In Shiv, what is commonly a cliché storyline grew to become each poignant and tragic within the HBO present’s finale.
This article comprises spoilers via the Season 4 finale of Succession.
“The journey we went on with the amniocentesis after what the blood test showed us—everything looks healthy.” With these understated phrases uttered by a physician over the cellphone, we realized in Episode 4 of Succession’s remaining season that Shiv Roy (performed superbly by Sarah Snook) was pregnant. But within the episodes that adopted, the present hardly acknowledged her impending motherhood. When her husband, Tom (Matthew Macfadyen), lastly heard the information, sputtering, “Is that even true? Is that a new position or a tactic or what?,” his confusion mirrored my very own. What was this being pregnant?
It’s a well-documented trope in tv that feminine characters in late seasons turn out to be unexpectedly pregnant. Consider Hannah in Girls, or Rachel in Friends. Motherhood is probably the most dramatic endgame conceivable for a girl, these reveals appear to say. Can a mom retain her sense of self? Will she develop out of her childishness? In Girls, Hannah is compelled to give up her flippancy about cash and her promiscuity; she matures into somebody who faces her issues head on. Yet Succession was by no means concerning the private progress of its characters—if something, it showcased the inevitable resurfacing of their worst qualities. I puzzled whether or not Shiv’s improvement was a dramatic wrench to intensify the strain between her and Tom as their marriage faltered. Maybe it was only a easy solution to accommodate Snook’s personal being pregnant. But after the present’s finale aired on Sunday, I spotted that it did a lot extra. Shiv’s imminent parenthood defined the collection’ basic themes—and supplied its remaining tragedy.
Toward the top of the final episode, the siblings Roman (Kieran Culkin), Kendall (Jeremy Strong), and Shiv argue one final time about who ought to lead Waystar Royco, the corporate their father based. Kendall insists that he’s probably the most certified individual to meet their father’s want—which, in line with Kendall, is that the household continues to personal the agency. Roman responds by saying that Shiv is the true bearer of the household’s bloodline. He calls Kendall’s kids—an adopted daughter and, Roman hints, a son probably conceived by way of sperm donor—a “pair of randos.” Roman’s implication is that they aren’t actual Roys. The solely one that might preserve the corporate within the household for the following technology is the just lately pregnant Shiv.
In retrospect, it is sensible that the present would use Shiv to convey its remaining tragic be aware. Shiv’s expertise as Logan’s daughter has at all times been totally different from that of Logan’s sons. When we’re launched to her within the first episode of Season 1, she hasn’t labored within the household agency: She is aware of she should discover her profession worth elsewhere as a result of the company’s misogyny signifies that nobody inside it’s going to see her as a possible inheritor. Because she’s a girl, she will be able to by no means absolutely interact in her brothers’ shared delusions of being the following iteration of their father. But this similar high quality—her gender, her standing as a mother-to-be who carries Logan’s grandchild—retains her tethered to the corporate, even after her brothers have been minimize out. In the finale, Tom is topped the brand new CEO of Waystar Royco, and Shiv is carrying their child.
This is the true operate of Shiv’s being pregnant in Succession. Not to launch her into being a greater model of herself—she continues to be hampered by her womanhood, in the end discounted by Waystar Royco’s new proprietor Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård) and her personal brothers. Rather, her being pregnant alerts that distress—the true birthright of the Roy kids—shall be inherited by the following technology.
You can see this in Shiv’s remaining scene, the place she’s sitting subsequent to Tom in a darkened automobile as he holds his hand out for hers. She stoically complies. Shiv may need facilitated Tom’s ascent, however she is—deliberately or not—repeating historical past, simply because the baby she’s carrying will. At its core, Succession is a tragedy. Each character ends their journey simply as sad as they’ve at all times been. But the present can be concerning the legacy of tragedy. It isn’t sufficient for Logan’s children to really feel sorrow; they need to additionally prolong the household’s curse into the longer term.