Editor’s Note: Below are spoilers for the Season 4 premiere of Legacies.season 4 succession finally here, and while he really quenched our bloodlust by showing Roy’s siblings join forces against their father, he also devastated us with a final conversation between Shiv (Sarah Snook) and Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) as a couple. We knew full well how much pain there was always between them, and how things got even worse after the amazing season 3 finale. In a way, many of us may never have seen their future together. However, the last scene in the season 4 premiere, so aptly named “The Munsters”, was nothing short of heartbreaking.
Throughout the episode, Shiv is in relatively good shape with herself, being brave and bold enough to stand up to Logan (Brian Cox) Pierce’s acquisition, and in harmony with her Kendall brothers (Jeremy Strong) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) to achieve this goal. Meanwhile, Tom solidified his position alongside Logan and continued to enjoy manipulating Greg (Nicholas Brown). However, when they both meet in their New York apartment, everything falls apart. Their conversation was great acting and fleshed out all the pain and damage they’ve caused each other over the years, the ultimate testament to the fact that love can’t last when ego and money get in the way.
What does this last scene say about Shiv and Tom’s relationship?
Relationships often look different to the people who are in them, and the dynamics tend to change over time. There is no problem in recognizing these two things, but it must be assumed that the parts involved are aware of who they are to each other and are willing to put in the effort to make it work. Trust and effort are the foundation of any functional relationship these days, and this last conversation between Shiv and Tom made it clear that they lack both of those traits.
One could even argue that the scene consists of “anti-talk” as they don’t want to discuss anything, especially Shiva. For her, their relationship has always been tied to the power she had over Tom and every attempt he made in trying to talk to her about their situation was shirked because it directly affected the status quo of where they are in the dynamic. their power. He even lashed out at her, trying to draw her out, but Royce is not to be teased. For her, openness is a sign of vulnerability, and that the meaning of any relationship is something that completely passes her by. The only language Roy understands is competition, and Shiv will never willingly give up his dominant position for a husband.
Tom, on the other hand, plays the only card he knows with her, the offended husband card. He asks Shiv three times if she wants to talk about them and what happened in Italy in the third season finale, but only does so because he knows she will refuse. Shiv has always been his link to Logan, but after he betrays her, he doesn’t need her anymore. Logan may be ready to get rid of him at any time, but in his opinion, his position is secure (he was very “encouraged” by Logan’s remark that if they are good, they are good, remember?). But Tom didn’t pay attention to the fact that Logan only spoke to him when Roy’s patriarch wanted to know about his daughter.
Both parties are happy to admit defeat because in the context of the relationship, they cannot see it as defeat. Shiv offers to leave with “heads held high”, but that is only because they are too proud to understand their real position. There is no real win here and neither of them wants to be honest, so they settle for “we tried”. Unfortunately, this is also proof that at some point they actually loved each other, they were just too arrogant to realize it.
Was there ever hope for Shiv and Tom?
“Do you really want a full account of all the pain in our marriage?” Tom asks Shiv in this scene, but it would take them much more than one scene to provide such an account. It has been made clear throughout the series that their marriage is not an honest relationship between two acting adults, but a power struggle between them. Shiv is with Tom so he can be her symbol in Waystar-Royco and a tool for her to get back at Logan. Even before she decided to join the family business, she saw herself as superior to Tom both morally and intellectually. For Tom, his interest in Shiva is directly related to Logan, so he could be close to the cause and become more involved over time. While they may appear to have power over each other, they were in fact in an intricate symbiosis where one benefited from the other. When this happens, there is even the possibility of developing real feelings, and this happened to them.
However, none of them were ever mature enough to deal with feelings. At their wedding dinner, Shiv admits that she enjoys “hanging out with him” and that “he’s a nice guy”. Of course, she only thinks so because, as Logan eventually put it, Tom was never a threat to her, but besides, back then, Shiv was still basically an idealist and had no interest in the family business. Tom was a way for her to stay in touch with what was going on there while still being away from home. She loved him but couldn’t bring herself to accept that she was openly vulnerable, which made her risk everything by proposing an open relationship with him. Her subsequent breakup is tragic because it shows that she is losing her idealism and is starting to see Tom no longer just as a tool, but as a pawn.
In the Season 2 finale “It’s Not for Tears”, they have one of the few honest conversations about their marriage, and Tom confronts Shiv for being supportive of blaming him for the Roys’ crimes and proposing an open relationship on their wedding night. It is then that he realizes his practical function for Shiva, and when she realizes that there will be consequences in their marriage, when he admits that he was unhappy. Then they really loved each other, but it became clear that the game will always be above the status of their relationship.
For Shiv and Tom, love was never a real possibility. For a brief moment it became a reality, but they were never involved in it all at the same time. It’s sad in itself, but the game the Roys are playing has turned their heads and twisted what could have been a real relationship. All they could ever do was “try” and see what happens - and they tried.
New episodes succession Season 4 premieres every Sunday on HBO and HBO Max.
Source: Collider
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