cliché musings

The Succession fandom does not need to be reminded the show is about awful people. It’s impossible to watch more than 3 minutes of any episode and not get that impression, and I want to address this topic without having to constantly cram the obvious into everyone’s skulls. The issue is not that the fandom doesn’t get the characters are horrible. The issue is that many of them don’t seem to understand why they’re horrible or what impact it has on the show’s storytelling. Part of this problem devolves into the fandom assuming the show wants you to see the characters sympathetically. In actuality, almost all of these “sympathetic” moments are counter-imposed with either previous or future revelations that undermine the emotions the characters are experiencing. This is intentional!

The biggest example I can give of this is in Season 4, after the death of Logan, the patriarch of the Roy family and CEO of Waystar. Logan dies on the plane taking him to meet Mattson to finalize their agreement on GoJo buying Waystar. In the episodes leading up to this, the siblings are actively attempting to sabotage the deal because they don’t want the company to leave family hands — all rooting back to how much power and money they have when they are the ones in control of the company, along with their desires that have brewed since the day they were born to eventually become CEO. Of course, Logan’s death spirals all of the siblings into hysterics (except Conner, because it’s his literal wedding day and Logan had always kind of forgotten about him). We are meant to understand the pain they experience, a pain that is a mix of losing a loved one and losing the one person that dictated almost everything about what you wanted and hated from the world. But are we supposed to feel sympathetic? Well, this is up for interpretation — but I think planning Logan’s death after a pivotal sequence where the siblings are all allied against him is meant to remind us that even in the years (? how much time has passed since Season 1 isn’t clear) following Logan’s poor health, they were contributing to his increased stress and workload that most likely resulted in his death. It’s supposed to be ironic, and supposed to emphasize the complicated impact Logan had on the siblings’ psyche. This is not a moment I want to look at closely in this video since mostly everyone who watched the show were wishing Logan bonne voyage to hell and don’t have a deep sway towards any of the characters being upset, but I bring it up as an example of what the show is trying to do, an example that hopefully every fan understands. You grasped that Logan dying was both a loss and a relief for the siblings. You grasped that their grief was a response to someone they knew their whole lives, their caregiver, passing away, but not exactly because of a deep, unfiltered love for that person: we saw in multiple instances they reiterated they could not stand Logan, or forgive him for his betrayals, or want to be anything like him. We know their grief will turn into a move for power in the next episodes. The intention was not for the audience to cry along with the siblings, but to further analyze how Logan’s presence and then disappearance have crippling effects on the siblings’ choices.

It is other examples, with the characters we understand are not as bad as Logan, so maybe they’re redeemable, that result in emotional responses from the fandom, feeling as much sadness as the character experiences… but often without a nuanced understanding of why the character does have these emotions. I do want to focus on the last few episodes of the series (Season 4, Episodes 8, 9, 10) as I felt like these episodes reached a peak in both the absurdity of the characters and the realization from the fandom of just how powerful and evil the characters were. As someone who watched the show in one go pretty recently, and didn’t watch it over the years it has been airing, I got the impression the show was probably going to end with everyone getting fucked over — my theory that I thought for sure was going to happen was Lawrence Yee coming back to take the company over. A lot of those unfinished threads stick in your mind easier when you watch the episodes closer together. I assumed everyone was just going to be worse and worse until you wanted nothing less than a Greenpeace-sponsored whale to swallow them all whole. I appreciated the directions of spiraling, the characters getting desperate, getting dirty, making decisions that no one watching could possibly empathize with because the show wants to remind us who they really are. But I would always go on Twitter afterwards, wanting to laugh at the memes or participate in the discussion, only to see some… questionable takes.

Succession is not a show that tries to trick its audience into thinking the characters are good, and then pulls the rug out with them committing a heinous act. The show reminds you from Episode 1 that they are horrible people who still experience complex human emotions and debilitating family drama. More often than not, their power-hungry schemes backfire and force them to make even more complicated plans to claw their way back to the top. 

The plot of the show hints at one thing at the surface– a competition between the siblings to become the next CEO, the successor. Who will win? Will it be the heir-apparent, Kendall, the oldest, trained and groomed to fill Logan’s shoes? Will it be Roman, the son with a hoard of underlying sexual trauma that keeps him from taking anything, even the family business, seriously? Will it be Shiv, the only daughter, removed from consideration as CEO with no experience running the company, but with a desire to prove to be the smartest? Will it be Conner, the forgotten son from Logan’s first marriage, left out of the Roy sibling plotting, mostly regarded as a joke, our next president of the United States? Or maybe it won’t be a sibling… could it be cousin Greg, Tom, or Gerri? 

But as the show progresses, it becomes clear this is not a battle of which big player is the best. If anything, it’s which character is the least objectionable. None of the siblings are able to live up to their father’s legacy: they all care too much about his approval while simultaneously wanting to be nothing like him. Rhea plainly spells out the issues with all 3 siblings in the running when Logan asks her who she thinks it should be:

[enter clip]

The further the show goes, the more the audience should not want anyone to “win.” These characters succeeding — do y’all catch the double meaning with Succession? — inevitably means ruining the lives of others, and almost none of them deserve the recognition, money, and control that comes with being CEO. Rooting for any of these characters is not the point of the show. I would argue praying for their downfall is.

