The Succession Report Card is a weekly recap feature where we attempt to assign grades to the important people, things, and themes from each episode of Succession. The grades are entirely subjective and the criteria for scoring will change from week to week and occasionally mid-week. Someone might get detention. It’ll probably be Roman.
SEASON 4, EPISODE 7 – “Tailgate Party”
Shiv
Shiv is in trouble, man. She hitched her future to Matsson after her brothers squeezed her out of the leadership of the family business. She responded by going behind their backs to work with Matsson to hose them, presumably to get some high-ranking position in the GoJo-led new operation, which has now backfired on her due to the revelation that Matsson’s numbers are all screwy and he might be flakier than anyone imagined. And her brief and torrid reconciliation with Tom ended in dramatic fashion, with the two of them shouting mostly true things at each other on a balcony while a bunch of powerful people mingled inside their home.
Shiv is staring down a situation where she has no family, no job, and no husband. And she’s secretly pregnant, too. It’s not going great.
GRADE: F
MUST IMPROVE: Let’s just go with general “life choices” here
Cousin Greg
Uggggghhhhhhhhhh.
I used to love this lanky goofball so much. Now he’s taking pleasure in firing people and becoming a goon of the highest order and I would not be heartbroken to see someone crack him really hard in the back with a shovel. I don’t love any of it. It’s like watching Walter White go from chemistry teacher to meth kingpin but without any of the competence.
GRADE: F
MUST IMPROVE: Maybe the shovel-whacking would help, actually? I don’t know. I’m in shambles over here.
Hosting a party, generally
Hosting a party seems fun. “Oh, we’ll have people over. It’ll be a hoot,” you think, naively. But then it starts getting late and people are getting too comfortable on your couch and making a mess in the kitchen that you’ll have to clean up and they’re touching all your stuff and JUST GO HOME ALREADY, GOD, COME ON.
Not worth it. Being a guest is better than being a host, every time, even in a best-case scenario that doesn’t involve years of resentment in your marriage bubbling over just outside of your guests’ earshot. You will never convince me otherwise. Do not come to my house. Please invite me to yours, though.
GRADE: F
MUST IMPROVE: I SAID JUST GO HOME
Roman
Wellllllll Roman tried to convince Connor to drop out of the election and ended up shouting at Willa a little and it all backfired.
Aaaaaand the thing with Gerri is going to cost the company he’s now co-CEO of many millions of dollars.
Aaaaaaaaaand Kendall and Shiv are both sneaking around in the shadows trying to do big solo things that would cut him out a little in separate and opposite ways.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I don’t actually have a fourth thing but I got a little carried away with the bit so here we are.
GRADE: D
MUST IMPROVE: It’s too late now but it would really be great if he stopped sending pictures of his privates to people who can use them as leverage in a massive payout after he fired them on a whim
Matsson
Matsson is:
- Showing up late to parties he was barely invited to
- Goosing his own numbers in a way that would require a second entire India to be legit
- Trying to cover up that second thing by buying a massive media conglomerate as fast as possible
He should get an F. He really should. But I liked his shiny gold jacket a lot so I slid him up into this section. I don’t have to explain myself to any of you.
GRADE: D
MUST IMPROVE: Numbers
Nate
Nate got invited to a fancy party in the home of a couple he slipped between romantically and then got pitched on political stuff by America’s Least Subtle Boy until it got uncomfortable and then he had to slink out after word leaked that a political operative was sipping champagne with the enemy in a swanky high-rise, basically confirming everything anyone has ever suspected or feared about the one percent’s influence on global affairs.
Nate has some thinking to do.
GRADE: D
MUST IMPROVE: Comfort with the tenor of conversations
Rava
The interesting thing here is that Rava had an A on my first draft of this whole Report Card. I just liked that she yelled at Kendall and kind of accurately pointed out that the reason their children — the ones he isn’t calling on the phone and barely exist on the show because their dad is doing BIG DEALS on SIX CONTINENTS to MAKE THE WORLD SAFE (lol) —are getting bullied at school is because he runs a crappy racist organization that a lot of people hate. But then I thought about it some more and realized… I mean, it’s never a good day when you have to shout at your deadbeat dipshit billionaire ex on a sidewalk and then march off while he’s yelling about global safety. I imagine she sighs a lot.
GRADE: D
MUST IMPROVE: Selecting romantic partners
Tom
Tom is very tired. He’s so tired. He’s just been up a lot for various reasons, some related to a marathon of intercourse with the wife he reconciled with, some related to preparing for the big fancy party at his home with all the wines and snacks and such, and he’s just so, so tired. And the problem with being tired is that it can make you edgy. Maybe a little cranky. Sometimes it can wear down the defenses you’ve worked so hard to keep rigidly erected around you that you, to choose an example at random, unload about a decade of not-entirely-unjustified resentment in a single five-minute argument with your wife on the balcony of the gorgeous Manhattan townhouse where she has just discovered that the eccentric Swedish billionaire she’s been working with to screw over her idiot brothers has some funky numbers in his books that could maybe blow up the deal and leave her without a job or a family or a liferaft at all. We’ve all been there.
It’s funny to think about how much different this episode would have been if Tom had taken a 45-minute nap in the afternoon.
