Succession Season 4's Big Merger Might Actually Be in Jeopardy

By Charlie Ridgely

While the death of Logan Roy has loomed large over most of Succession's final season, much of the driving force of the story has come from the potential sale of Waystar-Royco to GoJo and Lukas Matsson. Logan started the deal before his death and his children closed it, although Kendall and Roman clearly didn't want to. The two co-CEOs of the company have been working angles to bring the deal down before it can get approved, while Shiv has been secretly working alongside Matsson to make it happen. Shiv and Matsson have had the upper hand to this point, but a revelation in the seventh episode of the season has opened the door for the collapse Ken and Rome have been hoping for.

WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for the latest episode of Succession! Continue reading at your own risk...

In Sunday's new episode, "Tailgate Party," Matsson crashes the pre-election party thrown at Shiv and Tom's apartment. He's being his usual, awful self, treating his head of public relations horribly and not caring who hears the the things he says. Ebba, who has spent years working for Matsson and hating him most of that time, lets slip that there's an issue going on in India. Upon further digging, it is revealed that the India situation could be a major problem for Matsson and the Waystar takeover.

GoJo's numbers in India are fake, giving the company a much better picture to present to boards and the stock market. The total of number of subscribers in India seems to be about twice as many as there actually are, as Matsson tells Shiv that the numbers are big enough that they would make sense "if there were two Indias." Well, unfortunately for Matsson, there is only one India.

Matsson suggests that it's an issue that was just brought to his attention recently and that it's being looking into, but he doesn't even sound like he believes his own words. It's an issue that could be fixed, but not without a major subscriber drop off or revealing that there's been some sort of scandal. His solution is to push the Waystar deal through faster, because the subscriber news will essentially be lost in the shuffle.

Shiv knows this is a problem, telling Tom later that she could get brought down in this since she has hooked her wagon to Matsson. With Shiv now in panic mode, it feels like the deal could actually fall apart, keeping Waystar-Royco in the family.

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There's also Kendall's private conversation with Karl to consider. He knows about the numbers and has the idea to flip the deal on its head, moving for Waystar-Royco to acquire GoJo, not the other way around. He doesn't tell either of his siblings, though, asking Karl to keep it between the two of them, leaving himself alone at the top of the ladder when all the dust settles.

What do you think will become of the GoJo deal? Let us know in the comments!

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