Succession recap: Season four, episode seven

After four seasons of almost intolerable tension, a TV marriage’s issues finally blew up in extraordinary fashion.

A tense episode!

This is your spoiler warning. We shall be discussing the seventh episode of Succession’s final season in copious detail. Read no further until you have seen it.

If you have ever thought this show’s portrayal of a dramatic family succession to be outlandish or implausible, I would point you to our coverage of King Charles’ coronation. Listen to the Archbishop of Canterbury as he introduces the “sceptre of kingly power and justice”, then try to argue that Kendall Roy is the one speaking gibberish.

Anyway, the spoilers shall commence immediately after our traditional cascading wall of Logans telling you to f*** off (if you have seen the episode, feel free to ignore him).

The.

Profanity.

Of.

Loganly.

Power.

Episode seven provides another excuse for all our main characters to convene at the same location: Tom and Shiv, newly half-reconciled, are hosting a party for bigwigs on the eve of the presidential election.

The election has been lurking quietly in the background for most of this season, so to remind you, there are three candidates. Democrat Daniel Jimenez and Republican Jeryd Mencken, who is portrayed as a tad fascist, are the main contenders. Connor appears to be a third-party candidate, and is still clinging to his measly 1 per cent.

Tom begins the day wielding two gifts for Jimenez-supporting Shiv. The first is polling that shows her candidate leading by 4 per cent. The second is a fossilised scorpion, which is meant to represent Shiv, and which is funny for reasons that Tom never quite manages to explain.

“No, I get it. Huh. I like it,” Shiv says, giving hapless husbands the world over Vietnam flashbacks.

Across town, Kendall meets with Rava and demonstrates his continuing inadequacies as a father (incidentally, I am increasingly confident in my theory about the show’s ending, which involves Ken transforming into the dad he hated).

Dad of the year.

After the credits, the four Roy kids convene for a fancy breakfast, at which none of them actually eats a breakfast. The most relatable moment comes when Roman tries and fails to signal a waiter; even the richest among us are victims of cringe.

The point of the meeting is to decide which child will speak at Logan’s funeral (the job eventually falls to Roman), though Ken and Roman also use it to gain Shiv’s approval for inviting political strategist Nate, her ex, to the party.

The brothers are still exploring options to destroy the deal with Lukas Matsson, and think they can lobby Nate to trap it in regulatory purgatory, should Jimenez win the election.

When they leave, Shiv immediately phones Matsson to squeal about their plan, and instruct him to attend the party.

She then texts Tom to apologise for potentially breaking his, ahem, machinery the previous night, just as he’s about to fire a bunch of ATN employees. Or to be more accurate, he makes Greg do the firing while he stands out of sight mocking them and sexting. Remember this scene later, when Tom starts to panic about losing his own job and expects empathy.

As the party begins, the Roy kids fan out to lobby various targets (the lads unaware that Shiv is working against them), though Roman is immediately interrupted by a call from Mencken’s campaign. The Republican wants Connor to drop out of the presidential race, which would free up his stubborn little 1 per cent to swing the election Mencken’s way in “three or four” pivotal states.

The Mencken folks offer Connor the ambassadorship to Somalia, which he immediately dismisses as “a little car bomby” and “a death sentence”. After much haggling throughout the episode, the carrot is eventually upgraded to the ambassadorship to Oman.

Connor discusses it with Willa and decides to reject the offer: “There’s one person here who doesn’t think I’m a joke. So that’s who I’m going to listen to.”

Mad respect for Connor in this episode.

Mattson arrives in the middle of a moment of silence for Logan, and Shiv pretends to have no idea where he came from.

The Swede’s first act is to interrogate Tom, who flunks the test, and has to endure his future boss telling his wife he’s “about to s*** in your husband’s mouth”. Any ill will you may hold towards Mattson, however, evaporates when he calls Greg “Gary”.

In a secluded corridor, Ken pitches a visibly uncomfortable Nate on the idea of stymieing the GoJo takeover, while in a secluded coat room, Shiv pushes Matsson to give her a “very, very, very significant role” in his version of the company. He is noncommittal.

