The Roy siblings come down from the Norwegian mountains and go Hollywood in “Living+,” Episode 6 of “Succession’s” fourth and final season.
With a very attractive offer from Scandinavian online goliath GoJo to buy their media empire Waystar in play, Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Roman (Kieran Culkin) and Siobhan (Sarah Snook) want to fix their money-bleeding movie studio while preparing to host a shareholder’s presentation at the glamorous location. Will the lame-duck corporate leaders be able (or really want) to sell their investors on not only the merger points, but an ambitious new real estate venture their dad and Waystar’s founder Logan Roy (Brian Cox) was preparing before his sudden death?
The answers involve high drama and copious comic cringe.
Will You Be My Valentine?
The episode opens with a video of Logan against a green screen promoting Waystar Royco’s retirement community, Living+, which he describes as a “real estate brand that can bring the cruise ship experience to dry land.” Offscreen, the director (Episode 6 director Lorene Scafaria) stops him and wants him to sound more excited when he says “I couldn’t be more excited.”
Kendall, Roman, Shiv and P.R. guy Hugo (Fisher Stevens) are watching it on a monitor. Logan loses it when a makeup girl tries to apply touch-up.
“God, you’re f—g useless, the lot a’ yas!” the patriarch yells in the posthumous recording. “You’re as bad as my f—g idiot kids!”
“That’s bull—t,” Hugo says. “Sorry Ken.”
“That’s fine, that’s a Valentines card,” Kendall laughs and shakes his head. “Can we watch it again, actually? Good to see you, Dad.”
Following opening credits, Shiv’s in her plane on a runway. She gets a call from GoJo boss Lukas Mattson (Alexander Skarsgård); he’s in the private jet next to hers. The weird Swede soon comes on board barefoot, in a black T and gray workout pants. He tells Shiv he’s not thrilled with the Living+ product launch the Roys have planned in Hollywood.
“It was on the calendar, and if we decided to cancel the product launch it would look like we were just minding the shop until you came in,” Shiv explains.
“Well you are, right?” Matsson points out. “I don’t need it. It’s f—n’ land cruises.”
“Living+,” Shiv corrects. Their way of flirting is to argue the definitions again. He tells her the deal is going through with velocity and he really likes lots of it. But he really hates lots, too. He wants someone on the inside who understands that, but also gets him. He means her.
“Maybe I hate you,” Shiv warns.
“You can’t hate me, you don’t know me well enough,” he responds, perhaps honestly.
Shiv suggests she loves her brothers too much to do that. Matsson laughs at that one, tells her they were crazy and totally unprofessional on the mountaintop. He rises, puts his shades on and has to lean over as he shuffles backward through the cabin, since he’s taller than the plane’s ceiling. Matsson blows his “inside girl” kisses. Shiv calls him “outside boy.”
Roman and Ken march into a meeting room at Waystar Studios in L.A. All the executive eggs and Shiv are there. Ken sits in the middle of the table, where Shiv had her phone holding the spot. She grabs it and moves.
Though he’s super-excited about the sale, Ken says he and Rome have some reservations about Matsson.
“Long story short, Matsson exhibited some erratic behavior that made us concerned,” Roman tells the room.
Shiv wants specifics. So does P.R. head Karolina (Dagmara Domińczyk). The B-roll brothers lie about his coherence, and commitment to the deal. “Tweets, drug rumors, 50% in stock; that means we are exposed,” Ken lists reservations about recommending this person to the board.
“OK, it’s a worry,” general counsel Gerri (J. Smith-Cameron) acknowledges. “It’s a concern, I think we should monitor it closely. I don’t think it hurts. I mean, he’s a genius. Nobody minds a genius acting weird. His reputation is priced-in.”
Backed by CFO Karl (David Rasche) and ATN news network boss Tom (Matthew Macfadyen), Gerri once again proves no one talks ledge-jumpers down like her. Ken quickly yields to her viewpoint. The execs leave the three siblings in the room. Shiv’s skeptical about what the CEBros just brought up.
