HBO has hosted many dysfunctional marriages in its time, but few have matched the world salt curse of Shiv Roy and Tom Wambsgans. Subrogation. Last week’s episode of “Tailgate Party” highlighted Shiv and Tom’s unhappy relationship once again, as the two hold a heated argument on their porch during a party. However, as anyone who’s ever caught even a few episodes probably knows, this marriage boom has been in the making for years.
The fall of Shiv and Tom from the balcony is one of the irreversible arguments. (That says a lot for a couple who have survived gift-based negation, biting, and corporate betrayal.) Tom described Shiv as an unsuitable mother with no sense of self, and Shiv responded by saying she was a “slave.” His biggest motivation is his last name, “conservative jerk”. With every insult yelled at, years of subtext about marriage finally splashed onto the walls in bold.
And yet, along this terrace aloneOnly one thing came to my mind: chicken.
We’ve seen Shiv’s distrust and disdain for Tom come out drop by drop from the very beginning, and Tom’s feelings of anger and rejection have been boiling for just as long. The last time their relationship had gotten this rough, Tom had rushed to a yacht to get a piece of meat off his father-in-law’s plate. “Thanks for the chicken,” he hissed. The line was as surprising as it was iconic.
From their relationship in the premiere, to the chicken and the party’s brutal fight, this partnership blended love and evil—an instinct to embrace and deliberately hurt. These impulses flowed in different degrees from both sides at different moments. But are any of these sad, sad people really to blame for all this toxicity? Or did they just jump into this cesspool together?
“The Washington Incident”
Shiv and Tom’s relationship seemed clearer in the first season of the series, before people started staging rebellious acts through poultry. She was a confident political adviser who enjoyed her husband’s faltering efforts to join the ultra-rich world that he helped create. Meanwhile, Tom looked like he was covered in wax. Ignoring his future mother-in-law’s disdain, he was happy to be in the room and give Logan Roy a watch that he clearly didn’t like. (And whenever the blows of acting like the Roy family’s punching bag were too much, there was always Greg around to bully.)
Future seasons will make this first impression, but like most people, the Roys and their corporate parasites get more and more fascinating over time. For example, we now know that Tom and Shiv met during one of the most emotionally turbulent times of his life, during what he called the “Washington thing.” Revelation brought to mind Tom’s proposal in Season 1 when Shiv’s father was dying: he was a mess and got in the way. Shiv’s husband has the knack of capturing her most vulnerable moments, and her support often comes with strings like the words, “For the richer or the poorer.”
Shiv’s distrust of Tom was inevitable; given family history, who to want does he trust? His father hospitalized his older brother’s mother before emotionally leaving him. His own mother is just as cold and calculating as his father, and he seems to enjoy killing his children, especially Shiv. Logan has spent his children’s entire lives playing them against each other, and they apparently grew up largely socially isolated—only bonding with each other and the friends of their father’s business associates, all would be equally compromised. Take a rampant culture of misogyny and it’s no wonder Shiv is looking for a man she thinks she can live happily on under her finger.
Tom might let Shiv say horrible things to him and collapse in quiet resentment during their relationship, but does Shiv really have the power in this relationship? Earlier this season, when she cornered him on the stairs to remind him of their early intimacy, he was deliberately describing that period as the time they “first met” each other. Whether on purpose or not, Tom’s gentle euphemism pointed to a compromising truth about their relationship: Over time, Tom became closer to Shiv than anyone else. And how many people actually knew him anyway?
No matter how compromised his intentions were from the start, Tom’s years with Shiv have given him a front row seat in the toxic family dynamics that had brought him up. At the end of Season 3, that’s what made his betrayal so treacherous when he told Logan about Shiv and his brothers’ plans to usurp Waystar – even if it paid the price for Shiv’s many, many cruel acts. At the same time, Tom sometimes seems genuinely interested in Shiv, especially when he’s struggling with his family.
