Times staff breaks down the HBO series’ finale, including Shiv and Tom’s power swings, the Roy sibling rivalry, the company’s new CEO and more.Along with who would succeed Logan to become chief executive, the question of whether Tom and Shiv’s uniquely toxic marriage would survive — and if it even should — became the show’s most gripping storyline. In the end, their relationship is still intact, but it has morphed into something colder, more calculating: a tentative, probably doomed alliance.
All of those shows were superficially about other things: organized crime, the ad business, drug dealing. Yet each used marriage to examine the lies people are willing to tell themselves, the humiliations they’ll endure, and even the crimes they’re willing to be complicit in if their personal comfort is assured. This triggered a misogynistic reflex in some viewers, who vilified TV wives like Carmela Soprano, Betty Draper and Skyler White while reveling in the misdeeds of their husbands.
The pattern of humiliation and begrudging reconciliation continued until the Season 3 finale, “All the Bells Say,” when Tom betrayed Shiv to Logan, forever disrupting the power balance in their marriage.