Here's What That Kill List In Succession Season 4 Actually Means
This article contains spoilers for "Succession" season 4.
The fourth and final season of "Succession" has been the show's most seismic yet. With Logan Roy (Brian Cox) gone, his children — Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Roman (Kieran Culkin), and Shiv (Sarah Snook) — and "Old Guard" senior staff are all trying to navigate the future of Waystar Royco. For most of them, that means completing the sale of the company to tech firm GoJo, headed by Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård). However, business deals of this magnitude always come with casualties.
The latest episode, where the deal seemingly goes through after a shared Waystar & GoJo retreat in Norway, was titled "Kill List." Halfway through the episode, Greg (Nicholas Braun) namedrops this while confirming the existence of a kill list to Tom (Matthew Macfadyen). At the episode's end, the Waystar crew finally gets a look at the kill list and some of them are on it. This tracks with one of Logan's last words; at the end of this season's second episode, "Rehearsal," he told Roman about a forthcoming "Night of the Long Knives" (referencing the 1934 purge in Germany that solidified Hitler's power).
So, what is this "kill list," exactly? It's not literally a kill list — no person is dying, only careers. Simply put, the kill list is GoJo's list of Waystar employees who will be laid off when they take over as the company's new management. The anxiety about it hangs over the head of the supporting cast in this latest episode of "Succession."
Who's getting fired?
The Waystar-GoJo deal has been in the works since season 3 of "Succession," first mentioned in "Lion in the Meadow." Initially, the assumption was that Waystar, the bigger and older company, would buy GoJo. However, over the course of the season, the deal escalated from an acquisition to a merger before the tables flipped completely; Logan decided to sell his company to Matsson rather than the other way around. That means GoJo holds the cards about employees' futures.
Whenever one company acquires another, there will be layoffs. Tom mentions a previous acquisition GoJo made, where there was only a 10 percent retention rate of the old firm's employees ("very meritocratic"). In real life, the usual culprit of these merger layoffs is redundancies; both companies previously had employees who served similar functions, so when they merge into a single operation, there's no need to keep two people around to perform duties that only one of them can handle. That's why on the flight to Norway, Karolina (Dagmara Dominczyk) and Hugo (Fisher Stevens) were both reading up on GoJo's head of communications — they're both concerned that they come up short next to him.
Importantly, pay attention to who is fretting about the kill list in the episode: Tom, Greg, Karolina, Hugo, and Ray (Patch Darragh), the lower-level members of the senior staff. It's never the people on the top who are hurt by these mergers. The Roy kids either get a handsome payout from the sale or, if the deal fell through, they'd keep the conglomerate they've wanted their entire lives. COO Frank (Peter Friedman) and CFO Karl (David Rasche) are also ready to cash out and retire, hence why they've been pushing the kids to shepherd the deal through. Everyone else though, isn't old or rich enough to live off a severance package.
Who's on the kill list?
The kill list (or GoJo's "early draft of potential severance costs") is read out at the episode's very end. Names included are Ray, Hugo, Frank, and Karl (who declares, "Let the good times roll"). Gerri, Tom, Greg, and Karolina are spared. These severances are, again, likely due to redundancies: Matsson will want to bring in his own leadership team and can Logan's. Frank and Karl take it in good humor because, again, they're set for life. Ray and Hugo, not so much.
So what about the people spared? Matsson sexually harassed his own communications head, Ebba (Eili Harboe), so he might need Karolina to fill her role. Plus, given the circumstances, firing a woman would be bad PR. Gerri, who was about to be let go as General Counsel by Logan, lucked out the most. She's generally the most competent member of the Waystar senior staff ("I danced us through a thunderstorm without us getting wet!"). So, it's possible that the GoJo meritocracy deemed her worthy of keeping around.
Tom's retention is the most surprising (as Karl noted). Matsson had ATN folded into the acquisition and makes it clear he wants to move it away from being "news for Grandpas." So, why keep the head of the network around? Maybe he (rightfully) sees Tom as someone he can control. He could also be trying to get on Shiv's good side, but letting her ex go seems like it would do just the same.
Greg isn't on the list for a simple reason — he isn't important enough to be. Matsson didn't even know who he was. If Greg gets let go, it'll be alongside the "lower" Waystar employees and probably without much of a severance payout.
"Succession" airs on HBO and streams on HBO Max every Sunday at 9 p.m. EST.