I personally think wanting one of these characters to be the “successor” means you’re misunderstanding what the show is trying to tell you. And I want to be very clear at this point that doesn’t mean you can’t ironically root for one of them, or favor one of them because of their characterization, or call Kendall your babygirl or Roman your princess or Tom your lil hick-in-a-box. But all of that must come with the awareness that these characters over and over again fail because they are not Logan Roy, and Waystar within the show’s own universe is a destructive, capitalistic organization that represents almost all major social issues plaguing the real world. We’re talking wealth gaps, racism, media brainwashing, misogyny, corporate cover-ups, nepotism, collusion and government corruption, climate change, FTC violations — all of these things are directly mentioned in the show multiple times as things Waystar contributes to. It would be better, for everyone but the characters on the show, if Waystar collapses and rids the world of its Roman-cum-stained-windows. Did you forget about that? I didn’t.

Most fans of the show would say they understood this — they’re just having fun in the fandom, coming together and picking a side and seeing which theories are actually going to play out. You can’t enjoy a show without enjoying the characters, right? But this all came to a boiling point after Season 4 Episode 8, “America Decides.” It’s a presidential election episode, which has been brewing since Season 1 — Shiv, working as a political consultant, is helping her clients win their elections. Her client in Season 1 is running for Senate, but ultimately after her election, and discussing it with her ex Nate, she decides her candidate is not president-material. She shifts her sights to one of Nate’s clients, Gil Eavis, who is more confident, charming, and concise, to help work on his presidential campaign. 

Throughout the next seasons, the relationship between POTUS and CEO of Waystar is shared with the audience, while potential candidates for the Republican and Democratic parties fight for the nomination. Even Conner throws his hat in and announces that he’s going to run for president. The link between Waystar and the federal government is clear: Logan calls in favors to the president when it suits him, and it is explicitly implied Waystar helps elect the candidate (a Republican, as is Logan’s preference) through ATN broadcasts and at their “Future Freedom Summit,” which picks the Republican candidate to support. The upcoming election looms on the family, with Shiv’s opposition to their choice of Jeryd Mencken, who is a fascist in everything but the name, and Conner running his own campaign. 

Jesse Armstrong stated he felt Episode 8 would be the most surprising episode to fans. Well, he said, “maybe Episode 8,” and that hopefully they’d be surprised by all of them (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00qOXD0r4tI). I don’t think Armstrong meant for that to be taken as the election results are surprising, which seems like some people within the fandom have assumed.

Mencken winning the election has been foreshadowed across Season 3 and 4. While Shiv is the political expert in the family and vocally supports Democrats, Logan aligns with the Republicans. The current president, in the series, is a Republican that Logan has a close relationship with — he has a phone to call the president, conducts small talk before getting into what he wants, and threatens him with his chances for reelection if he doesn’t make the DOJ investigation about the cruise line go away. The president’s refusal to adhere to Logan in the explosion of the cruise scandal leads to ATN pushing unfavorable broadcasts about the president. He declines to run for a second-term afterwards, implying that he is unable to win an election without the support of Logan, Waystar, and ATN.

When the family chooses Mencken as their Republican candidate in Season 3, we know the Roys have now solidified who they hope will walk with them, step-by-step. They will pour their support into his campaign. Mencken was originally Roman’s pick, and Logan deciding on Mencken emphasizes a switch where Logan regards Roman with higher respect. We know Roman pretty much agrees with Mencken’s extreme politics, or at least has no issue with them, but he also believes Mencken to be a good business decision. He is electable among the Republican voter base and will understand that him and Waystar have similar interests.

Season 3 also includes zero screen-time from Gil Eavis, who was considered the next president by both Shiv and Nate in Season 1. With a switch from shoe-in Gil to a brand new character, with no focus on the Democratic candidate, Daniel Jimenez, and entire episodes about the Republican candidate, we can probably assume even by the end of Season 3 that the Republican will win. Season 4 heightens this suspicion: Episode 7 explicitly tells us that data supports Jimenez winning with a very slight lead. The election has been a point of interest for the characters since, again, Season 1. Fans have been constantly theorizing about who will win. Why tell us what is supposed to happen before it does, if not to subvert this expectation? 

We also need to take a closer look at ATN’s role in the story. Waystar is a huge media conglomerate that has amusement parks, featured in Greg’s original job and Roman’s CEO-in-training episode, cruises, home to sexual assault, extortion, and murder, and even a film studio that we don’t really hear about until Roman decides he should fire someone. But ATN is considered the diamond of the company, and we hear about it constantly. But we never really see what kind of content they air. We’re led to assume it’s a parallel to Fox News–lying, racism, against-liberal-fake-news or whatever. The entire sense we get of ATN is mostly just characters talking about its reputation or goals — other than the interview with Gil, election night is the first prolonged coverage we are actually privy to watch.