“I f—g know you!” she yells at her brothers. “Boys, you’re not good at this. ‘Hey Dad? Shiv spilled chocolate milk in the Range Rover.’” Snook’s eyes shoot daggers and her voice is a Ginzu knife. “Go on, lie to me. Lie to my face.”
“We’re not sure about the deal,” Ken admits. He says they didn’t tell her earlier to protect her.
Shiv wants to know what happened to their plan to buy Pierce together as Rome mumbles something about Matsson talking s—t about Dad. Ken thinks maybe the three of them can keep Waystar Royco and the Pierce media corporation. Roman apologizes again and asks to do the “huggie thing.” Sibs have an awkward, three-way embrace; Shiv leaves for an appointment she “can’t reschedule.” It’s in another room where, alone, she starts to cry. Then her husband Tom and cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) barge in.
“I want to give you a little preview of tonight’s selection …” Greg’s saying, searching for hotties on his phone. Startled to see Shiv, he dissolves the Disgusting Brothers and closes the door behind him, leaving Tom and Shiv in private. Snook locates pitiable vulnerability as Shiv explains to her estranged husband that she’s too busy to process Logan’s loss and her assistant “has sometimes found me somewhere so that I can have a moment to cry.”
“You’re scheduling your grief?” Tom asks. He can’t believe it.
“Just f—k off, yeah?” her father’s daughter tells him. He embraces and comforts her. They seriously kiss.
Community Concerns
Kendall and Roman work out their tasks for tomorrow’s presentation, strategize what to do re: Matsson. Talk about incomprehensible! These guys’ business-ish buzzwording is like a pair of twins’ private language. Roman admits the Living+ concept depresses him.
“Do you think it’s the speech written specifically for our late father?” Kendall queries. “Or the fact we’re planning to warehouse the elderly and keep them drunk on content while we suck ‘em dollar dry?”
“I think it’s the ‘90s pitch,” Roman reckons.
Kendall is briefly fixated on “personalized longevity programs” in the prospectus. Roman has to go to a meeting with studio head Joy Palmer (Annabeth Gish). Ken tells him to sprinkle some sugar, lots of strange buzz phrases; he’s relying on them more and making less sense than ever.
Joy greets Rome with cheek kisses in a nice part of the commissary. She expresses condolences and wants to know about the deal with Matsson. Roman uses descriptors like druggy and flakey. She does a hand flutter, he wonders what that was.
“A little Groucho Marks for ya,” she laughingly explains. “Inside cinema.”
He wants to know who’s getting fired for the “Kalispitron” s—t show. She wants to sidebar that overbudget robot movie disaster, tells him big personalities are involved. Roman sneers he can’t see that happening again. He promises to turn on the money hose if she’s confident she can get the hit machine pumpin’. She is, but wants to discuss ATN’s rightward lean.
“Lots of people are concerned about democratic institutions,” she says, sounding like a producer with a Fox first look deal praying for Disney’s rescue. “We have values here in this creative community.”
“I get it and I love the values,” Roman responds. “It’s an incredibly evolved, ruthlessly segregated city you’ve built on this geological fault here. Let’s get real. I feel like you’re not really listening to me? I’m saying I’m gonna dump a ton of money on you and all we want is to get the hit pump pumpin’.”
Then there’s some projection, a bit of self-loathing, her reassuring but choosing the wrong words, and he fires her.
“This is a mistake,” she threatens as he walks out to rising theme music.
In the theater where the investors presentation will be held the next day, Kendall has some ambitious staging ideas. He wants to build a Living+ house on the currently bare stage — “Small, plywood, basic brickwork, nothing crazy. Maybe clouds could appear above the house.
“Don’t say no, Denny,” he tells the stage manager. “Don’t say no.”
“This is for tomorrow?” Denny asks.
“Hollywood though, right?” Kendall answers wrongly. “Here’s the rule: No one can say no. Yes Kendall, thank you Kendall, for the cool new rule.”
Flunkies all thank him. Roman, at the back of the house, adds unenthusiastically “for the cool new rule.”
Bite Me
Hollywood Hills reception for the investors that night. Shiv spots Tom cruising the crowd, sashays over.
“I don’t want to cramp your style,” she tells him. “I’m sure you’re keen to get amongst it.”
