kendall zooms over to the Upper West Side for lunch with his siblings at Jean-Georges. They have a quick chat about who will speak at Logan’s funeral, and then quickly move on to talk shop. Almost shockingly quickly, for how broken up they’ve been over the past couple of days. Connor departs to rejoin his campaign headquarters (“In Alaska, I’m exploding”). Kendall and Roman then share with Shiv that they are going the regulatory route to try and block the GoJo sale, and therefore want to invite Nate, her ex-boyfriend and former side-piece to Tom, to tonight’s party. At Shiv’s house. Where Tom also lives. She reluctantly agrees — but as soon as her brothers leave she places a call to Matsson telling him he needs to be at the party tonight to make friends with the right political people. Inside girl after all!
Over at ATN, Tom is having Greg conduct layoffs over Zoom. I’ll give you a beat to recover from re-experiencing that concept. If Greg Hirsch ever laid me off over Zoom I don’t think I’d have the will to go on. I can’t decide if Tom is too Midwestern Nice to do the deed himself, or if he’d actually love to lay people off, but is just too busy sexting his wife.
Apparently sexting is not the only thing Shiv and Tom have been doing, because once they’re home to greet their party guests, Tom is immediately complaining about how exhausted she’s left him. “I’m pre-tired,” Tom says, the most relatable he’s ever been. Shiv breaks the news about Nate’s impending arrival, and tries her best to convince a wary Tom she isn’t excited to see him. Little does he know, Nate is about to be the least of their problems as a couple.
The first drama of the party comes from Roman: Mencken’s campaign calls him to see if he can convince Connor to drop out and give him the edge he needs to win a few tough states. When Connor turns down the idea of doing it “for the good of the republic,” Mencken asks if he’ll do it for a diplomat position. Specifically, to Mogadishu. If you didn’t already know, the U.S. Department of State’s recommendation for anyone visiting the capital city of Somalia is to draft your will ahead of time. Connor negotiates his way through a few alternative locations (with the Balkans catching yet another stray from the Succession writers!) until landing on Oman. But he needs to discuss with Willa first.
Nate arrives and immediately has a tense, but ultimately cordial enough, interaction with Tom. It’s nothing lengthy, because it’s soon time for Kendall’s opening remarks. He decides to take the end-of-senior-year approach to the impending election: “We’re all gonna stay friends!” HAGS XOXO
He concludes his speech with a moment of silence for Logan — one that is abruptly interrupted by the surprise arrival of Matsson. The Roy siblings go to the balcony to strategize, with Shiv feigning her shock at the attendance of the man she invited. They decide she should be his handler for the night, because, as Kendall puts it, “there’s too much peanut butter between us.” What is this man ever saying?
The Swede is already being weird to everyone, asking Tom probing questions about his role at ATN and calling Greg “Gary” (okay… gotta hand it to him for that one). Shiv pulls him aside after his conversation with Nate, during which Matsson says that the Roy brothers are just trying to emulate their father — “they will do what he did but stupider.” I hate when that creep is right! Shiv gives him the lowdown on the regulatory strategy and tries to get him to commit to giving her a significant role at GoJo post-acquisition, which he very easily wiggles his way out of.
While Tom copes with his exhaustion by trying to create wine scarcity at his own party, Kendall meets with Nate. He promises him positive first hundred day coverage in exchange for a rapid regulatory examination of Matsson’s proposed acquisition, but Nate soon becomes uncomfortable with the conversation. “You’re not Logan, and that’s a good thing,” he tells Kendall, before making his exit. Cheers to Ashley Zukerman for having a few minutes in the final season and getting to deliver that banger of a line!
It’s a credit to the writers of Succession that they’ve created a show about some of the worst people around, and then managed to create even worse people. The GoJo team is… horrendous. I’m no fan of Greg’s, but when they started calling him a “fucking hanger on, fucking dingleberry” to his face I was ready to throw hands. Of course, Greg swiftly removes himself from my brief good graces by completely joining in with the Swedes, and agreeing to mock fire Ebba with his fresh lay-off experience. I guess if he can’t join his cousins’ boys’ club, he’ll do what it takes to join another, grosser one.