GRADE: C
MUST IMPROVE: I don’t know, man… maybe don’t give your wife a scorpion as a gift
Kendall
I have no clue why I’m giving Kendall a C. He’s shouting about continents on the street as a defense to why he’s a crappy father. He’s riding a little too high after that big speech about maybe helping people live forever. He’s getting into passive-aggressive arguments with Swedish billionaires inside his sister’s house. He’s somehow talked himself into a kind of reverse judo maneuver where he wants to buy Matsson’s company now, which is maybe the most hilariously Kendall thing I’ve ever heard.
I think I might just be giving him a C because I bought into his mania a little bit, against truly staggering odds. I should give myself a D for this.
GRADE: C
MUST IMPROVE: Settle down, guy
Connor
I find myself liking Connor more and more every week, which is weird. He’s as dumb and useless as a puddle of melted ice cream and I suspect any aspect of his doomed presidential platform would make me groan and/or puke. But he’s somehow ended up being the most mature of the Roy children about Logan’s death. I know saying “the most mature of the Roy children” is kind of like saying “the least nauseating rotten egg” but still. It’s progress for him. And he didn’t get strong-armed into taking an ambassadorship in some far-flung country he would not enjoy. These are all very minor victories but Connor so rarely gets to be victorious at anything that it feels like a big deal. Good for him.
GRADE: C
MUST IMPROVE: Let’s just take the passing grade here
Various Karls, Franks, and Karolinas
Frank was the only member of this brain trust that was prominently featured at the party and he got pulled into a room and pitched on a plot that involves Kendall flip-flopping on Matsson and trying to fold GoJo into WayStar with Kendall as the mastermind of it all, and I suspect every part of everything I typed before that comma made and continues to make Frank very uncomfortable. And poking holes in the sale also pokes holes into various golden parachutes, which is not great. Please stop here and get a real good mental image of Frank explaining this to Karl at some point in the future. Picture Karl’s face.
So, that said, why did this entire group slide up into the B range? Simple: Because I did not see Karl at all, which leaves open the possibility that he spent the whole night at home on his couch watching The Fugitive with a glass of scotch in his hand. I want this for him.
GRADE: B
MUST IMPROVE: Getting out, once and for all
Willa
The best-case scenario for Willa in all of this is that Connor gets cooked in the election and gets so turned off by the whole process that he leaves politics behind and settles into a nice quiet life as a rich dope who never has diplomatic duties to attend to in assorted countries on the other side of the world, so let’s go ahead and call this one a win for her.
GRADE: B
MUST IMPROVE: I would have laughed a lot if she had stood up and smacked Roman in the mouth when he told her to be quiet
Ebba
It’s fun to remember that Ebba is doing this because her boss sent her a lot of his own blood as a form of sexual harassment. That’s why she’s blowing up the deal and spilling the beans about India. I mean, there are other reasons, too. Matsson is an all-time weirdo and not someone you’d wanna hang out with for more than, like, 30-40 minutes total. The blood thing is a symptom of a larger disease. But that’s the main thing. I still want to see her explain this in a tell-all primetime interview or maybe in front of Congress. Or maybe I just want her to sign an NDA with a massive check attached to it and go buy a little island somewhere.
I like Ebba. I want her and Jess Jordan to sit down and tell each other war stories about their man-child bosses.
GRADE: B
MUST IMPROVE: She needs to talk to Gerri, too, for names of lawyers if nothing else
Coffee, generally
Coffee is:
- Delicious
- Great at waking you up in the morning
- A good excuse to get together with someone without the commitment of a whole dinner
- Absolutely ruinous personally and professionally if you drink it too much at once or too late in the day
In conclusion, coffee is a land of contrasts.
GRADE: B+
MUST IMPROVE: Jitters
Oskar
ON ONE HAND: I… I think I’m supposed to hate him? He’s a big loud idiot and he’s a bully and he works with and for a guy who likes to do Holocaust tweets and fudge important business numbers. None of which is great.
ON THE OTHER HAND: He showed up to a party full of powerful people that he was barely invited to and promptly started vaping and calling people dingleberries all while maybe blitzed on psychedelics.
I love Oskar. I think it’s the beard.
GRADE: A
MUST IMPROVE: I don’t see where I have any right to tell this man how to live
Gerri
Gerri is:
- Showing up to parties out of spite
- Lawyered up
- Demanding hundreds of millions of dollars in hush money to stay silent about the very many unsolicited penis pictures the new co-CEO of Waystar RoyCo sent her before firing her on a whim within days of acquiring any sort of authority
I hope Gerri buys an island, too.
GRADE: A
MUST IMPROVE: Gerri is doing pretty great but it does not seem like she has had a lot of luck in love and I hope she finds happiness
The transition from Greg laying off a bunch of people straight into Tom talking about the fancy wines they’re going to drink at their big stupid party
I mean, there’s razor-sharp satire and then there’s “the most incompetent nepo baby alive fires hundreds of people via video chat followed by a smash-cut to wine chat at a party for powerful billionaires who have their entire fists pressed into the levers of power.” Pretty good show we have here.
GRADE: A
MUST IMPROVE: We could probably sneak the Curb Your Enthusiasm music into this sucker somewhere, but that’s just nitpicking
