Shiv’s Good News Could Change Everything on Succession for the Worse

This article contains spoilers for Succession Season 4, Episode 4, “Honeymoon States.” Succession has given us every bleak event on the Roy family calendar: cynicism-choked weddings, power-play birthday parties, Thanksgivings punctuated by child abuse. If “Connor’s Wedding” delivered its shock via time-release capsule, with Logan’s life force fading out over an extended phone call, Episode 4, “Honeymoon States,” opens with another trajectory-determining plot point pinging over a cell tower. And if my timeline crunching is correct, it’s fair to assume that that night in Italy, when Shiv vengefully declared “Let’s have a baby” to spite her mother, proved prophetic, as did Shiv’s sexy-time proclamations to Tom that “I don’t love you” and “I’m out of your league.” She’s kept the secret for months, even while heading back to the home she no longer shares with Tom in search of long jackets and wide-legged pants. When Logan advises Tom how to poison the well of top-shelf New York divorce attorneys so they’re all conflicted out of representing Shiv, she tells her siblings, “I got Mommed.” To tell Tom he’s going to be a father is to invite the snake back into the garden; to tell her corporate bro siblings is to torpedo her chances of being considered one of the power players in the “coronation demolition derby” that is the next 48 hours. Kendall says he’s always liked Tom but offers him only a patronizing “good luck.” The only one who gives Tom any traction is Shiv.