Summary: Shiv and Tom host the pre-election party at their house. Kendall and Roman plan to go through regulatory to stop Matsson's deal, so Shiv informs Matsson and tells him to be there to stop it. Tom gets Greg to fire over a hundred employees over Zoom before the election. The siblings discuss who will speak at Logan's funeral and Roman ultimately volunteers. At the party, Kendall makes a toast for Logan as Matsson arrives. As Matsson and Shiv talk with others, rumours circulate that Tom may be fired, upsetting him. Roman tries to convince Connor to drop out so that Mencken can win, but he refuses in the end. Kendall tries to cut a deal with Nate, but Nate leaves the party. Roman and Kendall learn from Ebba that Matsson has fishy numbers in India. This leads to Kendall and Matsson having a verbal confrontation. Roman tries to apologize to Gerri but she isn't having it. Shiv and Tom talk on the balcony and get into a heated fight, finally clearing the air between them. Tom ends the party and finds himself unable to sleep.
The Good: Even though this episode is centered around a party with major political players trying to win over others, the most interesting and engaging dynamic is the simple dysfunction between Shiv and Tom. They surprisingly reunited last episode, but it's not like all of their issues are just going to disappear because of that. I like how this episode saw both characters realize this truth and gradually get more and more frustrated until it was time for them to let loose by the end of the episode. "Succession" has always had a good grasp on how humans work and that has made the development of these relationships feel so realistic. Shiv is once again on the political bandwagon and throwing Tom under the bus in ways that she just can't comprehend as betrayal. Her frustrations begin to emerge when Tom continues to remind her how she is a "scorpion" because of her actions, and with Tom continually complaining about how sleepy he is, frustrating her because she believes her problems to be more important than his. So when he prattles on and calls her out for her attempts to go upwards in the world, she fittingly has enough and is ready for a big blow-out. Add on the realization that Shiv may have picked the wrong side by joining Matsson, and she's on the verge of exploding. On the other side, Tom has been working extremely hard with the all-important election coming up, the biggest night of his career. He's exhausted and not thinking straight (Matthew Macfadyen puts in a really unique performance to convey Tom's sleep deprivation), and now he's suddenly hearing everyone talking about how he's going to be fired despite doing nothing wrong, and he again sees that Shiv is spreading these rumours and doing nothing to help him, like she always does. This combination of frustrations pushes Tom to his breaking point at the episode's climax. I found it engaging to follow both characters through the episode because their escalating frustration perfectly sets them up for what is probably the most impressive and painful fight in the entire series. The fight scene between Shiv and Tom is one of those magnificent moments of television. It's almost unbelievable to think that these two have never simply had it out with each other before this episode. They have had conversations and frustrations for sure, but never anything like this. This fight feels so monumental because it is finally paying off on everything we have watched for the last four seasons. Tom and Shiv pull out every frustration between them that we have seen throughout the series from Tom's awkward proposal in season 1 to Shiv trying to send Tom to jail in season 3. Every ugly detail is pulled out with escalating maliciousness and it is both brutal and fascinating to watch. Sarah Snook and Matthew Macfadyen needed to bring their A-game to make this scene work, and they killed it with fantastic performances. They are both ruthless as they spit vitriol at each other, yet devastated when they take time to reflect and listen to what the other is saying. Perhaps the most impactful exchange in the whole scene is Tom telling Shiv that she would not be a good mother, which is written in such a realistic way, making it seem like Tom is going deep into his suppressed thoughts to pull out something that would hurt Shiv as much as possible. And boy does it hurt Shiv. Sarah Snook is terrific here because she doesn't back down from the argument at this point, yet makes it clear that Shiv has been badly hurt by this comment, especially considering that she is pregnant. Her retort of "well that's not a very nice thing to say, it it?" is perfect, an attempt at anger to mask the pain that she feels. The whole fight is filled with brilliant moments like this that can be deeply analyzed for the impact they have on the characters, but I would be here all day if I tried to take it all on. Overall, the scene is masterful and one of the very best in the entire show. The fallout is effective as both Tom and Shiv sleep on their own that night, with the heartbreaking clincher being Tom laying wide awake in his bed; he had wanted to sleep for the entire episode, but after what happened with Shiv, he's now painfully unable to fall asleep. The side stories don't have the same impact in this episode (see: The Bad), but they are still solid and advance the characters and the story nicely. The most significant development is Kendall and Roman's continued battle against the GoJo deal which leads to the discovery that he has exaggerated numbers in India. This was a nice twist, revealing to us that even someone as reputable as Matsson may be another rich fraud who is nowhere near as impressive as he seems. This serves to set up a great avenue for Kendall and Roman