Succession's Sarah Snook Thinks This Happened To Tom & Shiv After The Finale
I've never been a fan of asking "what happens next" at the end of a movie or television show. If the director and the writers have done their job, the story worth telling is over. Everything I need to know about these characters and ponder about the narrative's themes has been relayed. All that's left to do is interpret what's been presented. That should be more than enough to chew on.
Alas, we live in an era of fan fiction where people would rather speculate than wrestle with what is hopefully a rich, challenging text. This is nothing new. For over 50 years, people have been wondering what happens to Benjamin and Elaine after they ride off in the bus at the end of "The Graduate." I've always liked screenwriter Buck Henry's answer ("They get off the bus, ultimately"). And when we do get sequels to great movies and series, the answers aren't always comforting or satisfying — see Jack Nicholson's "The Two Jakes," Peter Bogdanovich's "Texasville," or the further adventures of "Veronica Mars." Let perfection be!
So I was a tad miffed when, after four mostly masterful seasons of television, many viewers of "Succession" freaked out over the finale. The response didn't approach the rage directed at David Chase for his cut-to-black ending of "The Sopranos" (a story he revisited in the excellent, if miserably dark prequel "The Many Saints of Newark"); mostly, it was shallow stans angry that their faves didn't win the boardroom battle, and, subsequently, behaved in a manner that was wholly in keeping with their petty nature.
The biggest pushback over the "Succession" finale was in response to Shiv (Sarah Snook) turning on Kendall (Jeremy Strong), thus handing the Waystar RoyCo reins to her estranged husband, Tom (Matthew Macfadyen). I didn't see it coming, but her betrayal was anything but out-of-character. Still, viewers were so attached to Shiv they needed reassurance that she wasn't going to reconcile with Tom. So when the actor who portrayed Shiv for four seasons presents her view about her character's future, I suspect they'll want to listen.
A brutal war of emotional attrition
In an interview with Variety, Snook addressed Shiv's final scene, which finds her glumly getting a ride back to the apartment she shares with Tom, and reluctantly taking his hand in the back seat when he offers it. In her mind, Shiv doesn't have the energy for a fight. She's pregnant, still mourning the death of her media mogul father, and has just, well, shivved her brother after promising she'd vote for him to take control of the toxic family conglomerate. "Yeah, OK. I'll just get in the car and go home and maybe sleep or take a shower," said Snook of her character's mentality in the moment. "It's been a sh***y couple of weeks."
The Shiv stans (and I hate discussing art in this manner) were especially aghast at the hand-holding. There's a lot to unpack in this moment given what we've seen between these two. I think it's a devastating two-pronged "f*** you" from Tom: It's now his way or the highway, and that child she's carrying will likely be in his life as long as he wants it to be. She underestimated him. We all did. But the cold, hard truth of the corporate world is that the people most devoid of humanity will ascend to the head office. We've seen Tom be a panicky mess. We've seen him grovel for Shiv's affections. But we've always known this had everything to do with not getting kicked out of the Roy family.
"It's sort of a war of attrition," said Snook. "We reached a point where we're resolved to our fates, I guess."
Works for me, but for those that must know what happens to Shiv going forward, Snook has an idea. And if you want to see her burst forth like a phoenix from the flames, you're not going to like it.
The Roys are their father's children
Here's how Snook described Shiv's future to Variety:
"Friends of mine have been like, 'So what do you think would happen to Shiv after this?' Shiv is about to have a baby, all of this has gone down, she's sort of thrown back into a world with her husband that wasn't a great situation beforehand. But I think the baby thing is really about to hit in a way that is inescapable. And she's probably someone who would go into quite a deep postpartum depression, and quite a difficult next 12 months, I think. Whatever fight that she has, in that moment, they are equal. But she's about to slide down, I think, pretty rapidly."
Shiv has marginally better options than Kendall, who, while still a billionaire, has been forever banished from the Waystar RoyCo kingdom. But there's no conceivable path to power for her, not at the company that bears her family's name. She did what she did because all these kids understand is underhandedness. You do what's right for you, and weaponize familial warmth when you see an opening to succeed.
The Roy children are crabs in a barrel, and they're too emotionally stunted to ever change. If you ever wanted to see what would happen if King Lear died midway through Act V, the final season of "Succession" gives you a vicious approximation. Creator Jesse Armstrong wrote a savage series about kids who were doomed to dysfunction. Being a great writer, he got us to walk around in their custom-made loafers and high heels, but, at some point, viewers treated the show as "Survivor." For them, it was about winning. I can't imagine a more reductive reading of satire, but, then again, we're living in one.