It’s also juxtaposed with the Pierce company, who pride themselves on honest, respectable news work. They don’t want to be bought by Waystar, who are known for ATN and manipulating millions of older viewers into bullshit.

How powerful ATN is needs to come into play. The story demands it. Even in Season 4, Roman and Kendall decide to go against the Mattson deal because he wants ATN, which was not the original terms of the agreement before Logan’s death. ATN was Logan’s favorite child. Roman and Kendall want to keep ATN under their control because that’s what their dad wanted. They give zero fucks about the integrity of the network — they care that it is essentially the name of Waystar, its profit, its loyal customers. It is extremely fitting that ATN’s call on election night is actually a make-or-break for who wins the election, and not the actual votes in the election. Ultimately, the final climax on the show is going to come down on ATN — not even the cruise line scandal. It’s ATN.

So if you’re surprised or upset that any of the siblings were willing to call Wisconsin for Mencken, I just want to ask: what exactly was your line for acceptable behavior? Roman handpicked Mencken for the election — a consideration that entails relentless ATN coverage in his favor, and the understanding that Logan and, subsequently, the entire company would benefit from him filling the presidential seat. It was also well established in the seasons before this that ATN is a morally corrupt network that exists to disseminate conservative propaganda. And all of the siblings, at some point, have defended the network’s existence and Waystar’s control over it. Even Shiv may say she is against what it does, but she is married to Tom, the head of ATN, and helped him gain that position. And Roman is very much correct that ATN would be expected to call Wisconsin for Mencken and they could lose their reputation if they didn’t — they’re supposed to be the big-balled, go-shove-your-ethics-up-your-asshole-and-throw-up-a-philosophy-book-if-you-care-that-much network that could care less if ballots were destroyed in a fire. I don’t think it’s right, but it was a good business decision to cater to their audience.

This is all without saying that the show probably expects you to think Mencken is going to win, anyway. I can’t say for sure the writers were planning from the beginning that he would win — as Armstrong has said, he never cements ideas in stone if the writing is leading to something different — but I certainly believe they wanted you to think he was going to win from the beginning. As soon as the Democrat nominees vanished from the storyline and the family was fighting over what Republican to endorse, up to the show telling everyone Jimenez was going to win, they were preparing all you viewers to see him win. 

What is supposed to be surprising about this episode is Kendall deciding to help Mencken win. Ever since Season 1, a potential redemption arc has been set up for Kendall — he is originally the most sympathetic character and it is only after his relapse that we see just how cruel he can be. He has tried to hold his dad accountable numerous times, and launches a legal battle against the company for the cruise line scandal when no other higher-up was willing to. However, it is his arrogance and drug use that keeps him from succeeding. As his lawyer tells him, he promised too much in terms of evidence against Logan and the company to truly incriminate them as knowledgeable players, and he will lose if he doesn’t listen to her. Upset and offended, he fires her and takes on new lawyers, and the case goes to a settlement instead of prison time. He wants to be a better dad for his kids, but never sees them — his cocaine addiction spirals him into obsessing over the company and planning big, surprising moves to unseat his father. In Season 4, it’s established that his nonwhite daughter, Sophie, has been the victim of some kind of harassment from a Ravenhead fan — the also-established neo-Nazi working at ATN and supporting Mencken’s election. Rava tells Kendall she’s scared to go to school because of it. 

We know Kendall is hesitant to make any calls for Mencken in Episode 8. He is pulled from two sides — Roman, who wants Mencken to win knowing that he has already agreed to call of the Mattson deal if he does, with help from Waystar, and his family, who clearly want Jimenez so they’d be less stressed over the possibility of a Mencken-influenced hate crime. Kendall also wants to call of the Mattson deal — it was his idea, of course — but he doesn’t like Mencken and wants to make a difference for his kids. But this episode is where we see where the root of Kendall’s motivations and desires lie. 

Shiv has been working with Mattson throughout the season to try and get the deal to go through, since that’s what Logan wanted before he died. She has been warning him of the moves her brothers are trying to make and lying to Roman and Kendall about supporting their plan. On election night, however, Kendall doesn’t know if he should call it for Mencken. He doesn’t want to, but knows Mencken will help call off the deal. He asks if Shiv is able to talk to Nate and see if they can get a similar deal from the Democrats. Unbeknownst to Shiv, Kendall had already asked Nate about it the night before, and was told no. So, Shiv, says she’ll do it, and pretends to call Nate outside the room. When Shiv confirms that Nate said he could do it, Kendall is immediately suspicious — he asks her what exactly Nate said and decides to call Nate himself to ask. We see the rest of the scene from Shiv’s perspective, so we can only assume Nate tells Kendall he never talked to Shiv — cue Kendall staring Shiv down from the other side fo the window — and that Kendall proceeds to ask Greg, their local snitch boy, if he knows anything about what Shiv’s up to. Greg, of course, tells him she’s working with Mattson.

Right then and there, Kendall makes the decision to call it for Mencken. It doesn’t come down to his personal politics, his care for his family, or even the actual deal with Mattson itself. It comes down to feeling betrayed by Shiv. It comes down to wanting to establish himself as more powerful than her, to prove he can best her again and again.

[It sure doesn’t fucking say Shiv]

While I can understand feeling surprised by his move here, or expecting him to make a different call, it’s not supposed to be a “shock factor” moment. You could want him to do the right thing, but when you really look back at his actions, you know it’s not out-of-character. He decides to betray Logan over cruises because his dad is preparing to send him to prison over the scandal, not because of his own morals and a desire to be a guy advocating for a voice to victims of sexual assault. You know he calls in a smear-campaign against a women-led company in Season 1 for not wanting to work with him. You know he guts Vaulter after the company decides to unionize, and because Logan asked him to be the one to do it. He’s had many opportunities to be a good dad for his kids, and chooses Waystar every single time. When Kendall is vindictive, when he thinks he has a better play to get back at an enemy, or even someone that has only slighted him, this is who he is. Someone willing to elect a fascist to get what he wants.

When you look at Kendall’s character from Season 1 to Season 4, you realize his arc was not about redemption or victory. He’s gone from being the most relatable of the siblings but unequipped to fill Logan’s shoes, to a corrupt, power-hungry acting CEO. Him finally getting what he wanted and what was promised in Season 1 has led him to become a despicable person, someone the audience no longer wants to run the company if it means he can call elections over petty, family disputes. His character represents how positions of power warp your priorities and behavior. While Greg is a much more obvious stand-in for this concept, showing how more and more money and more ability to move up the ladder makes you apathetic, greedy, and unloyal, Kendall shows us how these people aren’t redeemable if they’re already at the top. Kendall can’t lose anymore — he’s unwilling to not get what he wants. He has put so much of his life and time and wishes into the company that Waystar matters more to him than his kids. And the persisting question of which of the siblings will take over the company means Kendall is willing to slice every last one of them when it threatens his position. They’ve always been pitted against each other, and Kendall always has to be prepared to make a move. His dad and siblings had the greatest emotional impact on Kendall — now, his dad is dead, and his siblings, particularly Shiv, are threatening what he believes to be the best decision for Waystar.

Everything I’ve said so far the Succession fandom would say they know — but the general reaction to many moments throughout the show that get thousands of likes on social media don’t give that idea.

I want to divert from the election episode specifically for a little bit and talk about less harrowing moments on the show that reflect a similar attitude from Succession fans. Succession’s point is that the characters are all horrible — there is a difference between a piece of media attempting to make you sympathize with the characters and attempting to make you understand the characters. It is my belief, and what I’m trying to argue here, that the show does not want you to feel bad for anyone. They just want you to grasp that their motivations behind their awful decisions and behavior is complicated. They want to set up a domino-effect of plot lines where one awful decision leads to another, and the conflict between family loyalties and wanting to be top-dog impacts the next moves of each character. We can have an entirely different argument about the merit of these increasing-number of TV shows, movies, books where everyone’s a little bit awful, and the general enjoyment an audience has if they can’t relate or sympathize with a single character — but the point here is that Succession is that TV show.

For example, I found myself rooting a little bit for Shiv in Season 2 — I realized I did actually want to see her become CEO, or at least get a little more power within the company, mostly because I was able to empathize with her plight as a woman whose talents and intelligence can be disregarded in favor of males. But even in her toughest moments, I couldn’t really feel bad for her. Like, when Shiv comes to Tom and tells him they’re going to get divorced, and then they lay down on the bed, both in tears, holding hands. It is emotional for Shiv, but after seeing some responses to it from fans, I felt like people didn’t pick up on what actually happened.

In the beginning of this episode, Shiv and Tom have not officially decided to get divorced. They specifically say they are separated and don’t know if a divorce is coming. But when the siblings speak to Nan about outbidding Waystar’s price for the Pierce company, Nan has concerns about selling it to the trio. Pierce’s biggest conflict with Waystar is ATN — it is antithetical to everything Pierce stands for in their mission to deliver honest and significant news. Nan’s concern is that Shiv is married to the head of ATN, Tom.

“We’re getting divorced,” Shiv says. And it is this declaration that convinces Nan to hear the siblings out.

It is clearly implied that Shiv decided to divorce in this moment — the silence after she says it, the brothers attempting to not appear surprised, a slight moment for the audience to catch up with what Shiv is doing here — because it meant they could buy Pierce and fuck over their dad. It’s not that she hadn’t been thinking about getting divorced after Tom warned Logan about the siblings coming to veto the Mattson deal — she is probably justifying to herself that she had already made that decision internally and just hadn’t voiced it to Tom. Which is why, after meeting with Nan, she goes back to her and Tom’s apartment and tells him they’re getting divorced. Tom is stunned, and begs Shiv to talk it out with him. She refuses, saying there’s nothing to talk about and it’s the only move they can make after everything that’s happened.

Yeah, they can’t talk about it because Shiv didn’t decide on a divorce because of her feelings. She decided on a divorce because it meant getting the upperhand in a business deal. There was nothing to talk about because her emotions didn’t dictate her thought process — and she surely couldn’t tell Tom what happened with Nan. But fans seemed genuinely heartbroken over Tom and Shiv in this scene, and there was even one tweet asserting it was so upsetting that they still had all this love for each other but their relationship had run its course, so there was nothing they could say to each other…. and… that is… not what the show was trying to tell you?  

I want to emphasize I don’t say this as there are right and wrong ways to interpret media — certainly Armstrong wouldn’t agree with saying there’s only one right interpretation of the show. And if a viewer comes to an interpretation based on what they saw depicted, then whatever the writer or director or creator intended no longer holds as much weight as what is actually shown to us. While I think the show has illustrated a few different possible conclusions or outlooks on Tom and Shiv’s relationship, a healthy relationship that could no longer function due to external factors is not one of those. This ignores the point they are trying to make about Shiv’s character. I think, at the very least, the audience is expected to understand Shiv was a horrible partner towards Tom, and it is her choices that pushed Tom to have a difficult conversation with her about how she makes him feel. There are different arguments that can be made on whether or not Tom wanted a divorce. You can argue Tom was just as bad as Shiv in their relationship– a point I don’t agree with, but there is evidence for. You can argue whether or not Shiv had made up her mind about the divorce already, and whether or not she was willing to tell Tom before making a deal with Pierce. But I just find it hard to look at everything Shiv had done — cheated, told Tom about it on their wedding day, constantly belittled him, almost sent him to prison, and then told him she didn’t love him in a form of dirty talk — and say their relationship just ran its course. I find it hard, considering this first episode of the season set up a differentiation between “separated” and “divorced,” Shiv claiming they’re divorcing to Nan, and only afterwards telling Tom they need to get divorced, to think this is not all making it clear to the audience that what Tom tells Shiv later on is true — she is broken, and is desperately seeking approval from her father, to a point she could cast aside her relationship with someone who does love her to try and prove she’s better than Logan.

There is also a moment in Episode 9, at Logan’s funeral. A specific tweet made me include this here: “Yes, yes, Shiv Kendall and Roman are all awful and consistently trying to stab each other in the back. And yet, when one of them is in a true time of need, all the barriers, all the pretenses fall and there’s just 3 deeply damaged people wanting to help each other.”

This isn’t something I think is necessarily wrong — again, there is evidence that the sibling bonds are the strongest relationships in the series, and the ones they hold the most loyalty to. Yes, because they’re all broken for similar reasons, they relate to each other more than anyone else in their lives. However, I think this point is also ignoring the underlying motivations behind, specifically, the comfort and support Shiv and Kendall offer Roman at Logan’s funeral.

The episode doesn’t even make it clear if Roman’s breakdown is genuine or not. It doesn’t explicitly say that it isn’t genuine, but I think we’re meant to question if it is. We know Roman had the speech down at the beginning of the episode — he had been practicing, and by himself he was able to deliver it proudly and calmly. The editing switches between Ewan and the reaction of the guests — Roman’s reaction is the one the camera cuts to the most. And right afterwards, Roman becomes inconsolable and can’t deliver his speech.

I think we can assume Ewan’s eulogy triggers Roman’s reaction, but in what way? Ewan unexpectedly delivers a speech about his brother that Roman had tried to stop before it happened — he tasked Greg with making sure he didn’t go up there. Ewan does not honor Logan’s life in his eulogy. He emphasizes that Logan was a bad man, but sandwiches it between some of their childhood stories that put into perspective why Logan was the way he is. Ewan references abuse the two of them faced as children — while not explicitly physical, although we know that did occur, it was definitely psychological. Logan was blamed, long after her death, for their sister developing polio. Roman has to go up after Ewan and deliver his own eulogy that starts “My father was a great man…” and ignores almost everything Ewan brought up moments before, does not acknowledge how truly broken down and twisted Logan was. I think, at some point, Roman realized something Ewan said about his father was right. Maybe it was the connection between how Logan and Ewan were treated and how Roman and his siblings were treated by Logan. Maybe it was something melting in Roman’s Nazi-apologist heart, and his conscience rendered him unable to claim in front of everyone how his father made the world so much better.

So, it’s possible that Roman fakes a breakdown to get out of talking. It’s also possible he is actually that upset and it just took Ewan to bring it out of him. We don’t really know, yet anyway. I’m writing all of this before the season finale

[editing reaction from season finale?]

But it’s supposed to be ambiguous. Roman having a public sob over Logan’s death has several other consequences, and it would be naive for us to think Shiv and Kendall don’t realize these consequences almost immediately. If Roman can’t speak, that leaves an opening for Kendall to go up and deliver the eulogy for him. The respectable thing to do, if this was just about Kendall filling in for Roman, would be to read Roman’s words that he wrote and practiced and intended to say at his funeral. However, Kendall discards Roman’s speech and comes up with his own on the spot. It goes over well and receives applause around the room… but it is obvious this was another Kendall-does-public-speaking-on-the-fly-and-does-it-well moment that just boosts his arrogance. It also cements a clear divide between the two brothers. Mencken is attending the funeral, and sees Roman unable to pull himself together for the eulogy. We already know from the previous episode that Kendall is concerned about the sway and position Roman has with Mencken — he doesn’t want any connection between Roman and Mencken to be stronger than one he could have with the president. If he’s able to confidently deliver a eulogy that dismantles the own Ewan gave, Kendall has then one-upped Roman in front of Mencken.

