‘Succession’ Episode 7: Can Shiv and Tom Come Back From This? - Vanity Fair

On this week’s episode of Still Watching, Richard Lawson and Chris Murphy unpack Shiv and Tom’s epic fight, Kendall’s poor parenting skills, and the fallout of Roman’s big moves. Plus, interviews with Peter Friedman, David Rasche, and Alexander Skarsgård.

By Chris Murphy

May 7, 2023

It’s election eve on Succession, and everyone’s on edge. In “Tailgate Party,” the seventh episode of Succession’s final season, Shiv (Sarah Snook) and Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) join forces to throw a preelection soiree at their Manhattan triplex for some of the most influential people in politics. Sparks fly—mostly between the two of them. At first it seems the formerly estranged couple have reconciled, with Tom and Shiv trading sexts during the workday. On this week’s episode of Still Watching, cohost Chris Murphy says Tom’s jokey preelection present to Shiv—a scorpion paperweight—is the worst gift he’s seen on HBO since The White Lotus season two, when Valentina gave her unrequited love, Isabella, a hideous starfish brooch.

“I think that it was emblematic of Tom’s tragic inability to not see when he’s taken a joke too far, to not be able to read Shiv when she’s not in the mood for the big joke of their relationship,” agrees cohost Richard Lawson. “He’s never supposed to lead the attack.”

By nightfall, though, it’s all-out warfare between Tom and Shiv. It may be impossible for them to come back from their patio fight, particularly because Tom tells Shiv that she’d be a terrible mother. Murphy points that out as both proof that Tom still doesn’t know Shiv is pregnant and the potential point of no return for the couple. “The fact of the matter is, we have never seen a single good parent on this show,” says Lawson. “There’s no reason to think that Shiv would be a good parent.”

Tom and Shiv were not the only couple to hash it out this episode. Kendall (Jeremy Strong) finally gets a visit from his ex-wife, Rava (Natalie Gold), who informs him that their daughter has been the victim of bullying due to his running of “a racist news organization.” Murphy notes that Kendall’s first instinct is to blame Rava for the incident, despite the fact that he hasn’t seen or spoken to his daughter once this entire season. “You’d think that given his relationship with his own father, [Kendall] would maybe want to be a better dad or more attentive, or more caring, or more involved,” says Murphy. “But no. The only lesson that he has learned from Logan’s death is that he wants to be better than Logan. He wants to be bigger than Logan.”

On his quest to become bigger than his father, Kendall, at the tailgate party, goes head-to-head with Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård), who he discovers—courtesy of Matsson’s employee and ex-girlfriend, Ebba (Eili Harboe)—has been making up some numbers of his own. Kendall and Matsson’s resulting tête-à-tête, Lawson and Murphy agree, is akin to a middle school shoving match with no winner to be found. Skarsgård drops by the podcast to chat with VF’s Julie Miller about the episode, particularly that gold bomber jacket. “He wears a lot of sweatpants and sneakers, and then this crazy golden jacket that’s probably like a $25,000 Japanese designer jacket,” he said. “It’s a weird combination of super casual and comfortable but also ridiculously expensive and completely over the top, just because he finds it funny.”

After some shady phone calls with Republican candidate Jeryd Mencken’s (Justin Kirk) team, Roman attempts to convince Connor (Alan Ruck) to drop out of the presidential race, offering him a series of ambassadorships in Mencken’s Cabinet—much to Willa (Justine Lupe) and Connor’s chagrin. But Roman has bigger issues to face than whether Connor wants to be the ambassador to Oman. After Roman tries to bring Gerri (J. Smith-Cameron) back into the fold, Gerri flat-out refuses, demanding hundreds of million of dollars in a severance package and threatening to release the “many, many” pictures of Roman’s penis that she has on her phone.

Elsewhere in this Still Watching episode, Miller chats with dream team Karl (David Rasche) and Frank (Peter Friedman), who say their characters’ relationship was forged in trauma. “[They] fought wars together,” says Rasche. “The audience doesn’t see it, but we spent all day with Logan every day. Meetings, dinners, trips. We’ve known him for 20, 30 years—a long, long time.”

As each Roy sibling circles the drain, will any of them be left to run the company by season’s end? Listen to the latest episode of Still Watching to hear Lawson and Murphy discuss the seventh episode of the final season of Succession. For your own questions, comments, and final-season theories, please email stillwatchingpod@gmail.com.