The Box Set: "Succession."

Ep. 5: "The Kill List."

If you’re looking for the “Succession” deconstruction, I’ll be right there after I spend a couple of weeks in those amazing modernist rooms that the Roy boys said are too small.

OK, here we go:

“Succession” got its fastball — and it’s curveball — back in this episode, which of course had the added benefit of being shot in Norway with gorgeous outdoor scenes and tons of Scandi-licious furniture and architecture.

It’s also the first episode in a while where the show returns to Matsson being an unstable force and the first time “the CE-bros” actually get something positive out of a deal even when they were looking to tank it. The turning point was — gasp! — a real emotional response from one of the Roy kids instead of protective sarcasm. In this case, it was Roman being unable or unwilling to let it go when Matsson talks shit about Logan and the result was a kind of scathing, ill-advised, here’s-what-we’re-going-to-do-to-you reaction — the kind of blunt honesty that Matsson said very clearly he wanted — and the realness of it spooks him into upping the price for the deal.

But I think the episode also telegraphed that a flurry of backstabbing surprises is just ahead, as it appears Shiv and Matsson are at least wink-winking themselves into something not quite clear yet but also likely cahoots, yes? With the old guard graybeards feeling like they will either survive the “kill list” or get a fantastic golden parachute, more intrigue will surely surface there and finally Greg appears to have either soured on Tom or figured out that Tom is a sacrificial lamb in waiting.

(Or not, with Shiv’s pregnancy….we didn’t see her do any coke and her tormenting Tom might just be cat’s play before cutting him down to size, explaining the baby situation and a new pecking order going forward. Or…not? I mean, that ear flick might really have been the beginning of the end for Tom).

And since we’re here, hanging out on gondolas and taking in the vast, gorgeous expanse of what infighting there might be to come, there’s certainly a scenario where the deal gets announced — $192! — and then completely torched by Matsson’s erratic behavior soon after, leaving Kendall and Roman as the fall guys on an ill-advised sale to an erratic tech genius who sends his blood to former lovers, which would then likely leave a battered company and its board looking to Shiv to stabilize things, the soon to be mother figure of stability that she may embrace (or be able to shape and sell).

Here are some of the better parts of the episode: