The Collapse Of Tom Wambsgans On Succession Might Have Just Caused The Collapse Of A Nation
This article contains spoilers for "Succession."
Tom Wambsgans has always been the butt of the joke, and "Succession" finally reached the punchline. Shiv Roy's sometimes-husband has always been the self-professed fall guy, but recently he's just been falling ... and falling. Election night is a huge night for the head of the largest right-leaning news network, ATN, and Tom totally bungles it. He compromises the integrity of the network and the entire presidential election in one fell swoop. A series of unfortunate events and poor decisions have laid ruin to Tom — and Tom has laid ruin to his America.
As a midwesterner of humble middle-class beginnings, Tom has always been a bit of an outsider in the Roy family. He leverages his power by playing dead until he's needed — usually for Shiv, but more recently for her father. Tom offered to take the fall for the cruises scandal to gain some trust with Logan in season 3, and it paid off — until his protector's death at the beginning of season 4 sent him reeling. The cruises scandal didn't result in any arrests, but this one very well might.
ATN calls the election for Jeryd Mencken without real verification of the vote count in Wisconsin, a call that is guaranteed to be a huge scandal that could seriously compromise both the sale of Waystar to Gojo and the Roy siblings' purchase of Pierce. Even though Kendall and Roman technically made the call, it was Tom's face plastered all over PGN with the news that he personally made the call. It looks like Tom will probably end up going to prison for the Roys after all — it just wasn't for the Roy he thought it would be.
Tom completely collapses in "America Decides," but a lot went into the moment that he compromised his job, his criminal record, and his nation's government. Let's explore the straws that broke the boy from St. Paul's back.
Tom is sinking
Going into election night, things are already pretty shaky for Tom. His protector is dead, his marriage is on the outs, and his job is being sold off to a Swede who's banging his wife. He is already tired from fighting with Shiv since she spent the night telling all of America's important political leaders that he's going to be "s***-canned" when the company is sold.
"He's terrified about making a c***-up of the election," Matthew Macfadyen said of his character on the Succession Podcast. "He wants to do a good job with the election because he's scared of losing his job and he wants to do well." To put it plainly, Tom is not in a good place and finds himself ill-prepared to handle such a mountainous day. "At this point, he's pretty precarious, I'd say," the actor admitted. "Yeah, he's treading water, his heart rate's racing, and he's sinking a little bit."
When Tom gets to work he quickly learns he is wearing the wrong shoes and that Lukas Matsson is sleeping with Shiv. That's when he starts doing cocaine — covertly, behind a whiteboard, in small bumps. Then his soon-to-be ex-wife swings by to drop the pregnancy bomb on him. Either he's still very angry after discovering that she and Matsson have been having an affair, or he's too keyed up to even process the news. And then, as if things weren't bad enough, the touchscreen is malfunctioning.
That's when something breaks inside Tom — and a man's own personal downward spiral brings a nation to its knees.
Does Tom deserve the blame? Either way, he will get it
As the head of ATN, Tom could have vetoed Kendall and Roman's call in Wisconsin or made it a "pending call" like Darwin from the data desk had suggested, but he didn't. He sprang into action aggressively and without thinking because Roman commanded it — and because he was doing a tremendous amount of cocaine, with Greg openly cutting lines at his desk in front of their superiors.
If Tom had been in his right mind, he might have realized that this was a terrible decision in the long term. He is rather "servile," as Shiv put it in their knock-down-drag-out fight, but he had always seen through Kendall and Roman as commanders. But whether Tom deserves the blame for calling the election for Mencken or not, the blame is going to land on him.
PGN named Tom personally responsible for the call heard 'round the world. Was putting the blame on Tom a direct call from Shiv? Or maybe even Matsson? If they are still planning to sell the network to the Roy siblings, it makes sense for them to divert the blame away from any of the family members, even the failsons in charge. Tom is in shambles, and so is the nation. Americans can pick up the pieces again, but can Tightrope Tommy ride his little subtle cycle out of this one, or has he officially nose-dived into Niagara Falls?
I hate to say it, but it seems like he might not come back from this one scott-free.