In the end, however, Shiv’s instinct for self-preservation can work like a self-fulfilling prophecy. By refusing to trust Tom, he creates an excuse to betray him over and over. Knowingly or unknowingly, she seems to be comforting herself by re-enacting her father’s abuse of her husband – safely placing herself in the position of the perpetrator rather than the survivor. But the blade cuts both ways; By doing this Shiv is also harming himself, or at least all the parts of his soul that still truly love Tom.
How else to explain the Season 2 chicken debacle that sums up much of Tom and Shiv’s messy marriage?
“I’m Sad To Be With You”
In that season finale, the Roys and all the company men had come on a yacht to decide who would take the blame for the company’s cruise scandal. They would indeed come and wait for Logan to decide which of them would go to the sword. True to his nature, Logan took care to make the process as gladiatorial as possible. (It’s much better to make sure everyone is competing with each other and not him.)
The sharks quickly turned to Tom and instead of diving to save her husband, he started throwing dudes when Shiv asked someone to explain his positive qualities. He argued that Tom was actually the perfect candidate because he is both “family” and “not family”. He was sure of it from the beginning.
Later, while the two were sitting on the beach, Tom finally called his wife as she threw him in front of the corporate wolves and put her in an impossible situation when she wanted an open relationship from him after they were already married. Perhaps meaningfully, he referred to their marriage as a “trade deal.”
“I love you,” said Tom. “Yeah. I just, uh, I wonder, I wonder, will the sadness I’ll be without you be less than the sadness I get from being with you?
Shiv imitated his father’s cold aloofness as he listened to Tom’s words, but the camera zoomed in on his painful expressions. “Pinky” wanted to prove that his father had the killing instinct that he coveted in a successor, but failed. Instead, she begged her father (behind closed doors) to forgive Tom. Instead, Kendall took the ax – a result that Shiv knew would likely follow.
The moment when Shiv implicitly betrays her brother to save her husband is one of the most heartbreaking shows in the series. This subverts a sensitive moment earlier in the episode before Logan’s arrival, when the Big Three Roy brothers blow off the breeze and joke around like people who truly love each other. These fleeting bits of happiness sprinkled throughout the series are a devastating reminder of what Logan has stolen from his children; The intimacy and trust they each need (and sometimes find in each other) are also the only things they sacrifice over and over in their race for their father’s crown.
Even Tom, who has a blueberry in the Roy family’s ass, can see it. After years of watching Roy family work, he has seen firsthand how vain their love can be. In the Season 2 finale, when Shiv tried to push him off the brink of their argument by saying “I love you”, he said so without saying it.
“I love you,” he repeated, before picking up a pebble and throwing it into the ocean. “I love this rock. Wave goodbye! You are dead. What does it mean?”
After this discussion, Tom walks over to Logan’s desk and mimics the pathology he’s constantly watching. By taking the chicken, Tom got what he wanted without his consent or apology. That’s what Logan has always done, both with his country and with his family. That’s his way of acting in the world, and he’s taught that to his daughter, too.
Sunday’s fight, like any other fight, will leave Shiv drowning in a bitter truth. Just like their father’s other siblings who wished they could be as emotionally impenetrable as they seem, he’ll never really be Logan Roy. Instead, another person Logan Roy hurt. This is the kind of reality that some people avoid for most or all of their lives. It may seem safer to find a husband who lets you bite him as long as he can bite you too. We’d all rather feel like someone sitting at the table than a chicken bone left to sit in the sun. In some ways, Tom knows that better than anyone.
When Shiv finally cornered Tom to explain his decision to throw him under the bus to save his relationship with his father, he was extremely honest. “I felt like I was torn between you and your father,” she said. “And I really, really, really love my career and my money… If you think that’s superficial, why not throw all your stuff away for love? Throw away all your necklaces and jewelry to meet at a three-star Italian, okay? Come and live with me in a trailer park, will you? Are you coming?”
Shiv’s reaction? “I’ll follow you everywhere for love, Tom Wambsgans.”
“Thanks for the chicken,” really.
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