‘Succession’ Season 4: Why Shiv Never Confronted Tom About His Betrayal
When Succession Season 4 began, fans were champing at the bit to see how Shiv (Sarah Snook) handled Tom (Matthew Macfadyen). Season 3 concluded with the suggestion that Tom had betrayed his wife, Shiv, and her siblings to Logan Roy (Brian Cox), but Shiv did not directly confront Tom in the season premiere.
[Warning: This article contains spoilers for the Succession Season 4 premiere.]
Succession creator Jesse Armstrong and producer Frank Rich were on the Succession podcast on March 26 to discuss the season premiere. They explained why Shiv handled Tom the way she did.
By ‘Succession’ Season 4, Shiv was not the type for direct confrontation
At the end of season 3, Shiv, Kendall (Jeremy Strong) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) made a plan to use their shares of Waystar Royco to overrule Logan. But, someone tipped Logan off and he had his ex-wife change the divorce agreement to deprive them of the controlling stake. The suggestion is it was Tom who tipped Logan off.
“A person like Shiv, how would she respond to a betrayal like that?” Armstrong said on the Succession podcast. “Once we talked about it, the very strong sense we got was she almost made a choice at the end of the last season that she wasn’t going to directly say, ‘Hey, you’ve double crossed me, you piece of s***.’ As soon as she didn’t make that decision, it felt to us like to maintain her sense of self-worth, she almost couldn’t face it.”
Shiv and Tom are breaking up
What was clear from the Succession Season 4 premiere is that Shiv is divorcing Tom. They already dabbled in an open marriage, By the end of the episode, Shiv made it clear she was out, but still never addressed the business deal.
“If she’d made that choice not to have it out, and in some ways to regain some power by having a secret over him which is I know what you’ve done, then a whole set of things follow,” Armstrong said. “When she’s having a pop at him about his dating life, I think you feel this furnace of resentment that’s going to pop up. What’s so great about the performance by Sarah is I think you feel the depths of hurt and anger.”
Tom and Shiv aren’t out of each other’s lives in ‘Succession’ Season 4
Divorce won’t be enough to get Tom out of Shiv’s life. You could probably tell from the first three seasons how codependent they are. Rich teased how Succession Season 4 will continue to deal with Tom and Shiv.
“That says something about them as people as well as their relationship,” Rich said. “It’s hard for them, clearly it’s been hard for the previous three seasons, for them to speak directly about emotions. It’s all through transactions, transactions particularly involving Logan. Without spoiling anything, this is just the beginning of a protracted conversation between these two characters. This is obviously not the end of Tom and Shiv’s story.”
