‘Succession’ Episode 5: Shiv Plays the Cool Girl Who Can Shrug Off Sexual Harassment
After being pushed out of her brothers’ “CE-Bros” alliance, Shiv forges an unlikely alliance with Lukas Matsson, who sent an employee his own frozen blood (??).
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We are now, somehow, halfway through the fourth season of Succession, and this week’s was a pretty big episode for Shiv—in case the implosion of her marriage, sudden death of her father, and revelation of her pregnancy over the last few weeks weren’t spicy enough. As the Waystar Royco family treks to Norway to close the deal with GoJo’s eccentric CEO Lukas Matsson (masterfully played by Alexander Skarsgård), Shiv, who was pushed out of her brothers’ “CE-Bros” alliance last week, moves to forge an unlikely alliance with Matsson. And the alliance naturally hinges on what a Cool Girl™ Shiv is.
Throughout the episode, Matsson delivers shock after shock, starting with surprising Roman and Kendall by making a play to buy their late father’s baby, ATN, which was excluded in the original agreed-upon acquisition deal. But amid an uncannily intimate fireside chat with Shiv over drinks, Matsson one-ups himself: He reveals his former romantic and clearly inappropriate relationship with his employee, GoJo communications executive Ebba, and that, in the aftermath of the relationship, he harassed Ebba by sending her roughly 16 “bricks” of his own frozen blood. OK!