This seems to work, actually. We specifically see Mencken compliment Kendall’s speech. When Kendall tries to confirm that Mencken is calling off the deal, Mencken walks back his agreement: “I’ll try,” he says. Later, Kendall confronts Roman and angrily scolds him for fucking the deal. The only place, since the election, the deal could have been fucked is at the funeral. This also shows us how far Kendall’s sympathy for Roman goes — he knows this was a hard day for him and was there to console him, but when it negatively impacts their plans, Kendall turns on him. This conversation pushes Roman to run out into the retreating protest. He gets pushed, shoved, and trampled, but continues to egg the protestors on. As some have already pointed out, this seems to be Roman attempting to physically punish himself in the same way his dad may have done for being a disappointment. In some way, we know this establishes Kendall as trying to be the next Logan, and Roman’s perspective of Kendall reflecting that change.

On Shiv’s end, she doesn’t want the funeral to be an embarrassment for the family. The quicker she can get Roman to stop crying and sit down, the better it’ll play out. Even if she does feel for him and understands the emotions he’s experiencing — Shiv was literally booking time in between appointments to cry — she doesn’t want to jeopardize the Mattson deal. And as established before the speeches start, her and Mattson have a new plan to appeal to Mencken over pushing the deal through. If Roman crumbles under the pressure, that could possibly be a reason for Mencken to pull out of his agreement with him, leaving Shiv the perfect opportunity to introduce him and Mattson and offer up an American CEO if GoJo buys Waystar. And, as the episode concludes, Mattson does get the confirmation that Mencken’s interested in such a situation. So, at Season 4 Episode 9, Mattson and Shiv appear to be the closest “victors” in this story.

So, possibly the siblings are there to comfort each other during emotional outbursts. I definitely would agree they probably would not do this for anyone else, in such a public environment. But are they actually loyal to each other? Are they lending a helping hand to a broken and damaged Roman? Or are they taking an opportunity to climb over him? The answer isn’t clear, and isn’t supposed to be. Which is why I think leaving the argument at just “the siblings are there for each other, push come to shove” is leaving out crucial parts of the story — the parts that continue throughout the rest of the funeral episode. I think the fandom’s biggest issue is not looking deeper than a surface-level analysis of what the episodes are showing us. When we discuss the meanings and themes and character arcs, we have to understand that an intricate show like Succession is aware of the internal thoughts running through the character’s heads — they are still human beings that will act and speak differently than what is going on in their mind. There is always something we’re not seeing that we have to infer.

Finally, I want to address the series finale, particularly with the ending it has provided Shiv. Almost immediately, Succession fans flocked to Twitter to decry how the final minutes ruined Shiv’s character and how, as a woman, she was subjected to never getting what she wanted and was becoming her mother. And I really had to take a step back after seeing these tweets get thousands and thousands of like, some of them 20k or 30k. Because this was absolutely not the interpretation I got from the last few scenes — and I have to wonder. Is it me? Am I crazy? I know I can have the wrong initial take from a show, so I really tried to see this from that side.

In the finale, the shareholders are finally coming to a vote on the Mattson deal. At the start of the episode, Shiv is convinced she’s won: Mencken has gone back on his deal with Roman and will now allow GoJo to buy Waystar, as long as an American CEO is chosen for the company. Shiv believes Mattson is still planning on picking her. However, Kendall is receiving intel that Mattson may be looking elsewhere — he hears Lawrence Vaulter from “I am going to eat you guys” fame may be in the running — but he doesn’t have confirmation. Meanwhile, Mattson has a dinner with Tom where he tells him directly he’d want him to be CEO. Afterwards, little snitch boy Greg overhears Mattson talking with an associate in Swedish — he uses his phone to translate the conversation and finds out Mattson has decided it won’t be Shiv afterall. He calls Kendall, and offers the info in exchange for getting something himself, as Tom has warned him he’ll probably get a huge cut to his salary if the Mattson deal goes through. The siblings are all at their mother’s home when Kendall gets this call, so Kendall pulls them together and breaks the news to Shiv. Of course, Shiv recalibrates and decides to work with Kendall and Roman to block the deal. After much arguing, Roman and Shiv agree Kendall should be CEO and they will offer the plan at the shareholder meeting. As long as Stewy is on Kendall’s side, they’ll have the votes to block it. However, at the meeting the final, tie-breaking vote comes down to Shiv. She runs out of the meeting with Kendall and Roman following — she tells Kendall she’s changed her mind, and we know why. Tom had revealed to her at Logan’s estate sale that Mattson was making him CEO. Her revealing this to Kendall causes a meltdown. “I am the eldest boy!” he screams. Shiv bursts into laughter. “No you’re not!” she says. It’s not always about you, she reiterates. In the process, Roman says some pretty disgusting things about Kendall’s kids and Kendall attacks him, opening up the wound he got from the previous episode. Shiv walks off in disgust, and votes yes for the deal. Tom and Shiv leave the meeting in a car together, silent, looking away from each other, but with Tom offering his hand to Shiv. Shiv puts hers on top of his.