“It?” Tom wonders.
“Yeah. The vaginas of the cheerful women who are tall enough to be models.”
He says he’s good. She keeps being suggestive.
“If I was going to say something from the heart, I guess I would say I’m sorry,” he tells his skeptical wife. “Sorry for f—g you up.”
Snook cycles puzzled and ironic laugh faces, finally says “You should be so lucky. You hardly scratched the surface. I was f—d up long before I met you.”
She calls him the one after The One. They continue jousting, pause, Shiv asks, “You wanna play bitey?”
He doesn’t know what that is. She explains the rules. They link exposed arms, dig teeth into one another. She taunts through her teeth “Is that all you’ve got?” He clamps down harder. She pulls away cussing. Tom wins!
“You OK?” he asks.
“Yeah,” she smiles seductively. “Tom Wambsgans, finally made me feel something.”
Back at the studio, Kendall runs his Living+ pitch by Roman and Greg.
“Unbelievable growth. Price rocket. Drive the price, we make the deal impossible.”
“So all you need is unbelievable growth,” Greg blunders.
“All right, Dr. Sarcasm,” Roman sarcastically says. “Did we tell you to squeak?”
Ken thinks that they can get a tech figure valuation on Living+.
“Can I just say, I think it’s hard to make houses seem like tech because we’ve had houses for a while now,” Greg, auditioning for the role of Captain Obvious, observes.
“This is the killer app,” Ken’s on a Ken roll. “Maximize your physical potential. Live, well, not forever. But if not forever, live more forever.”
They make Greg, who they now call Pitchbot, say “It’s kind of dope” like a robot.
“Oh my God, you’re fired,” Roman says to him. “But we don’t have the numbers, right?” he says to Ken.
“We’ll have the numbers,” Ken imagines. “I guess the sweet spot will be right after they get f—g delicious and just before they get f—g stupid.”
Greg robots away. Rome tells Ken he likes it, he’s not crazy about dying.
“I know, it’s bull—t,” Ken agrees. “It’s very un-Dad.”
They’re talking about ways to improve death from one size fits all when a concerned Gerri comes in. “Roman, I wanna talk to you,” she says sternly, and not in the manner he gets off on. In a conference room, she wants to know what happened with Joy, who’s not picking up and has outside counsel.
“I fired her. So?”
“Roman, you absolutely cannot fire a studio executive without speaking to legal and HR and having someone else present in case …”
“Right, right. Except I can because I did.”
She’s worried about litigation, ridicule, how to frame an apology. He tells Gerri to work on the mop-up.
“Joy has a lot of relationships and a lot of friends,” Gerri says, now furiously pointing. “And you are a weak monarch in a dangerous interregnum, and I think you need to reconsider.”
“This is something Dad would have done,” Roman responds.
“Well, maybe. But you’re not your dad,” Gerri steps over the line. Focus pulls into closer shots of each of them. Roman complains that her behavior toward him and using the f-word frequently feels disrespectful.
“I need you to believe that I am as good as my dad. Can you do that?”
More zoom-in on Gerri, making a variety of faces.
“Say it or believe it?” she finally asks.
“You don’t treat me with sufficient respect and that’s a problem,” Rome whines/threatens. “Maybe I’ll fire you too.”
She mentions she’s not on Matsson’s kill list. He doesn’t care. She goes oh no, you’re not going to win against the money.
“Your dad knew,” she insists. “Tech is coming. We are over, make your accommodations.”
Roman lists why Gerri’s not good at her job and should be fired. “Shall we get started on the paperwork?”
Hissing under her breath, Gerri says “I am good at my job.”
Outside the room Kendall, huddled with accountants, asks Roman to drop in at the reception for them because “I’ve got the big eye on, Bro. I can see everything.”
Roman mutters he thinks they should let Joy go.
Ken thinks a minute, then: “That’s baller for me. Let’s put an end to Joy.”
Roman adds he fired Gerri. Similar nonplussed then supportive Ken reaction.
“I mean, look at you!” Ken tells him with a power-drunk laugh. “Who are you gonna fire next? Fire Frank? Fire Karl? F—n’ eat Greg? You can fire me, man! You’re on fire!”
