(Warning: Spoilers ahead for the Succession finale.)
It’s the hand-hold that broke the internet.
The Succession finale aired Sunday night, and fans are still processing the episode’s events. The 90-minute episode first teased us with a possible happy ending: The Roy siblings bonded, promised to be a united front, and even anointed “the eldest boy” Kendall as the Waystar Royco heir. That crumbled about as quickly as a house of cards in a hurricane.
The final moments of the episode gave us a glimpse of the ways in which the respective siblings resign to their new lots in life. Roman (Kieran Culkin) is having a strong drink—a martini, Gerri’s drink of choice—and probably reckoning with the fact that his fleeting ambition was a blip, and that he can go on being the spoiled rich guy just the same. Kendall (Jeremy Strong), with his father’s former bodyguard keeping watch several feet away, is staring off into the sunset, grappling with the fact that the series’ biggest question—will they actually give the company to Kendall?—wasn’t answered in his favor.
And then there’s Shiv. After being the deciding vote in determining that the company would sell to Lukas Mattson (Alexander Skarsgard) instead of staying in the family’s control under Kendall, she’s last seen in a car with her estranged husband, Tom (Matthew Macfadyen). Shiv had been primed to become the American CEO of the company under Mattson, but Mattson screwed her over. Worse, the person he decided to replace her with was Tom. The conversation we see the two men have is disgusting; Lukas talks about how he can’t hire Shiv, because he wants to sleep with her, and Tom nods along once he realizes that this could lead to an opportunity for himself.
When Shiv decides to vote in a way that screws over her brothers, it’s at first framed as a moral decision: She can’t in good conscience let Kendall run the company, given his, um, murderous past. But then, when she reunites with Tom, it appears that her choice was actually self-serving. She’s pregnant with Tom’s child. If she stays with him, and he is in power, then her family is still in control; her child is the bloodline heir.
After she congratulates Tom, he lays his hand on the center console between them. She then places hers on top of his. Their fingers don’t intertwine. It’s both the coldest version of hand-holding there could possibly be and also unsettlingly intimate. It’s a symbol of their unique, yet indisputable connection. It’s a business contract. It may also be their version of love?
The brief moment caused a furor amongst Succession fans:
To some, the moment brought into clear focus what was always in plain sight: Shiv, like all the Roys, is interested in power. Betraying her brothers to align herself with Tom and securing her child’s future is in line with that; if we’ve felt she were somehow nobler than her family, maybe we were making somewhat sexist presumptions because of her gender.
To others, Shiv’s decision was infuriating. There were signs throughout the series that Shiv may have had an actual moral compass. She was put in a position where she could have altered the company’s pattern of selfishness and greed. Instead, she did what any of the sharks in her position would have done: Shiv looked out for herself. It was the worst, and most obvious, example of #GirlBoss opportunism: masquerading as righteous and virtuous, and then capitalizing on all the people whom she duped.
Typically, power is brokered by a handshake. In this case, it’s all in holding hands.
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