My original understanding was that Shiv was choosing to be happy. This is because she asks Tom, in the beginning of the episode, if he was willing to try a real relationship with her. In this moment, she is brutally open about her insecurities and flaws. She says she’s scared of relationships because she can never know what the other person truly thinks. The implication is Shiv has belittled Tom and said not-nice things to him their whole relationship as a kind of defense mechanism against whatever he might be thinking of her. She sabotaged the relationship with cheating and backstabbing, maybe because he was too nice, and there had to be something bad he thought about Shiv that he wasn’t revealing. If the relationship and marriage was going to go down, she wanted it to be on her terms. Now, she does truly know what Tom thinks, and he can’t scare her anymore. She wants to start over, and I think we can also assume she doesn’t want to be a single mother. She wants Tom there as an active father and husband.

Before the shareholder meeting, however, after Shiv has already decided to side with her brothers and keep the company a family company, she learns from Tom that, if the Mattson deal happens, he is CEO. Shiv is furious that he would do this to her — Tom says she would do the same thing if it was her, and like, he’s right. In Season 2, Tom had been making plans with Shiv that would eventually lead him up to CEO of Waystar. Shiv verbally agreed to it but was clearly not actively making this happen, or didn’t think it would happen past becoming head of ATN. When Logan offers her the role of CEO, she immediately agrees without even mentioning that Tom might want it too. She hides the full extent of their conversation from Tom, until Tom tells her that, you know, if you want to be CEO you can tell me. You’re allowed to want it. So Shiv tells him Logan offered it to her and the planning for a Tom-CEO arc is effectively dropped afterwards.

I think Shiv, sometime between the estate sale and the shareholder meeting, comes to understand what Tom is saying. And she has to make a tricky decision to either hand over the company to Kendall or hand it over to Tom. It’s debatable exactly when she decides to change her mind — but the show does devote screentime to Karolina’s reappearance and speaking to Shiv about firing Hugo before the shareholder meeting, and right after the vote Hugo comes up to talk to Tom, and Tom ignores him, asking where Karolina is. I think it is very much implied that Shiv and Tom spoke sometime before the vote and she told him she was going to vote yes — this is emphasized when Tom comes up to her and says there’s a car for them downstairs, like he already knows she’s going to come with him. So it’s hard to say what exactly finalized her decision. A lot of people on Twitter pointed out it might have been when she saw Kendall sit in the CEO chair, and how he tried to emulate Logan’s bluntness and entitlement when speaking to Stewy. People are also saying it was when Kendall gave his pitch at the meeting, didn’t bother to go over the business plan with the shareholders, and wanted to move straight to a vote — she could have been repulsed by his cockiness and apathy for procedure. But, again, she must have spoken to Tom before the meeting started. And I think her biggest deciding factor was knowing that either way the vote goes, she doesn’t get the company, but at least if Tom gets it, she can keep her husband and father of her child in her life. For once, Shiv picked her relationships, picked love, picked her feelings, over the sanctity of the Waystar business.

Now, Succession fans saw this another way: it was Shiv repeating Caroline’s story, her becoming a person she truly despised. She was married to a CEO with a child she didn’t want on the way, forced to come second to the life of business and never getting what would fully satisfy her desires. I do.. see where people are coming from with this. Caroline comes back in this episode, and we’re reinforced the messaging that none of the siblings like her — Roman sees her as the one person who can protect him, which is why he runs off to her house, but still finds her obnoxious — and that she has all this money but nothing really to do with her life, and a bunch of kids who don’t respect her. When the three bond in the kitchen, making fun of their mom and Peter, we’re supposed to feel a little bad for Caroline. At no point of this show have we ever seen her neglect of the kids that they repeatedly claim had happened, but we do get her explaining her side to Shiv earlier in the series and the way she repeatedly tries to have a relationship with all of them. We know she’s been a little annoying and rude…

[asking the guests how long Shiv and Tom will last at their wedding]

But the siblings are also annoying and rude towards her, like, constantly. So even though we’re supposed to see their lighthearted messing around, making a blended meal for Kendall’s coronation, as a breath of relief from the tense business talk, we are also supposed to remember their bonding is mean-spirited at the expense of their mother. It is possible we’re supposed to keep this in mind as Shiv is once again side-lined,  the wife of a powerful CEO, and with a kid on the way.