Roman’s concerned that it feels a bit big. Kendall, in Donald Trump Jr.-style speed jive, details how it can all be spun to their advantage.
In a bedroom at the party house, Shiv and Tom adjust their clothes. They tell each other “nice.” She asks if he’s all-in on Matsson.
Lounging on the bed like an odalisque, Tom answers “Yeah, I guess. I mean, your brothers hate me and you hate me and you’ll fire me. So yeah.”
She mentions she has a connection with Matsson. He rises and laughs at her.
“Oh, because you want to suck him off, you think that I must want to f—k him?” she lobs. “Think we’re all going to live together in a big ol’ Matsson house, f—g each other and singing Matsson songs?”
“Still keeping all your options open, Honey,” Tom says as he moves in on Shiv. “You should be careful with that.”
“Wow. Truth bombs! From the phony man.”
His forehead touching hers, Tom says softly “I think I want you. I think I would like this back.”
She pulls away, skeptical.
“Well then you shouldn’t have betrayed me. Phony.”
He sits on the bed. Confesses he’s thought about money all his life. How he loves it, felt compartmented, caught between her and Logan.
“If you think that’s shallow, why don’t you throw out all of your stuff for love?” Tom challenges Shiv.
“Throw out you necklaces and your jewels for a date at a three-star Italian. Come and live with me in a trailer park. Yeah? Are you coming?”
She sits next to him. Makes a too-serious face. “Wow. I’d follow you anywhere for love, Tom Wambsgans.”
A pause, then they both crack up.
In a mixing booth, Greg browbeats a sound engineer into changing Logan’s words on the Living + promotional video from “a significant boost” to “double the earnings.” Elsewhere on the lot, Kendall asks a hesitant accountant “What if we doubled that? It needs to be super credible, Pete. It’s gotta be credible. New products and services, machine learning on the marketing plus repackaging health data to third parties; easily, easily grow that.”
“Can I talk to Karl?” Pete begs.
“If it feels scary, it’s because the potential is scary, Pete,” Ken confidently assures. He eventually bullies Pete into total agreement with him.
Living in the Dream Factory
Next morning. Shiv and Tom in a studio office. She greets “Lukas, Sweety” on her laptop, tells him they’ll be pushing Living+.
“I don’t like real estate,” Matsson sighs. “It’s not scalable and I don’t want the hassle of unwinding. Is there any way you can stop it?”
Shiv can’t. He suggests a bomb threat. She says she’s not about to start dropping stage weights on people’s heads. He chuckles on the other end.
Kendall in a black sweatshirt enters the theater. There’s much construction onstage. He’s told they couldn’t achieve everything. Roman watches with pity from a seat in the auditorium.
“This won’t be just it, will it?” he asks, referring to the basic plywood facades. Lights and something thrown over it are promised. Ken wants to see the “clouds.” A pitiful fog spray from overhead doesn’t do the trick.
Ken asks Roman about the script he’s reading. Rome wants to know where the numbers came from. Ken points to his own head. He assures his brother Pete has it. Shiv comes in, tells Roman she’s worried about the big numbers.
“He’s got that gleam in his eye,” she says of Ken. “Jesus Christ, Rome, this is not good. You’re out of control, he’s out of control, this is going down [points at stage]. Should we pull the plug on today?”
“It’s going to be fine,” Roman, unconvinced himself, offers. “It’s a decent play, I think.”
“Yeah, sure,” says Shiv. “Made-up numbers and shooting to the moon and imaginary clouds. Dude, c’mon.”
“Yeah, it’s high risk. But we have to back it.”
“You know he could do anything up there, and then you’re a part of it. He has harebrained schemes. I love him but he cracks under pressure and I think we should protect him. We should stop this.”
Investors arrive. There’s a big “Doderick and Friends” standee in the lobby; it’s for Waystar’s favorite cartoon dog’s upcoming movie.
In a dressing room, Kendall’s wearing a specially made flight jacket for the launch. He has one for Roman, too.
