Matthew Macfadyen’s Minnesotan may not be an “honorary kid,” but he’s playing family puppet master to start the final season.
Throughout the final season of “Succession,” IndieWire will take an extended look at the various power players in HBO’s drama to determine not only if they can win control of the Roy family business, but what they would actually gain in doing so — and what they may lose, simply by playing. After Episode 1, “The Munsters,” it’s time to vet: Tom Wambsgans.
At the end of “Succession’s” Season 4 premiere, it’s only fitting that Tom is the man in the middle. On one side, perched behind him like a certain smirking lion, is Logan (Brian Cox), eagerly awaiting word from the escalating negotiations over Pierce Global Media. On the other side — of the phone, of the country, of the negotiations, take your pick — is Shiv (Sarah Snook), his wife and current opposition. She and her brothers are attempting to pry Logan’s long-prized piece of liberal media out from between his fangs, and Tom is but a mere piece of gristle wedged warily between gnashing teeth.
Based on Tom’s stammered attempts to glean information (delivered with extraordinary obfuscation by Matthew Macfadyen), it would be easy to believe Tom doesn’t want to be here; that he’s trapped in a lose-lose scenario between his wife and father-in-law, between his career ambitions and his personal life, between a lion and a lioness.
But this is exactly where Tom has chosen to be, and it’s exactly where he needs to be — for now, at least, until the Roy family’s favorite people-pleaser decides there’s a more important person to please. Like the actor playing him, Tom thrives in middle. Never on top, never on the bottom, the man from Minnesota sees no separation between his business pursuits and familial obligations. Like any man married into a mom-and-pop shop, he’s moved steadily upward, and in Season 4, he’s ascended to become Logan’s right-hand man. Tom calls his boss “Logue,” and “Logue,” in turn, calls him “Tommy.” It is a relationship built on the frailest of foundations — one that significantly weakens his good-standing at home — but these are the same creaky floorboards Tom has been fashioning into a staircase for years. One rail guides his business pursuits, the second his familial obligations, and both run parallel to either the heights of luxury or depths of desertion.
Can he step to the very top? Can he assemble an American capitalist’s stairway to heaven? Can Tom, of all people, actually win the tragic “game” at the heart of “Succession”? To answer that question — which, I promise, I will answer with as much clarity and certitude as anyone outside the show’s writers’ room can — first we must remember what kind of game he’s playing.
The inevitable tragedy of “Succession” is that everyone will lose. Most will not get what they want (i.e. the money and power Logan now controls), and even those that somehow “win” won’t be entirely happy with what they get. Creator Jesse Armstrong has shown, time and again, that each Roy family member is too flawed to achieve serenity — not by succession, anyway. Whether it’s tied to individualized foibles, societal circumstance, abuse inflicted by their family member, or all of the above, the Sisyphean task of scaling Mount Royco is destined to crush every climber’s ambition, soul, or both. Starting over at the bottom isn’t an option. No matter how the final season shakes out, it’s unlikely that the reigning king will feel truly victorious when the closing credits roll.
That goes double for Tom, who has long appeared doomed to be Logan or Shiv’s eternal punching bag. For years, it seemed like the latter was in control, as Tom sustained body blows for #TeamShiv in the fight for her father’s CEO seat. Whether it was true, twisted love or a long con he couldn’t escape, Tom’s only shot at victory hinged on his wife’s unexpected rise. But the pain in their marriage proved too much for Tom. Role play can only go so far, and Shiv should’ve known Tom’s safe word was “love” — as in, don’t tell your puppy dog husband to his face that you don’t love him.
So Tom betrays Shiv and, in doing so, doubles down on his loyalty to Logan, to the company, to the business of fucking people over. Perhaps his previous offer to serve as Royco’s sacrificial lamb paired with his willingness to throw Logan’s kids under the bus will make Tom an indispensable asset to the old guard. But a few months later, it doesn’t appear to have made much of a difference. Logan refuses to promise Tom anything. “If we’re good, we’re good,” Logan tells him, after Tom wonders what will happen if he and his boss’ daughter break up.
Matthew Macfadyen and Sarah Snook in “Succession”
Courtesy of Macall B. Polay / HBO
And a break up appears to be all but official. Later that night, Shiv refuses to even hear Tom out, passing on the chance at a “full accounting of all the pain in [their] marriage” and flat-out rejecting her hubby’s proposal of “saying and explaining” any past misunderstandings.
What does it all mean, one episode into the final season? For me, it’s long been clear that Tom cannot “win” the game of “Succession.” He would never be chosen to lead ATN (or whatever is left of Waystar Royco after GoJo seizes control), and it would be hard to believe he could leverage his current status for a comparable gig elsewhere. (His work history doesn’t exactly make him a desirable candidate for rival companies in need of their own big-wig.) At the same time, he finally seems to realize he’ll never be enough for Shiv. Even after he tips her off to Logan’s PMG pursuit, practically facilitating the sibs’ eventual steal, she still won’t talk to him. Instead, she’s selling their marriage on the open market and plowing ahead with the divorce.
Woe is Tom. He’s put himself in a situation where his floor and ceiling are less than half-a-Greg apart. He’s never going to be the CEO, and he’s always going to be belittled, belabored, and besieged on multiple fronts. But in a weird way, is this also his destiny? Wasn’t he always going to end up on the precipice of eradication by both of his lifelong pursuits? And maybe, just maybe, he wants to push himself to the edge of oblivion? Rather than a strategy — a kind of martyrdom that ends in an unlikely coronation — I sense a defense mechanism; his brain (or what’s left of his conscience) is driving him to destroy the parts of himself that are causing so much anguish so he can start anew, back in Minnesota or at least back to the version of himself before he became tied to the Roys. Perhaps losing is his only way to win.
No matter what you imagine the truth to be behind Tom’s actions, any resulting empathy is elicited by Macfadyen’s indelible performance. The British star has a way of inviting us in. He exposes such vulnerability in hushed moments and such unquenchable anger in bigger ones. Take the way Tom tells Shiv, “That makes me sad.” It’s a nothing line — the kind of stock emotional output you’d expect from a hardened gold digger or spat out by ChatGPT. But Macfadyen, with a flicker of a tear in his eye, imbues the words with Tom’s aforementioned pain, anger, and what reads as raw honesty. If Tom is lying here, he’s as good a liar as Macfadyen is an actor. Where Shiv is holding everything back, refusing to engage in the conversation or even consider having it, Tom is exposed without getting to say his piece. His openness allows the viewer to latch on to Tom in ways that are hard to shake.
Tied inextricably to Macfadyen’s award-winning work, perhaps the reason Tom engenders such a strong response is because he aligns less as a “Succession” power player and more as a “Succession” audience member. He watches the Roy family. He obsesses over them. He has a hand in how things unfold, but he has no shot at “winning,” whether that means ascending to the peak of Waystar Royco or escaping the Roy power struggle unscathed. He is primarily an observer, and a part-time meddler at best.
None of us, dear readers, will be named the CEO of a major corporation in the final episode of “Succession,” and all of us will be left scathed by seeing who succeeds. As viewers, we are hopelessly trapped between loathing the destruction wrought by the Roys and loving the hopeless souls buried deep within each of them. Armstrong asks us to laugh with glee at their poetic insults in the same breath he expects us to draw in out of shock for their heartless tenacity. We are stuck in the middle, and we all want to be here.
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