The drama continues. A few rooms away, Roman has caught wind of Matsson’s blood brick fiasco, and shares the news with Ken. Nate decides to leave, as he’s unsettled by “the tenor of the conversation”. I do not remember having quite this much respect for Nate last time he appeared on the show. He rises sharply in the “not too much of a dickhead” rankings.

“I’m not Gil, and you’re not Logan,” he says, which has the benefit of being both accurate and profound.

Weird new respect for Nate.

Matsson and his lieutenants have settled in a particularly comfy spot, where a subservient Greg finds them, at Kendall’s behest. The subsequent banter drives off Ebba - right into the waiting attentions of Ken and Roman.

“He is not even a real coder, someone gave him a box of tech and he took it to market. Bravo,” Ebba says of Matsson, before revealing that he may have fudged his numbers in India, exaggerating the number of GoJo subscribers.

“I knew he was a bulls****er. I’m telling you, new money. You’ve got to hold those bills to the light,” says Kendall, who is definitely not a bulls****er himself.

While this is happening, Roman sidles over to Gerri and tries to walk back his decision to sack her. Gerri responds with a threat to “go public with the many, many pictures of your genitalia”. Whoops.

Gerri swallowing Roman whole.

This brings us to the indisputable centrepiece of the episode: the argument between Tom and Shiv, four seasons in the making.

“All the fun gossip that I’ve been hearing from everywhere at this party, in my house, is that I’m going to be s***canned,” says a fed-up Tom, before the pair retreat to a balcony. After a little preamble, their fight proceeds as follows.

Tom: “I think you shouldn’t have actually married me.”

Shiv: “What the f***? What the actual f***. You proposed to me. You proposed to me at my lowest f***ing ebb. My dad was dying, what was I supposed to say?”

“Perhaps no?”

“I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

“Oh, thanks. Thanks for that. Yeah, you really kept me safe while you ran off to f*** the phone book.”

“Oh, f*** off. You’re a hick. A conservative hick.”

“And then, you hid it, because you were so scared of how f***ing awful you are.”

“You were only with me to get to power. Well you’ve got it now, Tom, you’ve got it.”

“I’m with you because I love you.”

“Bulls***. You’re f***ing me for my DNA. You’re f***ing me for a f***ing ladder, because your whole family is striving and parochial.”

“That’s not a fair characterisation.”

“No? Because your mum loves me more than she loves you. Because she’s f***ing cracked. You want to actually clear the air, fine. You betrayed me.”

“You were going to see me be sent to f***ing prison, Shiv! And then you fobbed me off with that f***ing undrinkable wine. And then you won’t have my baby, because you never thought you’d be with me for more than four f***ing years.”

“You offered to go to jail, Tom, you offered. Because you’re servile. You’re servile!”

“You are incapable of thinking about anybody other than yourself, because your sense of who you are, Shiv, is that f***ing thin.”

“You’re pathetic. You’re pathetic! You’re a masochist and you can’t even take it.”

“I think you are incapable of love. And I think you are maybe not a good person to have children.”

“Well that’s not very nice to say, is it?”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but you have hurt me more than you can possibly imagine.”

“You. You took away the last six months I could have had with my dad. You sucked up to him and you cut me out.”

“It’s not my fault that you didn’t get his approval. I have given you endless approval, and it doesn’t fill you up, because you’re broken.”

“I don’t like you. I don’t. I don’t even care about you. I don’t care. You don’t deserve me, and you never did. And everything came out of that.”

Excellent “wtf” face from Sarah Snook.

Equally good “wtf” face from Matthew Mcfadyen.

Elsewhere, Ken finds a quiet spot to have a schemey conversation with Frank. His plan, having learned of Matsson’s troubles in India, is to reverse the current deal and have Waystar acquire GoJo instead.

And he wants to do it alone, without the other siblings.

“I love ’em but, not in love with them. You know? One head, one crown.” Hoo boy.

New episodes of Succession are available every Monday on Binge

Twitter: @SamClench