In each Succession season, there’s been an episode in which all the meme-able phrases and salty looks begin to coalesce into something grander than the sum of its delicious parts. That might well be this week’s episode, “Retired Janitors of Idaho.” Shiv (Sarah Snook), Tom (Matthew Macfadyen), and the rest of the Roy entourage assemble around Logan (Brian Cox) for Waystar Royco’s shareholders’ meeting day. Without a deal in hand with Sandy and Stewy (Larry Pine and Arian Moayed), the family could lose control of their company. Logan’s increasingly loopy behavior, accelerating visits to the bathroom (accompanied by potty partner Tom), and refusal to compromise paralyzes his underlings, who are hesitant to oppose the “demented piss-mad King of England,” as Roman (Kieran Culkin) dubs him.
Kendall (Jeremy Strong) babbles about being a change agent. “You should save that for Vanity Fair, bro,” chides Stewy. Meanwhile, Shiv takes the reins. But on top of trying to save the company, she is also dealing with marital problems. Tom admits to tracking her fertility, hoping to impregnate her before he goes off to jail. “I don’t want to be your fucking incubator for when you’re in prison doing chin-ups and reading Knausgaard,” Shiv complains, neatly laying down the perfect pitch for a Tom Wambsgans prison spin-off. (“You’re making it sound horrible and…it’s supposed to be nice,” Tom whimpers.)
Sitting in a New York hotel room overlooking the Hudson River, Snook and Macfadyen talked to V.F.’s Still Watching about Shiv’s ambitions, Tom’s self-sacrifice, and the lines that made them lose it. Listen to the episode above, and find a partial transcript of the interview below.
Vanity Fair: Shiv and Tom’s relationship seems to be on quicksand this season.
Matthew Macfadyen: We picked up right after the scene on the beach in Croatia. And then we go into panic mode, don’t we? I mean, it’s seamless, it just goes straight on. So we haven’t really had time to digest or deal with it. I’m still reeling from the open marriage thing.
Sarah Snook: Yeah, it doesn’t bode well at this point. But I think quicksand is a good descriptive for sure. It does feel like that in a lot of ways. I realized recently that they’ve previously had a long-term strategy for what their relationship is going to be and what their careers and life are gonna look—they’ll get married, and Tom will be at ATN and he’ll move up somehow, and she will be in politics. But then at the beginning of season two, when she was offered the CEO, that blows it all up.
Macfadyen: Also there’s this awful threat of possible jail time hanging over Tom and everything that comes with that. And they’ve talked about having a baby maybe…
Snook: All these normal things marriages have to deal with—jail time and babies.
I love the detail that Tom started tracking Shiv’s periods to see when she’s fertile.
Macfadyen: It’s not creepy!
Snook: It is creepy, though. It is.
How do you not laugh when you’re doing a scene like that?
Snook: It was difficult! There were plenty of times where we were not able to get through it. They didn’t use them but [there were] so many, “fuck you” moments as she was leaving.
Macfadyen: “I’ve been to your sexy window,” I say to you at one point.
Snook: I love: “What are you trying to do, take my basal temperature with your dick?”
Does Shiv have a sense of what she wants, other than Logan’s affection?
Snook: I think she wants success and stability and she wants to win—in terms of the company but also in terms of the competition within the family to appear the most normal and stable. I think part of that was getting married in the first place. And I think the realization is that you’re always going to be a Roy and you’re probably never going to be normal and stable [giggles]. You’re never gonna win at that. So maybe that’s what this season’s about for her as well.
This episode has very high stakes. And then in the middle of it all, Logan goes “piss mad” thanks to a urinary tract infection.
Macfadyen: The Piss Mad King of England!
Everyone around him is terrified of saying that the emperor has no clothes. For Shiv, is that out of worship or fear of crossing Logan?
Snook: She also is the only one at the end who actually does something about it. I think there’s a little bit of Logan [in her], in that she can flick the switch and be less empathetic and more practical, pragmatic, business minded. Got to get this thing done. It is always a risk going against Logan but at the same time, again, Shiv is similar to Logan in that the company is the priority. I think she knows long term, if she can save the company, then that’s always gonna win the affection of her dad. Of course, in the short term, Logan’s an irascible little shit.
In the season two finale, Logan was disappointed because Shiv wouldn’t choose a fall guy for the company. And yet, as you said, she comes through this time. The two sidelined daughters [Shiv and Sandy’s daughter, played by Hope Davis] step up and make a deal.
