‘Succession’ has two types of players, the snakes and the ladders.
On one hand, you have the wealthy. The power players with access and heritage behind them who get to do what they want, when they want, to who they want. The Roys exemplify the closest thing we see to absolute power. But ladders are meant to be climbed. That’s where we get the snakes.
Tom Wambsgans is the ultimate social climber in that he got to what is essentially the top. Willa may have gotten a ring, but Tom got that and a job. On merit and marriage, he is rich and powerful enough that he never has to work a day in his life. He has a resume that would make most other men start handing it out like flyers. He snuck his way into America’s Worst Family and is Prince-Consort to Siobhan Roy. Life has never been worse.
When Tom sat on that bed and told her exactly what he wanted out of their marriage, she clearly wasn’t listening. The man basically told her he would do anything to stay rich, and she the immediately started telling everyone he’s going to be gone sooner rather than later. No matter what strategy they’re playing together, she’s quite willing to throw him under the bus.
Two weeks ago, I spoke about Shiv and her general sense of entitlement. Also, her cowardice. I want to return to a specific comment I made about her marriage:
“Her mother verbalises [Logan’s] behaviour as kicking the things he loved to see if they’d come back. Well, she did. She kicked a man who adored her so hard that they’re now kicking each other with steel capped boots. That’s how she likes it. He doesn’t.” – Shiv Roy is the baby (2023)
Well, here we are. Two days after making up – the timeline remains a mess – we have the implosion. The result of endless resentment boiling up sees Tom basically in the same place he was in season two. A people pleaser being shown that no matter how hard he tries, nobody appreciates the hard work he puts in to being an absolutely blank slate. Tom has opinions, thoughts, feelings, strategies. They’re all just buried shallowly under his increasingly sagging, tired skin.
You proposed to me at my lowest fucking ebb. My dad was dying – what was I supposed to say?
Perhaps…no?
I cannot describe to you how utterly venomous these two are on the balcony. It isn’t just a married couple fighting to blow off some steam. You have a hormonal and scared woman responding to her rock suddenly bursting into flames. Despite what has been at least six months of separation, they slid right back into their standard routine. Except this time, Tom is completely unwilling to play the game for more than a few hours.
He is, of course, tired.
Remember the scorpion? I remember the tale of the ‘Scorpion and the Frog’, where the frog attempts to help the scorpion, only for it to sting and kill them both in the middle of a river. It’s a neat little bit of symbolism that makes it clear that the only way forward is mutually assured destruction. Shiv couldn’t help kicking Tom again, despite him repeatedly telling her to stop. They’re now both drowning and clawing at each other.
And during “bitey”, he bit harder.
It’s a battle, to be clear, that he clearly walks away from the winner. Shiv is deeply hurt and still hiding her pregnancy, but he just gets to let loose what is clearly years of pain. It’s a tennis match where one person is severely handicapped. She tries to deflect with low blows about hurting his feelings and his natural weakness, but these are things he knows about himself. Tom may not like how servile he is to these people, but it isn’t news to him. Shiv, in contrast, has been lying to herself for years.
But what really stood out to me is that all of this is part of Shiv once again playing the game poorly. When she tells him she’s scared, it isn’t that she’s scared to lose her family, but that she’s going to lose – period. Her entire self-worth is being smarter than her brothers, but they won’t let her have a seat at the table, and Mattson is stringing her along as some unpaid PR consultant now that Ebba is clearly preparing to either abandon him or blow the whole thing up. Maybe both.
It's in this mess that the two, behind the world’s most soundproof glass, unleash upon each other. He doesn’t know she’s pregnant, and yet is aware that’s where the knife goes. Not because she’s confided in him about her mother’s words, although that likely happened. It just hurts. He knows it does. The lowest she can go is “hick”.
Tom says what they both know is the truth. Shiv, as she is now, is a broken, mean person who clearly isn’t ready for children. She either married him because she’s stupid or selfish. Logan told her she was scared to compete, Kendall and Roman called her untested, Caroline called her cold, and now he is calling her, basically, a narcissist. A monster. Everybody who she loves eventually betrays her because of her.
You took away the last six months I could have had with my dad.
Shiv is clearly grieving a lot worse than she wants to admit. We saw her literally scheduling her grief, and that was how Tom got back into her good graces. But here we see her trying to assign blame for the consequences of her actions. The season started with the kids planning an offensive against Logan. We’re now watching them all spiral in sorrow and guilt.
Tom and Shiv are never going to forgive each other for the dual betrayals of seasons two and three. He sold her out for her dad, she was going to let him go to jail. He doesn’t know that she fought for him. She doesn’t accept that her ability to say goodbye was all him. All they have is their truths.
I think this is the most difficult episode of Succession that we’re going to get. It’s not just sad or even raw. It’s just an implosion all around. Nobody is walking away from that party a better or happier person. But in their own home, Shiv and Tom hit rock bottom.
It isn’t that there’s no coming back from this. I still don’t think they can leave each other. It isn’t that nobody else would have them. But maybe nobody else deserves to deal with this bullshit. Shiv wanted Tom to save her, but on that balcony, it seemed like maybe she could kill him. Or at least, watch the man die. The Roys are a parasitic family, with no regard for the losses. If you’re not Marcia, you’re going to lose.
I mean, shit, remember Kerry?