The Roys never had a chance: "Succession" sells Alexander Skarsgård as TV's finest Viking conqueror

Getting into the guts of "Kill List," the "Succession" episode where the Roys face off with the Odin of Codin' at long last, requires a lingering consideration of Alexander Skarsgård – and Swedes in general, but mostly him.

Skarsgård, who plays GoJo CEO Lukas Matsson, figured out his niche sometime after he seized our attention in 2008's "Generation Kill." That limited series may have announced him as a serious actor, but it wasn't until he became Eric Northman in "True Blood" that Skarsgård nailed the elements of mood and chemistry that assured he'd slay this role.

Since Skarsgård is the common denominator in all these roles, reading what he recently told The Guardian about himself, and his people, may lend some clarity here.

"There's a politeness to Canadians and Swedes," he said. "But it's all just a f**king facade. Deep down we're animals. We're just very good at concealing it." 

Matsson, being a(n Eric) Northman though, doesn't bother hiding his beastly side. He delights in telling people exactly what he is. "I like to f**k around. I do!" he tells Shiv (Sarah Snook) in a patio chat out of earshot from her brothers. "But I, like, f**k around like . . . psilocybin at breakfast."

"Kill List" shows what that means. The GoJo chief wields impropriety with verve at the Norway company retreat to which he beckons the Waystar Royco team – all the top executives, along with Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Roman (Kieran Culkin) and Shiv – for a culture compatibility check. (Alan Ruck's Connor is left in New York to spar with Marcia over whether Logan will wear a kilt in his casket, a task he can barely handle.)

To no one's surprise, Matsson's boys' club culture resembles ATN's in many ways. "Privacy, pussy, pasta" are Matsson's main motivators, as he announces when we first meet him in the seventh episode of Season 3,"Too Much Birthday." Ergo, little of what we see in this hour defies that mission statement. He introduces his head of communications, Ebba (Eili Harboe), to Shiv as "an estrogen air freshener we keep around to try to keep us smelling clean." 

Untroubled, Ebba tells Shiv she keeps notes on everything Matsson says so that when she walks she'll either get a massive payoff to stay quiet or it'll go in her tell-all. Despite this skeevy interaction, Shiv seems intrigued by Matsson's danger.

"Kill List" is written by Ted Cohen, who collaborated on "The Disruption," and Jon Brown, who wrote "Vaulter" and "Lion in the Meadow." Those episodes are precursors as to what happens here. "Lion in the Meadow," for instance, features Kendall and Logan meeting with a major shareholder (Adrien Brody, whose performance garnered an Emmy nod) who, upon witnessing their failure to get along, tells Ken he's lost confidence in the company's leadership.

"The Disruption" is the hour where Kendall disrupts Shiv's speech at a Waystar town hall, her earliest coming-out as a member of the executive team, by having an assistant blast Nirvana's "Rape Me" over her speech. One episode shows Kendall trying to impress a bigger dog and failing. The other sees Shiv publicly humiliated to an extent that warrants epic payback. It takes a while but at long last, here we are.

Alexander Skarsgård in "Succession" (Photograph by Graeme Hunter/HBO)

Matsson and the GoJo team are the Waystar crew's opposites in every way. Karolina (Dagmara Domińczyk), doing her due diligence on the plane ride from New York to Norway, sounds the alarm that "the whole team has Fulbrights coming out of their asses. NASDAQ master race!" More fearsome than their resumes is their corporate track record: a recent acquisition of a video game publisher resulted in 10 percent staff retention, mostly the youngest employees.

Gerri (J. Smith-Cameron) counters this psych out with an inspirational pre-battle speech. "They may think they're Vikings," she tells the wavering troop, "but we've been raised by wolves, exposed to a pathogen that goes by the name of Logan Roy. And they have no idea what's coming to them. OK?"

Yeah, well . . . Gerri can speak for herself.

Vikings have a complicated relationship with wolves. Matsson, if he believed in those old Norse myths, may have viewed Logan on par with Fenrir, the wolf who kills Odin in Ragnarok. But on this day, the alpha is dead, and Asgard is ready to bring his pups to heel. Odin also kept wolves as pets, don't you know.

So when Kendall says at the top of the episode, "Let's go get the deal. Let's bleed the Swede!" you could probably guess who would be exiting this meeting with a mortal wound.

To review: Logan planned to sell off nearly all of his Waystar Royco empire except for his right-wing propaganda machine ATN, the only part of his business with the power to pick presidents and shape society to his will. With his entertainment concerns offloaded, he could corner the news and information sector by acquiring Pierce Global Media. But his death shot that plan to Hell along with his soul.

Kendall, Roman and Shiv could see that vision through . . . if they weren't Kendall, Roman, and Shiv, an easily manipulated trio. Matsson has already sized up the boys. As for Shiv, soon after the Swede meets Tom (Matthew Macfadyen), he realizes Shiv's husband offers no competition.

At breakfast, Matsson opens his attack by peeling Roman and Kendall away from Shiv, Gerri, Frank (Peter Friedman) and Karl (David Rasche) with a playground taunt: "You guys scared to come and talk without the village elders?" From there he corners them in a room and announces that he wants all of Waystar Royco, including ATN.

Kendall and Roman assume they're born to win, but when they get in the room with Matsson and he announces he wants to purchase their entire legacy for . . . one dollar, they're shaken. A few icepick stabs later he offers $187 per share: 50 percent in cash, and 50 percent in stock. 

The brothers Roy bring the offer to the "village elders" who salivate at how golden their parachutes will be. On the walk to deliver the news to Shiv, though, the boys decide they need to keep ATN.

Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook, Kieran Culkin in "Succession" (Photograph by Graeme Hunter/HBO)

Shiv feels differently. She's gotten word that back in the ATN newsroom, their head of news, Cyd (Jeannie Berlin), has had neo-fascist presidential candidate Jeryd Mencken's campaign team dialed in on their editorial morning conference. Shiv asks them if they knew, and Roman answers, "I did not know that," in a way that reads, "I totally knew."

When Kendall redirects her attention to Matsson's offer to take ATN in the deal, Shiv says, "Yeah. Sure, fine. Get rid of it. It's a toxic asset." Kendall counters that ATN is their father's pride and joy, and he was trying to keep it when he died. "Yeah, well, let's just keep one of his old sweaters," she responds. "Less racist." She insists that they get the deal done.

Resuming negotiations at a patio table, Shiv sitting nearby this time, does not close the deal.

"You don't want ATN," Matsson says. Kendall tries to persuade Matsson that he doesn't know what he's buying. Matsson assures them and "Succession" viewers that he does. "Long term, I don't think news for angry old people works," he says. (No kidding. It can also be unnecessarily expensive!)

Kendall says he's wrong; Matsson says he doesn't care what he thinks. "You're a tribute band."

Matsson shows Shiv that they're more aligned on this issue than her brothers realize, mainly because Roman and Kendall do not consider Shiv's insight on anything. So that night, while Kendall tells Roman he wants to tank the deal in a fireside chat, Shiv joins Matsson for a drink and a bump in his private quarters.

Here is where Skarsgård's talent for sinister seduction weaves beautifully with Snook's way of making Shiv's false self-assurance plausible. As Snook plays it, maybe Shiv knows what she's doing. Maybe what she stokes here is entirely accidental. It's hard to tell.

But, as Shiv and Matsson circle each other, he plies the time-honored panty-plundering technique of seamlessly mixing lies with truths to appear vulnerable. "I can find it hard to see the angles on people, you know?" (Lie.) "Like, I get into things, and I don't have very good boundaries." (Truth.) "Like . . . I'm doing it now." (Also true; also tantalizing.) He asks Shiv for negotiation advice; she states the obvious – offer more money. He asks about Karolina, out of nowhere. Shiv assures him Karolina is good at what she does.

Then Matsson plays another enticement card, asking Shiv for relationship advice. He tells the story about "a girl" he broke up with, and that as part of a "nasty, friendly joke," he sent her half a liter of his blood, frozen into a brick. "As a joke!" he repeats. Then he kept doing it, "again and again and again, and then it became not a joke, and then a joke again? And now it's not a joke." Maybe he's serious. Maybe he's not, and this is another test. Of course he's talking about Ebba. His head of communications. He can just deny this, right? he asks Shiv, who points out the difficulty in that since Ebba has actual liters of his DNA in her possession which is waaaay off the creep charts.

Alexander Skarsgård, Sarah Snook in "Succession" (Photograph by Graeme Hunter/HBO)

Then she serenely offers a few tips in response. "Three-point PR plan, just off the top of my head: Point one might be hard for you, but – stop sending people your blood." She continues with more sapience, offering Gerri as a sounding board.

"I like you," says Matsson. "You're cool. You're not judgy. You can take a joke, and I like that. Like your dad." This pleases Shiv. The next day she lords her nightcap meeting over Tom, praising how "broad" Matsson is. Tom flicks her earlobe hard and calls it "thick and chewy."

By then the boys are ready to nuke the deal. They've forced the GoJo staff to watch a mind-numbing early cut of an upcoming theatrical release to tenderize them. Then Kendall and Roman take a gondola to the top of a mountain where Matsson waits, having traveled by helicopter to get there first. "People are f**king, tiny, right? But not us! Not us." Matsson brags. Ah, flattery. He knows that Logan was the 100-foot-tall giant in the family and his children are pliable pygmies, like everyone else.

The boys open the conversation by complaining about the movie. Then Matsson gets pointed. "Are you Scooby-Doo-ing me here? . . . You're telling me the theme parks are haunted, your big movie is s**tty? Are you tanking the deal?"

Alexander Skarsgård in "Succession" (Photograph by Graeme Hunter/HBO)

The ruse unmasked, the Swede moves in for the jugular: "I preferred doing this with your dad. I mean, he was a prick, but at least he knew what he wanted . . . I think he'd be embarrassed if he saw you two now. His two big boys playing Scooby-Doos. Am I going to have to go around you, talk directly to the Board? Talk directly to the old ones? Unbelievable."

And Kendall, thinking he has Matsson where he wants him, sets Roman on the GoJo titan while he's taking a piss. Roman screams insults at Matsson who listens calmly, grinning and muttering, "This is good."

When Roman's tirade is finished, Matsson leans in, smiles, and whispers, "Wait, wait, wait – you just f**ked yourself. Good."

As the Scoobies take the slow gondola back down the mountain Matsson flies past in his whirlybird. He bypasses them again when they're flying home, calling Village Elder Frank with a revised offer of $192 a share. Pending board approval and whatever unforeseen nonsense may gum up the works, Waystar Royco, including ATN, will belong to Matsson. 

Then the provisional "kill list" proposing which personnel should be bought out pops into their inboxes. Pretty much all of the old guard is on it, except for Karolina and Gerri, the two names Shiv dropped in Matsson's whiskey glass . . . and Tom.

As the old ones celebrate having successfully raided the young Vikings, Shiv, feeling the power surge of clinching favorite child status from a new daddy, instructs Tom to fire Cyd. She starts to ask her humbled not-quite-ex if he wants dinner, but is interrupted by a call from Odin. Matsson instructs Shiv, in his bedroom voice, to send him a photo of her brothers' glum faces. She surreptitiously complies, then clinks champagne glasses with her bros, smiling duplicitously in place of offering, "Skål."