Snook: Totally, and I think that’s probably signifying a little bit of growth. She’s been schooled, with him saying: “You’ve got to make these hard decisions if you’re going to be CEO.” And I think she takes that on board. She likes being the person in the room who’s got the plan, and who’s like, “Rally round, let’s go, we’re going this way!” She just needs her brothers to follow her.
Matthew, it always felt to me like Tom was an arrogant opportunist. But at this point, he’s willing to sacrifice himself. Is he playing a long game? Or was there a shift in him?
Macfadyen: I don’t know how calculating he is. I think that sort of comes to him, the idea of offering himself up to Logan. He’s got nothing else to lose, really.… They’re all survivors, really. They have to be in that world. So there’s an element of trying to sort out, what’s the best/worst outcome? And then it’s that beautifully written scene we did when he sees in Shiv the [attitude] of: Yeah, [offering to go to jail] could be a good idea. Which is sort of the worst thing a wife could say to a husband, but actually, is a hard-nosed way of looking at it. You bank gold with my dad and probably only serve a year in jail, right? Might be a good strategy.
Snook: Oftentimes the scenes that we find the funniest, between you and I, perhaps don’t have the comedy lines but are the most heinous responses. Painful silences in between drinking wine, and not listening.
Tom really raises his obsession with jail to an art form.
Macfadyen: It’s scary! What can I say?
Snook: It’s not that scary. It’s just jail!
Macfadyen: When is lights out? How long am I allowed to read? Do I have to go to the toilet in front of somebody else? How does it work? … There’s a lot to think about.
And trying to have a baby ahead of time so that there’s a kid waiting for you when you get out.
Snook: What did they call it once, the mole? Like you would try to plant a mole in my womb while you were on the inside?
There are virtuosic group scenes in this episode where so many different things are going on. How choreographed is it?
Snook: It’s not! In order to get it to cut together, there’s a lot that gets discarded, because oftentimes, we’re not in the same spot, or we’re not saying the same line at the same time, or we’ve improvised something. But that gives it its looseness and freedom, and I think a lot of its vitality.
Macfadyen: Episode five is a good example. It must be over 10 pages, that whole [group] sequence. It’s like rehearsing a play, and you sort of finesse it, the more takes you do.
Snook: It did feel like a play, that one—a French farce or something.
Tom is escorting Logan back and forth to the bathroom…
Macfadyen: And there’s the imaginary cat coming out of the bag. And all the while these huge high stakes are happening in another room, offstage. It’s a classic episode.
Snook: My favorite is [Tom saying to Logan]: “Well, thanks, pop. Papa.”
Macfadyen: One of the writers just came in and just said [whispers]: “Just say papa in this one take.”
Snook: It’s so genius. I really felt for Tom this season.
Shiv was the token liberal Roy. Now she is inside the evil empire. Is there a line that she won’t cross?
Snook: That is interesting. Is there a line she won’t cross? I hope to find it. That seems like a great area to be playing in. She certainly crosses the line when she writes a very damning public letter about her brother. She has an extraordinary ability to justify her actions to herself as necessary. And so where that line is, I don’t know yet, but we’ll find it one day.
Macfadyen: There’s a brilliant bit when you try to recruit Lisa Arthur, and you have a sort of mini fit when it doesn’t work. And you see it with the boys as well, [when you’re] not getting your own way. It’s like: Make it happen! Like a foot stomping thing. Logan has it too. He won’t compromise until the FBI are at the door with battering rams.
Who’s the most fun to play off of in terms of unpredictable improvs?
Macfadyen: Kieran is deadly, isn’t he? So quick. His speed of thought is so fast. It’s easier for me because Tom is slower, and so I can pretend it’s Tom being slow if I’m improvising with Kieran but yeah, he’s lightning quick and very funny.
Snook: I think we’ve both quite judiciously made choices about our characters that allow us a little space and air time with a moment to just process an accent. So Shiv just keeps her mouth shut a lot of the time.
Is it hard to wash Tom and Shiv off at the end of the day?
Macfadyen: You take little parts of the characters you play. Acting is great therapy. Because you can either borrow qualities that you aspire to, like confidence or dynamism. Also you can get out all the really disgusting things. Tom is so excruciatingly awful sometimes that it’s wonderful just to do that. I feel like I’ve got it out of my system, being a big shouty bully or whatever.
Snook: And then revert back to normal lovely Matthew.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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