As in, tip off someone high up in political circles to get the DOJ, FCC, FTC - doesn’t matter which scramble of letters - suspicious of the sale and investigate it on antitrust grounds. Now, they want to take the regulatory tack. Apparently, it wasn’t enough to snuff out the deal. In the last episode, Kendall and Roman attempted to drive up the Waystar stock price so that Matsson, unable or unwilling to match it, would walk away. And most of the bullshitting they engage in during this episode boomerangs and knocks them back down to Earth. They are full of mundane desires and wounded feelings. But they can’t come away completely unscathed. The Roys are careless people, leaving others to clean up their mess, as the famous line goes in The Great Gatsby. Hedge your bets, and get ready to cozy up to whoever ends up president. The election itself is a funny little distraction: Partygoers are encouraged to participate in a cutesy game guessing which candidate will win by how much, and there’s a pervasive sense of ideological nihilism in the room - people might have a preferred candidate, but it’s all the same in the end.

This episode is classic Succession: There’s a swanky event going on, but the main characters are scurrying around with ulterior motives, trying to outwit their opponents.

Connor (Alan Ruck) is trying to barter his cratering presidential bid into a prestigious diplomatic gig. Matsson, it turns out, is conjuring numbers out of thin air. Shiv is lying to her brothers’ faces while working with GoJo chief Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård), hoping to secure herself the role in the company that Logan and her brothers have long denied her. Everyone at the party is engaged in a kind of tactical bullshitting: Kendall (Jeremy Strong) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) are spreading rumors and innuendo to powerful people in hopes of tanking GoJo’s acquisition. We see plenty of help - cleaners, caterers, waiters, drivers, doormen - milling about in the background as Tom and Shiv giggle about their naughty machinations. In “Tailgate Party,” the seventh episode of the final season of Succession, Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) and Shiv (Sarah Snook), who are in a better place than ever in their relationship, are about to throw a pre-Election Day soiree at their apartment - a continuation of an event Logan (Brian Cox) threw for some of the country’s most influential political movers and shakers. Note: This article contains spoilers for several Succession episodes, particularly season four, episode seven, “Tailgate Party.”

Nothing ever happens sue brown