One Small Scene: “Don’t. You’ll regret it.”

“Don’t. You’ll regret it. Let me show you a kindness.”

I don’t see Tom’s words in Succession as the common generic bland advice people in relationships give in conversation, but a warning. It’s only given one touch in the past three seasons, only one shade of this servile, catty, lesser husband of a power pairing all series:

“Shiv? Fuck off.”

I won’t say Tom is an especially smart character. But he is devious, and hurtful, and at heart doesn’t really give a fuck about anyone else- like the rest of the cast.

To many, the penny drop moment of this mystery, the answer to who won the succession was Tom not arriving at Logan Roy’s funeral, both his boss and father-in-law. To abandon any sentiment is portrayed as the way to win, and often self-indulgence or hesitating the cause of pain. All the main cast and antagonists are sadists of the verbal and psychological variety, and they constantly make barely veiled insinuations, backhanded compliments and insults.

When it matters, the believable moments of Tom’s success come from a similar place to his punching bag and friend Gregg; location. Blandly saying things to egomaniacs ready to carve you up, who love their self-perception, political parties and avarice more than any living people.

There's a contrast, perhaps some dramatic irony that Shiv, the face, the stronger personality and character is so adept at knocking ideas and plans out of other people’s hands, while until near the very end Tom has no edge one could take seriously and exists to facilitate his wife. Shiv Roy is better than Tom, describes herself as such, purely because of who her father is. He is beneath her, in the agreed upon social dynamic the tyrannical company forces into place.

Shiv and Tom’s relationship is a stark, uncomfortably plain display of a dysfunctional and vicious relationship, filled with lack of empathy on either side. The difference is the bubbling unpleasantness of Tom being someone who only ridicules or strikes at those in a weaker position, and perfectly aware that his wife does not and never did love him or think much of his character, is making the coy moves off-screen to surprise the audience.

‘Tightrope Tommy’ makes himself a lot more open with his moves, dispensing with being the clown, and someone more emotionally resilient for a change than those around him. So, when he offers to comfort Shiv; like his wife he cannot resist layering it with something sharp.

Tom’s sentence isn’t something to be utterly ignored, a throwaway condolence neither party cares about. Nor is it a filler item of conversation to facilitate an exchange of insults. It’s an earnest thing said by someone meaning what they say.

And it goes entirely unrealised until it’s too late.

Reference: Succession. Series 4, Episode 4.