__Spoilers for the series finale of __Succession follow.**
Succession was many things, but it was not an overly sentimental show. Any romantic relationship was also basically a business transaction. Connor and Willa’s wedding, for example, was bizarrely sweet, but only came after she admitted that she was marrying him for the money. Shiv and Tom’s marriage, by the end, was so shatteringly toxic that she could barely hold his hand when he offered it to her, her palm eerily hovering above his. Roman may have genuinely felt for Gerri, but he showed that by sending her dick pics and firing her when she challenged his authority. Kendall’s only obsession was with himself. Of course, the Roy kids became this way at the hands of the king of miserable intimacy: Logan was an unrepentant philanderer, who either had his ex-wives committed to mental institutions or paid them off so they could take decades long shopping sprees.
But the series finale proved Succession had one pure love story: The [semi] platonic connection between Tom Wambsgans and Gregory Hirsch.
From their initial interactions at Logan’s birthday party in the pilot, there was a delightfully fucked up spark between Tom and Greg, existing somewhere between bullying and sexual tension. (A flame the fanbase was happy to stoke.) “Pals, yes?” Tom says after brutally teasing Greg on their way to the family softball game. “Would you kiss me? Would you? If I asked you to? If I told you to?” He then tells Greg he’s joking, but was he really? Throughout the entire series it always seemed like these two were on the verge of making out, whether they were hurling water bottles at each other or being (very tall) horny freaks in alliance.
And yet, for a moment, it looked like creator Jesse Armstrong would finally orchestrate a permanent rift between the self-appointed “Disgusting Brothers.” After Greg finds out that Lukas Matsson is pushing Shiv out as CEO of the newly combined Waystar and GoJo (but, crucially, not that Tom is his new pick), he tips off Kendall, thinking that aligning himself with the Roy children is the better play. Tom is furious, taking him into the bathroom at Logan’s apartment, and slapping him, a blow-up that somehow felt more violent than the time Tom destroyed Greg’s supply closet of an office.
Greg’s plan backfires for him when Shiv revolts leaving the trio of unserious people out of a job and Tom at least nominally on top. (He essentially acquiesces to being a puppet for Matsson, but he was always going to be a puppet regardless.)
When Greg approaches Tom with a bashful “congrats” post-coronation, Tom plays for a moment like he’s going to take revenge for the betrayal with false coldness. “You are a fucking piece of shit,” Tom says, taking a long pause. “But I got you.” He takes one of the stickers that Connor handed out for family members to claim items in Logan’s apartment and places it on Greg’s head.
“I got you” is a sly little callback to that interaction they had in the very first episode, the first time we see Tom pick on Greg. “I may look really fun, you know? But the thing about me is that I’m a terrible terrible prick,” Tom explains to a confused Greg, before laughing, “I got you again. I just got you.”
The semantics of these “I got you” moments are different, but they are parallel. In both, Tom is asserting dominance over Greg. In the premiere, Greg’s befuddled. In the finale, he’s content. The little smiles they give to one another are almost lovely. Although Greg messed up, Tom still loves him enough to keep him under his wing. Sure, having Greg around will help Tom maintain at least the illusion of power while Matsson uses him as a “pain sponge,” but there’s something genuine in those smirks they give to one another. Tom wants Greg to be his lackey—someone he can make a Tomlette out of—but he also just wants him as a pal.
This is hardly a healthy relationship. . Tom, after all, once called Greg the Sporus to his Nero, comparing him to a slave who the emperor had castrated and then married. Still, in the world of Succession these two were the only couple worth rooting for. They are both interlopers who made it through the Roy family gauntlet and came out relatively unscathed. I hope they have a long, happy, disgusting life together—and that maybe they sneak a kiss when they’re on Molly.