“Heads up, I’ve gone even bigger in Colorado. The numbers get crazy good,” Ken tells his brother, cackling nervously. “It’s enough to make you lose your faith in capitalism. Like, you can say anything.”
“I’ll bet,” Roman mutters, then suggests postponing.
Ken gets all sad, plops in a chair. “This … This is the idea, though. You think it’s nuts?”
“No, no. I mean, pitching f—g playhouses and living forever and doubling up the f—g numbers …”
“It’s big swing time,” Kendall insists, a human bobblehead. “We have to!”
Roman says it’s Ken’s vision, he’s concerned he might mess it up. Translation: I’m bailing. Ken is called onstage. Roman tells him to break that leg.
Karl walks with Ken through a hallway to the stage. He’s concerned more tweaks have been made in his arena and wants a quick peek at the script’s numbers. Ken tries to blow him off. The older man reads him the riot act.
“If you try to f—k up [Logan’s] deal or if you try to stand up numbers that I am not comfortable with, I swear to God …”
A suddenly self-possessed Ken tells Karl to take it easy. “CEO. CFO.”
“What?” Karl shoots back. “You’re going to fire a chief financial officer a week in? Your dad just gone? You’d be f—g toast! You have my dick in your hand, Ken, but I’ve got yours in mine. So let’s get real. If you say something that I don’t like up there, or make me look foolish, I’ll f—n’ squeal.”
Ken smiles, pats Karl’s arm and walks away. Karl voices a sincere-sounding “Good luck to ya, Buddy.” Karl sits offstage with Frank and Gerri.
Ken walks onstage to over-orchestrated rap music, raises a fist and claps at the applauding audience of shareholders. There’s a big center video screen with smaller ones on each side behind him. He opens rambling too long about big shoes. In a viewing suite, Roman (not wearing a flight jacket) repeats “Big shoes. Big hat. Big nervous breakdown.”
Ken talks to the teleprompter. In the viewing suite, Tom criticizes “Don’t talk to the teleprompter, Amateur!” Ken thanks the whole Waystar family for their support over these tough few days. “It means a lot, Isn’t that right, Dad?”
Logan appears on the center screen.
Loud “Nos!” reverberate through the viewing suite. “This is new, this is all new!” a flustered Karolina says, shuffling disregarded script pages.
Logan’s digital ghost tells Ken “Let’s get on with it.”
“Strangest double act ever,” COO Frank (Peter Friedman) observes.
“F—g amateur hour,” Gerri reviews. “Wake me up when it’s over.”
“I don’t know if I can watch this,” a clearly disturbed Shiv protests.
“She said while watching the f—k out of it and getting turned on,” Roman snaps at her. “I can hear how wet you are. It’s gross!”
Greg tells Tom, “You don’t have to worry about your speech. You just go on and mop up all the blood.”
Ken launches into the Living + pitch. It sounds eerily like the Storyliving By Disney concept, but if all those rumors about Walt getting cryogenically frozen were real. The promises of peace of mind, fun and forever sound appealing. Hugo tells Karolina “This is good! Yours?” Whether she wrote it or not, she nods.
Matsson calls Shiv. “I don’t like it. Can you stop it?’
Oh what? You don’t want to make prison camps for grannies?” she replies. “Yeah, he’s riding the bats—t unicycle, but maybe someone could put a stick in the spokes?”
Ken then runs the doctored video of Logan saying he’s convinced Living+ can double the earnings of Waystar’s parks division.
Back in the viewing suite, Shiv mentions that’s not f—g cool.
“It’s really well-edited,” Greg praises.
Ken rhetorically asks if extending life is doable. Worth it?
“Well, if you ask me would I take an extra year right now with my dad, say the unsaid, that would be priceless.” He turns to the screen. “Yeah, I mis you. Dad. I love you, Dad.”
He waves as the screen goes blank. The crowd eats it up.
Karolina tells Roman people online are liking it. Hugo lets out an “Oh f—k!” Lukas has tweeted “Doderick Macht Frei” with a deepfake of the cartoon dog upthumbing a Living+ logo under the gate to Auschwitz.
“That’s a very nasty joke, right?” Roman asks.