The abuse leads Ebba to angrily head to the balcony for a cigarette, and soon Kendall and Roman join her. They probably learned about the power of the smoke break in organizational power dynamics during business school just like I did! She’s hesitant to reveal too much, but does let them in on a bit of a secret to spite her boss/former lover: Matsson is “not even a real coder.” Translation: he’s fudging his numbers.
The boys bring this to Shiv, who brings it to Matsson, and he pretty readily confesses to his subscriber numbers in India being “a little bit bullshit,” which is apparently Swedish for “if there were two Indias it would make sense.” Shiv is furious, realizing she’s put quite a lot of her eggs in a basket built on fake data.
Meanwhile, Roman is having his own rough time. First, he sits down with Gerri — and does a stunningly good impression of her ordering a martini. Seriously, I thought J. Smith Cameron had spoken. He tries to walk back his firing of her in the previous episode, but she lets him know that not only is she choosing to resign, but she has hired representation to refute any claims Waystar Royco makes about her responsibility for the cruise scandal, and she has the nuclear code on releasing Roman’s dick pics to the world. More painful than her demand for hundreds of millions of dollars in severance are her parting words to Roman: “I could have got you there.” Oof.
Next, Roman finds Connor to confirm that he will accept the role of Ambassador to Oman (I can’t even believe I’ve typed out that sentence). Connor, however, has had a change of heart. He’s worked too hard and invested too much in this campaign to back out the night before, and as Roman starts to get agitated Willa stands up (physically) to stand up (emotionally) for her man! Willa in “back off of Connor” mode is my favorite, even if he doesn’t totally deserve it.
Luckily for Roman, he doesn’t have space to make too big a scene — Kendall and Matsson have that covered. They start by exchanging a few tense words about New York City. Matsson thinks it’s a boring, unoriginal place, to which Kendall replies, “Pretty happening town, famously.” For once, I must wholeheartedly agree with Kendall Roy. Kendall then publicly calls Matsson out for his fake numbers, in front of EVERYONE! It’s a full public showdown, but in the most “we’re cool” way possible. Matsson’s big move is… calling Waystar Royco’s numbers “gay,” because apparently we’re in 2007. At least it gives Ken the easy softball comeback of, “That’s kind of homophobic, man.” (Which had no right being as funny as it was.)
We thought that was a fight… well… we had no idea. Because next, Tom and Shiv meet on the balcony for the showdown of the century. Tom is (I would say, rightfully) upset that Shiv has basically been *wink-wink-nodding* at the insinuations from party guests that he is going to get fired from ATN as part of the GoJo acquisition, which she insists was just a strategy move. Shiv believes (or at least says she does) that her husband will be just fine, as will she — but Tom reminds her that they are not the same: “You will be okay because you are a tough fucking bitch.” Perhaps it was meant as a strongly-worded compliment, but the comment sets off a tennis match of insults that seem pretty impossible to come back from:
“You’re a snake.” “You shouldn’t have married me.” “You’re a hick.” “You’re fucking me for my DNA.” “You have hurt me more than you can possibly imagine.”
And with the final, killer blow, comes Tom — telling Shiv she isn’t a person who should have children. Unable to tell him the secret she’s carrying, she exits the balcony and goes inside to the comfort of her brothers’ company, where they all unanimously agree: “Fuck Tom.” For all his sucking-up, Tom will never truly be a Roy — it will always be him against them. At the episode’s end, he lays in bed unable to sleep despite his prior exhaustion.
Next week’s episode promises to be a big one. It’s the election, and things are already getting tense in the contest between a right-wing fascist and a person who is… not a fascist! ATN is airing increasingly divisive coverage, and a campaign office has been firebombed. Internally, the competition is increasing as well. Before the election eve party’s end, Kendall pulls Frank aside to tell him his new plan: pull an Uno reverse card and acquire GoJo. He hasn’t told his siblings about his plan because, as he said, there should be “one head one crown.” A.K.A. Kendall, in charge, alone. But how long exactly can his crown reign?
