Succession Season 4, Episode 7: Power Rankings

tailgate party in a 3-story penthouse

Things are heating up as we inch closer to the finale. The writers have ramped up the emotional stakes and we’re seeing confrontations that have been building up over seasons – from Rome calling Connor a joke, to (obviously) Tom and Shiv’s balcony blowout. Elsewhere, Rome gets his ass handed to him by Gerri, Matsson wears the worst fucking jacket I’ve ever seen in my life, and Kendall continues his reign of terror.

#8: TOM

• I mean, good for Tom for “clearing the air” with Shiv and whatnot, but it’s really not great in the grand scheme of things because now he’s on the outs with Matsson’s team AND the old guard AND the Roy siblings. Note how Kendall only acknowledged Shiv as the tailgate’s hostess even though Shiv and Tom were both hosts. 

• Not going to lie, I thought Tom calling Shiv “broken” was a little hammy. Like, if someone called me broken, I would feel so dramatic and chic and tortured.

  • I’m so glad he finally said the two things that have been building up in him for 4 seasons: Firstly, Shiv is incapable of taking care of him. Secondly, she’s really transparent. Tom has had to deal with her little machinations and pretend like she was the Machiavelli of her generation for so long. 

  • Not that Tom is particularly smooth himself. This was basically his conversation with Matsson:
    Matsson: What kind of a leader are you?
    Tom: What kind of a leader would you want me to be? 

• You have to give Tom credit for that insanely passive-aggressive scorpion gift. Really ranks up there in the book of “you can’t literally PROVE I was being bitchy” chess plays.

  • He clearly has not mastered gift-giving etiquette. We first saw him fumble it with Logan when he gave him a Patek (yikes) and now the scorpion. 

• If Tom ends up ratting Shiv’s secret Matsson alliance to Rome/Ken or the old guard, do we think that might help get him back in good standing with the company?

• Frankly, if Tom were to get fired, I do really think his personality would lend itself to being a trophy wife. Maybe he should at least try it and see how it goes…

  • MATERIAL GWORL!

#7: ROMAN

• Oh how I love to see Rome imploding: from screaming at Matsson on the mountaintop, to firing Joy/Gerri for NO reason, and now this hurtful speech to Con. Coming a bit undone are we… 

• It’s tempting to say that Rome has been under a lot of stress in the wake of his father’s passing, and while that’s obviously true, I think it’s pretty clear that bearing witness to Ken’s recent wins has been taking its toll as well. I mean, we all saw that dark backseat meltdown after Kendall slayed that Living+ presentation.

• Roman seized the opportunity when everyone was distracted at the party to nominate himself to give the speech at Logan’s funeral. We’ll see if positioning himself as an heir apparent during the funeral might pay off. 

  • Gerri’s little remark about how she could have gotten him to the top. Ohh, that must hurt. 

#6: MATSSON

• Turns out that Matsson is not such a genius after all. Ebba reveals that his image is almost entirely manufactured and he’s more of a good salesman and not a visionary. It’s still not entirely clear what's going on with those two. I assume Ebba is not quitting because she wants her stock to vest or something and Matsson can’t fire her because she has gallons of his blood to throw at him. It seems that he really pushed her to the limit though since Ebba was willing to share really dangerous information with the bros.

• Kudos to the costume department for finding that fucking heinous jacket for Matsson to wear for the beginning of his downfall.

• I must say, the Elon allegory (like how Matsson doesn’t actually know how to code) was a bit broad for me. Like yes, we get it, scathing commentary, keep it moving.

• His little speech about New York was kind of funny and to some extent true? When Kendall said “We run this city” I expected him to take Matsson to Zero Bond lmao 

• It’s interesting that he didn’t have a prepared response when Shiv asked him for a big role at GoJo. You would think it goes without saying that she is not doing consultants without borders here. 

• The information about inflated user numbers is actually really scary for him and the deal is in serious jeopardy. He knows it too and he knows that he needs a giant acquisition to divert people’s attention from GoJo’s own issues. 

#5: SHIV

• It’s so funny how Shiv just absolutely refuses to believe that Tom loves her. 

• Poor Shiv ALWAYS gets into these situations where she thinks she’s being a master manipulator but really she’s the one being manipulated. You can just see the writing on the wall when she all but commands Matsson to give her the CEO position and he hits her with the “why don’t we circle back” – flying a little too close to the sun as usual and it ALWAYS blows up in her face.

• I didn’t know Shiv was so sesquipedalian. SERVILE! PAROCHIAL! From now on, I only wish to insult people with words that they may or may not understand. 

• Aside from the business problems, Shiv also suffered some PERSONAL humiliation when her ego was assassinated at the hands of Tom. We’re all in agreement that, although Shiv got some good jabs in (conservative hick!”) but Tom was the victor in their little showdown, yes? 

• What’s also not great for Shiv is that Tom is the only one who knows about her secret dealings with Matsson, and now he hates her and can easily rat her out to her siblings, the old guard, etc. etc. 

• So is Shiv just going to carry this baby to term without telling anybody?

  • Tom: And you should never have children!

  • Shiv: Ok so don’t be mad but…

• Also lol:

  • Shiv: YOU BETRAYED ME!

  • Tom, holding up the secret text messages between Shiv and her family’s Swedish archnemesis: this u?

• Initially I thought that Shiv was helping Matsson in order to push the deal through and go on to run ATN & Pierce with “dumb and dumber.” It appears, however, that she got spooked by their new plan of tanking the deal and now she wants to jump the Roy ship entirely. It’s mighty hopeful of her to think that Matsson will either give her a top job or not fire her as soon as she shows even a glimpse of incompetence. 

• I love that she jabs at Tom with “you don’t do anything!”, but do YOU, Siobhan, do anything? 

• Shiv’s modus operandi is to pretend like she doesn’t care. She thinks that she wins arguments by being the less committed, less attached, and less vulnerable one. Which is obviously not true. What seems to calm her down the most is that she has more status and money than Tom, so any time she feels threatened she reminds him (and most importantly herself) of that.