Throughout all four seasons of HBO’s Succession, the main question on everybody’s minds is which of Logan Roy’s children will take over the family business when he inevitably passes away. However, the biggest trick the show ever pulled was convincing the audience that Waystar Royco was safely in the family’s hands, as the final season greatly subverted expectations and saw Tom Wambsgans step up as CEO after a rival media conglomerate acquired the company. This was the major twist of Succession’s ending, and while it was unexpected, there were plenty of clues that pointed towards this happening.
Tom Wambsgans has always been one of the show’s most interesting characters, but he wasn’t on most people’s radars as a legitimate candidate for Waystar CEO. For the first three seasons, Tom was a source of both humiliation and security for Logan Roy and his children, who often treated him like an outsider who didn’t really deserve to be in their company. However, the final season proved that he had finally been pushed to his breaking point. Tom was always going to be Succession’s winner, but the siblings were too blind to see it.
Tom Was The Puppet CEO Lukas Matsson Was Looking For
From a narrative perspective, the reason that Tom Wambsgans was selected as the next CEO of Waystar Royco is because Lukas Mattson needed an American CEO to appease the existing board, and he thought Tom would be an ideal puppet that he could control. Throughout Succession’s fourth season, Shiv had been secretly working alongside Matsson to push the GoJo deal to completion, hoping that he’d select her to be the American CEO – but once again, Shiv was blinded by her own ambition.
In fact, it was Shiv who (unintentionally) planted the seed in Matsson’s mind that Tom would be a perfect CEO under his new company. She constantly describes her husband as a pushover, claiming that he’s too weak to pose a real threat to their plans – but this is exactly what Matsson needed. He was threatened by Shiv’s ambition and wanted somebody easier to control, which Tom had proven himself to be. This was the final nail in the coffin for Shiv and Tom’s relationship, which had gradually deteriorated throughout the seasons.
Kendall Losing The Vote Meant That The GoJo Bought Waystar
However, the grand finale of Succession offered the Roy siblings one final chance to prevent Tom from becoming the CEO of Waystar. If Kendall, Shiv, and Roman managed to band together and present a unified front to the board, they could override the GoJo deal and name Kendall as the next CEO. The siblings came up with this plan during a visit to their mother’s home in Barbados, and for a while, it seemed like they’d really be able to put their differences aside and work together.
Ultimately, Shiv willingly voted in favor of the GoJo deal and allowed Tom to succeed because the idea of Kendall assuming their father’s position was too sickening to her.
However, upon returning to the Waystar HQ in New York, Shiv soon realized that allowing Kendall to become the next CEO would be a dangerous game. He was already becoming too much like his father, ordering people around and abusing his brother to assert his dominance, and she couldn’t bring herself to let that happen. Ultimately, Shiv willingly voted in favor of the GoJo deal and allowed Tom to succeed because the idea of Kendall assuming their father’s position was too sickening to her.
Incidentally, Shiv knew that with Tom as Waystar’s CEO, she would still be relevant to the company in some form – even if it was just as Tom’s wife. If she’d voted to block the GoJo deal, she didn’t know what would happen. Her brothers had previously given her plenty of reasons to distrust them; during their brief tenure as “CEO Bros” earlier in the season, they’d been quick to exclude her from important conversations and push her away. When the time came to vote, she chose an assuredly dissatisfying life as the CEO’s wife over a potentially destructive life as the CEO’s sister.
Why None Of The Roy Kids Got The Job At The End Of Succession
In hindsight, it should have been obvious that none of the Roy siblings would become CEO at the end of Succession. From the beginning, the show constantly portrayed them as selfish, incompetent, ruthless individuals who aren’t deserving of any kind of power – and audiences still expected them to be handed the company on a silver platter. As Logan Roy said just days before his death, his children are “not serious people.”
By the end of the show, there was so little trust between the siblings that creating a unified front was essentially impossible. Shiv had been betrayed by her brothers too many times, Kendall had destroyed his public image, and Roman was still grieving the loss of his father. None of these characters were in the right place to become CEO, but Shiv was the only one to really see it.
Why Tom Really Became CEO In The Succession Finale
Tom, on the other hand, is a serious person. He understands the business and knows exactly how he’s supposed to behave in order to climb the ladder right to the top. He’s constantly displayed a willingness to sacrifice his own comfort and ideologies to please the people above him (even offering to go to prison for Logan), and that’s exactly what Matsson needed in his CEO. Tom’s betrayal of Shiv at the end of season 3 is the first indicator of how soulless and callous he can be by selling his integrity to the highest bidder.
Ultimately, Tom represents a certain brand of character that Succession has a lot to say about. He’s a quiet, more reserved personality who often works from the sidelines and puts his own ideologies to the side in order to cut the biggest paycheck. This is something Succession’s writers are clearly interested in, often comparing Tom’s character to figures in the real world whose business ethics reflect his own. Episodes such as “America Decides” clearly reflect this, allowing the show to comment on the dangerous political monopoly that news conglomerates like ATN have in the real world.
