This post contains spoilers for the Succession series finale, obviously.
The series finale of Succession was a barn-burner, complete with a shocking twist ending and a disgusting “Meal Fit for a King.” It was packed with goodies, including a scene relatively early on in which Alexander Skarsgard’s Gojo honcho Matsson takes Matthew Macfadyen’s Tom out to dinner, courting him to be the U.S. CEO of his new company. It’s a weird scene, even for Succession, with Matsson telling Tom he wants to sleep with his semi-estranged wife “a little bit.” But at least the scene was a blast to shoot.
Skarsgard made an appearance on HBO’s official Succession podcast, where he told host Kara Swisher the scene was “incredibly weird.” Still, he says, “I had such a lovely, lovely time shooting that scene.”
What about it was “lovely”? Well…
“It’s so well-written, it’s so excruciatingly uncomfortable. I mean, he’s telling Tom that he wants to f*ck his wife. And knowing that he’s holding this little nugget of gold in front of Tom, saying, ‘You want this? You want this?’ And he knows that he can say in this situation that he can say anything, because Tom desperately wants this decision. He knows that he can really lean into that awkwardness and explore it and have fun with it. And it’s important for him to have a sycophant in that position — someone who will be his little lapdog and do exactly what he needs. Tom is proving himself worthy of that, as an amazing sycophant by basically saying, ‘It’s fine, it’s fine, you want to f*ck her. We’re men, I can deal with this. And now let’s go party, let’s have a great time.’”
Skarsgard says it’s all intentional. Tom is clearly bothered and, Skarsgard says, “Matsson knows that he is,” but he “gets the answer he knows that he wants.”
It’s really a test, Skarsgard argues:
“It’s not because he finds Shiv attractive that he doesn’t think she can be the U.S. CEO of the company. It’s not about that. He sends frozen blood bricks to his employees, so he does weird sh*t. He’s not afraid of things being, as he says, ‘clickety-clickety.’ In a weird way, he thrives on that weirdness, that madness of it all. That’s something he says in that moment to see how well-trained a lapdog [Tom] will be.”
So what will Waystar Royco be like merged with Gojo and with Tom as its puppet CEO? We’ll probably never find out unless creator Jesse Armstrong really does do that threatened spinoff.
You can listen to the Succession podcast here. Skarsgard bit begins around the 19-minute mark.