It’s election eve in this week’s episode of Succession, and it seems that Father Sexmas has brought us a little pressie for being such hot pieces of ass: a glimpse into Tom (Matthew MacFadyen) and Shiv (Sarah Snook)’s renewed romance. (Later, we will be subjected to their recent texts – obviously, I watched a screener, but I can only assume that when the episode hits the air, the credits will include a helpline number for anyone who is traumatised by the inclusion of the phrase “orgasm Olympics” in a sext chain with Tom Wambsgans.) Tom, thinking he is being funny, has bought Shiv a paperweight made out of a scorpion encased in resin, and Shiv, being smart enough to understand extremely basic symbolism, is pissed off. “Who’s the scorpion?” “You, I guess,” Tom says, not helping. “You love me, but you’d kill me, and I’d kill you.” If they weren’t already married, I’d have said this was the perfect opening for their wedding vows.
The scorpion feels plausibly like a reference to the fable of the scorpion and the frog, a fitting nod for an episode in which everybody gives in to their lowest impulses and behaves like their worst, most exploitative selves. A reminder that the family’s often cavalier actions have real consequences comes, too, in the revelation that Kendall’s (Jeremy Strong) adoptive daughter Sophie, who is of South Asian descent, was subjected to a “racially charged” insult in the street by a man wearing merchandise from the Roys’ TV channel, ATN. If this news puts Kendall back in touch with his long-lost conscience, the reunion is short-lived; by the time he’s meeting up with Connor (Alan Ruck), Shiv and Roman (Kieran Culkin) to discuss their father’s funeral and Shiv is greeting him as “Waystar Jesus”, it’s his ego that is back in charge. Connor suggests that Logan’s (Brian Cox) service should be kept to “a tight 90”, as if it is an unusually long stand-up set, and Shiv points out that because the congregation will be full of the industry’s biggest names, they should decide which of them is capable of doing the best job with the eulogy. “Probably nobody minds, right?” she adds. Absolutely, Shiv – if there’s one thing we know to be true about you and your siblings, it’s that you are all incredibly easy-going when it comes to competition.
