No amount of Bitey can bring Tom and Shiv back from this.
Succession Season 4 Episode 7 “Tailgate Party” on HBO is a pressure cooker of tense emotions, wild twists, and brutal betrayals. Were you a fan of Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) and Shiv (Sarah Snook) reconnecting last week? Well, guess what? They BLEW up this week! Were you certain that Swedish tech bro Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgard) was headed for a smooth victory lap around Kendall (Jeremy Strong) and Roman (Kieran Culkin)? Think again! Kendall might juice estimates to a dangerous degree, but Matsson was straight up lying about GoJo subscriber growth in India! Oh, and it turns out that Willa (Justine Lupe) might now be the Roy family’s most powerful political player! WILLA!
The bulk of Succession Season 4 Episode 7 “Tailgate Party” takes place at a ritualistic shindig that the Roy family holds the night before every presidential election. Right-wing political icons mingle with liberal spin doctors, libations are had, and a roomful of the 1% bet on the election results for the honor of a crock of kettle corn. That’s how little they think of the outcome of an election that could rock millions — if not billions — of people’s lives.
Against this backdrop, Tom and Shiv came to blows, Kendall discovered a way to route Matsson, and Willa convinced Connor (Alan Ruck) to stay in the presidential race. Here are the biggest moments in Succession Season 4 Episode 7 “Tailgate Party.”
Were you hoping against all reason that Mr. and Mrs. Wambsgans could play “Bitey” all the way back to marital bliss? Well, fie on you! Your dreams are dust!
While Succession Season 4 Episode 7 opens with Tom and Shiv in a post-coital glow, that soon dims. First when Tom gifts Shiv a…scorpion? “I love you, but you kill me and I kill you,” he says.
However things really implode at the titular tailgate party, which Tom and Shiv are hosting. Because Kendall and Roman still want to kill the deal with Matsson, they invite Shiv’s ex Nate (Ashley Zuckerman) in an attempt to suck up to the now surging Democratic presidential candidate he’s tied to. Shiv quickly invites Matsson to crash the party as well. This leads to an awkward situation where Shiv is secretly trying to woo Nate and the other elites to Matsson’s cause so they don’t hit the GoJo deal with regulatory red tape. As Shiv sticks to Matsson, Tom begins to hear more and more rumblings that Matsson’s plans for ATN include firing him.
