‘Succession’ Season 4: How Shiv Really Felt About Tom’s Betrayal May Surprise Fans
Succession Season 4 reveals where Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) stands with Shiv in the season premiere. After the brutal season 3 finale, fans have been waiting to find out how Shiv retaliates. The season finale suggested Tom betrayed Shiv and her siblings to Logan (Brian Cox). Hope he was happy with his decision.
[Warning: This article contains spoilers for the Succession Season 4 premiere.]
Creator Jesse Armstrong was on the Succession podcast on March 26 to discuss the season 4 premiere. He explained Shiv’s thinking in the way she dealt with Tom.
Shiv is divorcing Tom in ‘Succession’ Season 4 but she may finally respect him
Shiv never explicitly confronted Tom for selling her and her siblings out to Logan in the Succession Season 4 premiere. But, she told him their marriage was over. The thing is, Tom actually showed some backbone there.
“I would say yes and it’s like a very brutal one of those things you don’t want to admit to yourself,” Armstrong said on the Succession podcast. “It’s very binary. She’d never considered him as somebody who could do that. Once he did, he has an ability to hurt her in a way where she felt she was invulnerable. That’s really tough and she doesn’t want to admit that in my view but it’s there. It’s one of those big obvious things in front of your face.”
The complex relationship of Shiv and Tom on ‘Succession’
Tom and Shiv have confounded even the actors who play them. Prior to Succession Season 4, Snook has said she didn’t quite know what Shiv meant when she told Tom, “I may not love you, but I do love you.” Those sorts of dynamics are irresistible to Armstrong and the Succession writers.
“It’s an interesting relationship because it has a number of different facets,” Armstrong said. “Some of it is transactional and I guess that’s why maybe as writers and an audience one can’t quite leave it alone because it’s not just one thing. As you hold it to the light, sometimes you’re like, you know, these two are just a pair of f****** jerks who are after money and power. Then because of the subtlety of the performance and hopefully what we do in the writing, you look at it from another angle and there kind of is something there.”
Is there hope for Shiv and Tom?
Producer Frank Rich has said the divorce isn’t the end for Shiv and Tom in Succession Season 4. Both Snook and Macfadyen are main cast members on Succession, so they’ll be in each other’s lives for the rest of the final season.
“Maybe in another circumstance, there could be something there,” Armstrong said. “I guess that’s what makes it interesting to us. Then you get into what does love mean thing because it is so transactional at other times. I go through stages of thinking the show is about all different kinds of things. Occasionally, I’ve felt like wow, maybe the show is just about Shiv and Tom.”