to take him down and prevent the GoJo deal from happening, and already we get to see Kendall making moves. His regulatory efforts early in the episode fall flat when Nate refuses to even hear him out, but he seems to reach Frank when he notifies him about the India numbers, and Kendall notably does seem to have more menace and leverage when he subtly spars with Matsson in front of everybody, a good scene to make use of the obvious tensions between them. Matsson's presence makes the party more entertaining in general. His entrance during a moment of silence for Logan is hilariously fitting and sets the tone pretty quickly for his role as a disruptor at this party. I got a good laugh out of his awful interactions with Ebba, and it's very amusing to see Greg ingratiate himself with Matsson by playing along with his toxic behaviour. There's also the aforementioned great confrontation between Kendall and Matsson, and one easy-to-miss joke that really got a laugh out of me when Connor tells Roman that he's going to listen to the one person who has his back and you can see an out-of-focus Matsson point at himself in the background. Matsson's presence added a lot to this party and kept things interesting. Roman spends much of the episode trying to convince Connor to drop out of the running in favour of Mencken. I wish the episode had given Roman more to do, but this storyline is fine and it serves Connor well by diving into the importance of this election to him and the importance he gives to Willa's opinions. Roman does his best to convince Connor and there are some good laughs as they usually are with these two, but eventually things fall through. Roman's most interesting scene is probably the one with Gerri where he tries to conjure up an apology to her only to be slapped in the face with the reality that he dug himself into a large hole. Gerri's ruthlessness is always a treat, and seeing her finally use Roman's dick pics as blackmail against him felt like justice. Greg has a great scene where he fires over 100 people over Zoom, being his usual awkward self. This scene is quite funny, and I like that Greg ended up using this to get Matsson's interest later in the episode. The scene serves another key purpose which is to emphasize how dirty Tom really is. Tom is able to sit back and have someone else fire an enormous number of his employees, but then he gets all pissy when he hears that he may be fired too. Tom's frustration is understandable until you remember that he afforded zero sympathy to any of the people he just had fired, a reminder that he's just as corrupt and hypocritical as the family he's married into, he's just more subtle about it. The Bad: This episode has one of the show's very best scenes in it, but that doesn't always guarantee an all-time great episode. The rest of the episode has to maintain a high quality that is complementary to the Tom/Shiv storyline for the entire episode to be fantastic, and I don't think that it accomplishes this. Typically "Succession" has been very good at making every episode stand out on its own with individual stories, cathartic moments, and fascinating character dynamics that work together to create an isolated emotional experience within each episode. However with "Tailgate Party", I felt like the side stories did not have this quality and were simply a collection of scenes that set up more interesting episodes down the road instead of being their own emotionally satisfying storyline. In the past, "Succession" has done so well to avoid its episodes feeling like transition episodes, but I think that the writers assumed that the strength of the Tom/Shiv story was enough to disguise how much transitional storytelling and how little pay-off is in this episode. Unfortunately the episode is noticeably weighed down by this and that leads to an episode that had a shot at being one of the show's very best ending up nowhere near that mark. Is this episode still good? Of course, I think it's another excellent episode, but I can't help but notice that this episode could have been so much better had there been more interesting and emotional storylines occurring around Tom and Shiv's dynamic. The Unknown: Will Jimenez or Mencken win the election? How will the result affect the plot? Is Connor going to drop out or will he stand by his guns throughout the entire election? How will Kendall and Roman use Matsson's India numbers against him? Is this an opportunity for them to fight back against the deal? Will Shiv plan to stop them? How? Is Shiv staying with Matsson, or will she jump ship to her siblings? How is the Gerri/Roman situation going to evolve? Will Gerri escalate things to ruin his reputation? Is Roman going to be able to handle doing Logan's eulogy? Best Moment: Shiv and Tom's fight scene of course. Magnificent performances from Sarah Snook and Matthew Macfadyen made this feel all the more realistic, and the dialogue brilliantly conveyed the bottled up emotions that these characters were finally releasing. What an amazing pay-off of four seasons of storytelling. Character of the Episode: Tom. Conclusion: Another great episode, this time highlighted by that incredible Shiv/Tom scene at the episode's climax. The rest of the episode is still very good, but pales in comparison to that fantastic scene which easily steals the show. Season 4 has had a lot of great episodes, but outside of "Connor's Wedding", every episode hasn't quite hit its fullest potential despite still being very high quality. I hope that these final few episodes aren't held back by similar issues because this show has a great opportunity to conclude on a high note. Score: 72
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
March 2024
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