And, of course, the shot with Tom and Shiv is not depicted in any sort of happy, fulfilling way. The lighting is dark and somber, as are Tom and Shiv’s faces. They don’t smile, don’t look at each other, don’t even speak to each other. When they hold hands, they don’t grasp them — Shiv’s hands stay motionless on top of his. However, I just can’t see this as a direct parallel to Logan and Caroline. We know Tom is nothing like Logan. As Shiv herself says, Tom will suck the biggest dick in the room, and Tom proves this at his dinner with Mattson. Mattson picks him because of how much of a suck-up he is — he will do whatever Mattson wants him to. Logan was the dick that people sucked, that Tom sucked, and we just can’t assume Tom is going to go on and be Logan 2.0. Now, that’s not to say Tom was always a good character — let’s remember he is the head of ATN and, like, every interaction he’s ever had with Greg. But he is not a mighty force like Logan. He received this position by doing what people wanted from him, and that is most likely what he will continue to be.

We also can’t assume Shiv and Tom’s continued relationship will be unhappy, or Shiv will be resentful. Again, she literally said that’s what she wanted at the beginning of the episode. Even if Tom is CEO, it wasn’t going to be her — Mattson had already decided that before he decided Tom because she had too many of her own ideas. He wanted to be the puppeteer like the cartoon, not Shiv. That’s not to say the relationship wouldn’t be unhappy — but the series ends with Shiv choosing Tom as the final point made about her character, not a statement on what her future relationships with her husband, kid, and siblings will be like. It’s intentional that, for once, she doesn’t pick her family, as in her siblings. She picks a new family. And her choice is instantly validated due to Kendall’s temper tantrum in response. We know that Kendall will either be another Logan or will crumble under any high pressure. We know him succeeding to this position will rip him away from his other family for good. So, we know Shiv’s decision was ultimately the right one, for the sake of all of the characters to attempt new paths for themselves. 

We also know, that in the realm of Tom and Shiv’s relationship, Shiv was the shitty partner. Tom never cheated, Shiv cheated. Tom lifted Shiv up countless times, and threw himself under the bus for her benefit, while Shiv just kind of let him while laughing about him behind his back. Yes, he betrayed her when he ran to Logan about the siblings blocking the deal, but this comes after Shiv almost letting him go to prison and telling him she didn’t love him and also she didn’t really want kids but then Caroline said she shouldn’t have kids so now she does? Shiv bears the burden of making the relationship right, if that’s what she wants. How can we feel bad for her or think she’s the same as her mother? She could have escaped this situation over and over, could have ended her marriage completely or got rid of the baby. She didn’t. She does have a more complicated situation because she’s a woman — she is always at a disadvantage compared to her brothers, and Mattson’s misogyny (he wants to fuck Shiv, but also doesn’t want her to have “too many ideas” for the company) is what fucks Shiv over — but she was also given escape routes, ignored all of them, and continued to believe being smart could outplay her very visible being a woman in every room she entered. It couldn’t.

Did Shiv make a permanent sacrifice? I don’t really see how — she wouldn’t have the company if Kendall got it, and she would probably have less input once Kendall got her vote due to her, like, betraying him the entire season. He would 100% retaliate for that, and I think that’s something she picked up on — Kendall’s Logan-role-playing might have cemented that would happen for her. She could at least be by Tom’s side and exhibit some control, potentially even making room for her to be part of the company. Picking Tom was the best decision for herself, in a world full of powerful men that are afraid to come under her influence. She’s not losing, but getting one last leg up, one last fuck off to the people who wouldn’t let her have anything. Kendall and Roman are completely ousted from the company, but Shiv gets to stay.

“Tragic moment for women, who watched Shiv be a gladiator for four seasons only to end up this”

Tweets like this really make me feel like we’re just watching two different shows. Shiv has never won. We can refer to this very helpful chart made by someone who actually watched the show about this:

[Shiv schemes → blows up in her face → needs her family]

She’s had plenty of opportunities to escape the vicious black hole of Waystar Royco. She was working in politics, and disregarded that as soon as she might be able to enter the company. Pierce offered her a role and she turned it down, again, out of loyalty to her father. She could have sided with Kendall in his cruises legal battle and didn’t because… she wanted to make sure Waystar still had money and power I guess? Instead she literally intimidated a sexual assault victim to prevent them from testifying. The siblings were going to make their own company and abandoned it as soon as they had an opportunity to fuck over Logan trying to buy Pierce. She was going to divorce the head of ATN (and who, again, becomes the actual CEO of the company because Shiv is trying to make sure he keeps his job) and then doesn’t. And then she naively thought that just because she made a good pitch as CEO to Mattson and took his side, he would actually give her the role. She didn’t even question it, or take any measure to ensure he couldn’t back out of his agreement with her.

Shiv wins on her own terms for once, even though it’s not a complete win, by betraying her brothers and picking Tom. This is the only time she’s had any kind of victory! She couldn’t even win an election that she helped campaign, which was supposed to be her passion. We also know she does the right thing by ensuring run-of-the-mill, corporate kiss ass Tom won’t be another Logan, unlike Kendall who made it abundantly clear he would. How are we taking this as Shiv losing? She’s the only one who gets to remain with the company.