“It’s a Holocaust joke,” Shiv says with all the distaste inside her registering on her face.
“We might need to strategize,” Karolina says, auditioning for the role of Captain Obvious.
Ken, not informed in time, starts the audience Q&A. First question: How do you feel about Lukas’ tweet? Ken takes out his phone and looks at it.
“Well, I’m not gonna fave it. You all know we’re looking at a deal with Lukas, and I have so much time and respect for what he’s built. Now, personally, I wouldn’t have said that. And apologies, sincere apologies, for any offense caused. Y’know, he’s, uh, very European. And if and when we complete the deal and he gets into the incredible opportunity this product presents, I think he’ll be tweeting something different.”
Shiv on the phone to Matsson: “Maybe you’re giving this too much attention than it deserves? Just back off, huh?”
Everyone agrees Kendall is handling the curveball well on stage. He even moves a discussion of social media’s flaws to an argument why Living+ is like but better than SM. It’s in the real world. He finally gets a message to cut the Q&A. Gets a warm sendoff from the crowd as Tom prepares to come out and talk about ATN.
“How am I supposed to follow this?” Tom complains to Greg. “He’s promised them eternal life!”
Ken enters the viewing suite to cheers and applause. Stock price is rising. Matsson deleted the tweet.
Karl points at Ken, “I know special and he’s special.”
Roman walks out. In his limo, he calls up another doctored video of Logan on his phone.
“I want to make what I think is a fairly historic announcement,” Dead Dad says. “I’m convinced that Roman Roy has a micro dick and always gets it wrong.”
He repeatedly plays it.
On their ride from the studio, Shiv tells Tom, “If we’re thinking of hosting, I can’t get into any of our s—t. If this is OK with you, it has to be strictly party and strategy.
“Strictly, entirely,” Tom agrees. “I can’t help it if I find strategy sexy, though. I do.”
Shiv smiles out the window, turns her head to give him a stern look.
Alone, Ken floats in the Pacific off Malibu.
Best One-Liners:
Ken’s main pitch for Living+ sounds ridiculous, but it’s so well-structured and shrewdly delivered you’d feel bad not to fall for it:
“Our brand-turboed Living+ real estate communities are going to guarantee three absolute essentials. One: Total peace of mind. Discreet community protection and enhanced home monitoring. You’ll have your keys but, yeah, you won’t need ‘em. Crime-free, hassle-free and respectful. Two: Fun. Fun is what we’re all about at Waystar, by a lot of metrics the leading entertainment brand in the world. So, hyper local news, movie-themed events, advanced screenings, ATN debate and discussions, multimedia events from cooking to premium access sports. We’re talkin’ integrated everyday character IP life enhancement. Maybe a director will swing by with a rough cut; stars certainly will. Movies, shows, rides, experiences to enjoy at home or with the family – who will not want to stop visiting. We can even tell them you’re out if you need a break.
“We think that security plus entertainment is a pretty unbeatable offer, right? Well, one more thing. How about if I told you it was all going to last forever? Well, I can’t. I can’t, not quite yet, we’re not there yet. But our central, extraordinary offer is health and happiness. Because here’s what makes this amazing new product almost irresistible: Our incredible links with tech and pharmaceutical companies, which mean privileged access to life enhancement and extension therapies that right now are the preserve of tech billionaires. But we’re going to deliver them at home, at scale, targeted and supported.”
Stray Observations:
Kendall and Roman keep moving up by screwing up. It’s clear in this episode that they know nothing about how show business works, but in their arrogant process expose some of the conventional knowledge that is preventing old media from moving forward. Their emotionally overwrought negotiations with Matsson resulted in a better offer than anyone imagined in the previous episode, and now Kendall’s reality-challenged Living+ pitch earns an ecstatic reception. This is all bound to blow up in their faces by the end of the season, right? Right?
So, um, about that baby … Looks like Shiv’s on a collision course back to Tom. But if he ever finds out she’s pregnant, will he respond to it with the love he kinda sorta sincerely expressed in this episode, or as an element of the career calculation he also copped to?
It would be poetic if all that Matsson ended up buying of Waystar was the IP rights to Doderick.
