Shiv's Bargain

I did a short thread about the “Succession” finale and someone yelled at me about not putting up a spoiler alert. So, SPOILER ALERT, if you haven’t watched the season finale of this show. If you have, or don’t care about spoilers, then keep reading.

Siobhan Roy, known as “Shiv,” (expertly played by Sarah Snook) on the HBO/Max series, is one of the children of the media mogul Logan Roy. As adult children, the four are locked in a death-like competition to 1) get any kind of love from their father, Logan; and, 2) the younger three are vying to become the ruler of their father’s vast corporate empire, as a proxy for the love he (and their mother) are incapable of giving.

I’m never sure the point of this genre of television. Is it meant to make us loathe the rich? In which case, check. Or, is it meant for us to see the rich as pitiable and loathsome, and thus we, the viewing public, feel more satisfied with less? Perhaps. Or, is it meant to illuminate the wretched bargains humans make to stay in power? For me, this was what the series finale brought home. All the characters made different kinds of bargains to end up where they did — Conor, the failed presidential candidate may just get to be ambassador to some Eastern European nation he could not find on a decent-sized map, and Willa, his wife gets the posh apartment and time to work on her play. Kendall, made a bet that he could be king, and lost. Roman, put all his chips on the nihilism of not being a corporate player so that he could indulge his baser instincts (that smirk at the bar as he sips a martini, Gerri’s favorite drink). And, that brings me to Shiv’s bargain.

Near the end of the last episode, Kendall thinks he has assembled sibs Roman and Shiv into a solid voting block that will hoist him atop the corporation and kill a deal to sell the company to GoJo, the Swedish company led by a Lukas Matsson. At first, Matsson promises Shiv the position of “American CEO,” when the purchase goes through and she sides with Matsson. When she learns that Matsson has betrayed her by choosing Tom, the “interchangeable cog” (her description of him to Matsson) and her erstwhile husband, instead for the CEO role. Shiv learns of this and knowledge of this betrayal seems to solidify her alliance with her brothers.

In a dramatic scene as Kendall is about to win the vote, Shiv walks out of the board meeting. Kendall and Roman follow her into another conference room, where Kendall confronts Shiv and she reveals she’s changed her mind. Shiv tells Kendall “I just don’t think you’d be good at it.”

Incredulous, Kendall shouts at her: “You are voting against your own interests, why would you do that?”

Here, Kendall is every headline like this one, shouting at white women for voting for the GOP and “against their own interests.”

Shiv’s reply to Kendall: “No, I’m not,” is every white woman voting for the GOP. What I wrote in Nice White Ladies and have said in more than two dozen talks since then is that these women are not voting against their own interests, they’re voting for their interest in whiteness (and patriarchy and capitalism).

This is the same bargain that Shiv made in the finale, albeit in a much higher income bracket than 99% of us. She chose her husband for the benefits. And they both know this. The final scene is of Tom and Shiv in the backseat of one of those giant, black SUV’s, being driven away from the big announcement of the GoJo takeover and Tom’s ascent. Tom holds out his hand, and Shiv places hers in his, begrudgingly. It is an exquisite misery of her own making.

Shiv’s bargain is similar to what so many of us, raised to be nice, white ladies make.

We choose a husband with the most benefits because we are trapped in this system of cishetero-patriarchal capitalism, summed up wickedly in Matsson’s play to Tom: “And I thought, if I could get anyone in the world, why don't I get the guy who put the baby inside her instead of the baby lady?” A double-betrayal because Tom never tells Shiv this, so she never knows that being pregnant is the thing that undermines her in this boys-club-game she’s entered.

The misery on Shiv’s face in that final scene - that’s all of us once we’ve made the bargain. The season finale is called “Eyes Wide Open,” and I think it’s meant as a reference to Shiv’s decision here. She is every nice white lady that decides she’d rather be part of the system of white, capitalist domination rather than standing outside it.

My guess about what’s next for Shiv: she gets very into wellness culture. Perhaps she’ll start the next Goop.