Shiv Roy Will Do Whatever It Takes To Get More Power—Even Weaponize Her Own Pregnancy

All hell breaks loose on election night. A fire in Milwaukee sets thousands of ballots on fire and swings the race in Mencken's direction. Roman takes it upon himself to sneakily control ATN's narrative. Kendall's deep-seated insecurities about being a terrible father creep in once again, leaving him temporarily incapable of making a clear decision on the spot. And Shiv finally lets loose a piece of information that she has been holding in for days (three episodes and almost a month, on our end): She is pregnant with Tom's baby.

Succession is meant to be a dark comedy about the Roy family, an impossibly wealthy clan of highly selfish individuals who are running a racist and fascist-friendly media company that is supposed to be parallel to Fox News. No matter what side of the political spectrum you fall on, it's easy to get lost in the family drama and watch the siblings spiral and self-destruct. Shiv, the only sister out of the four Roy children, has an especially juicy storyline that displays the absolute worst characteristics of toxic femininity. She uses her sexuality to manipulate various men, and she betrays her husband and publicly humiliates and belittles him every chance she gets. Out of all the siblings, she is also the quickest to betray her family, because the most important thing to Shiv is her image. She needs to appear powerful, no matter what the cost may be. Naturally, this makes her completely ill-equipped to handle her pregnancy responsibly.

Shiv Roy Pretends Like Her Pregnancy Affects Her and Only Her

Shiv perfectly encapsulates everything wrong with modern feminism, especially when it comes to pregnancy. Women have been told by our culture that they are the only ones who should have any say in the matters of pregnancy and birth. Feminism has told them that nobody else should have any say about the baby in their belly—not even the father of the child should have a say about whether the baby is aborted, how the baby is born, or how the baby is cared for. (But don't forget, if that baby is born, the father is legally required to pay for the child's expenses because only then is he responsible for their wellbeing.) This is exactly how Shiv has operated throughout her pregnancy.

Their marriage is a mess, but that doesn't change the fact that the baby Shiv is carrying is just as much hers as it is her husband's.

We find out the day after her father, patriarch and media mogul Logan Roy, dies that she is nearing 20 weeks of her pregnancy. At this point, nobody knows about the baby. Not even her husband Tom, from whom she is estranged due to various mistakes and betrayals the two have done to each other since the start of their marriage. On the night of their wedding, Shiv informs Tom that she has in fact been sleeping with other men and that she's just not quite sure she's cut out for a monogamous relationship. Tom goes behind her back and tells Logan that Shiv and her brothers are about to use everything in their power to block a deal from going through that would negatively affect their positions in the company. Their marriage is a mess, but that doesn't change the fact that the baby Shiv is carrying is just as much hers as it is her husband's.

Shiv chooses to hide her pregnancy from Tom, even after they travel to Norway together (and she seemingly does cocaine with Lukas Mattson) and reignite their relationship through vigorous sex and hosting a pre-election party together. Still, that's not enough for Shiv to come clean and tell the father of her baby that she is pregnant. It's entirely immoral to keep that kind of information from your husband. Our feminist-driven culture has devalued men to the point where fathers are not even permitted to know that they have a child. Shiv's character portrays this perfectly.

Shiv Roy Weaponizes Her Pregnancy and Uses It As a Negotiation Tactic

The news of a baby should be full of joy, and it should ignite a sense of selflessness in a mother that she perhaps may have never experienced before. But instead of viewing her pregnancy as a blessing and a gift, especially one that comes after the tragedy of losing her father, Shiv is apathetic about it at best. In fact, the case could be made that Shiv sees her pregnancy as a tool to weaponize. Her baby is nothing more than a piece of news she will use to wield more power.

Shiv sees her pregnancy as a tool to weaponize, a piece of news she will use to wield more power.

The night before the election, she and Tom finally have it out at each other. They stand on the balcony of their decadent Manhattan apartment, screaming and yelling at each other about everything that went wrong in that relationship. She calls him "parochial" and "a hick" because he wasn't comfortable with his wife having sex with random guys after they got married. Tom tells her that he doesn't think she is a person who should have children (he's probably right). The next night, everyone is on edge as the votes are being tallied and the Democratic nominee Daniel Jimenez (who is positioned as the "good guy") is suddenly losing to the "fascist" Republican nominee Jeryd Mencken. Shiv asks Tom to step aside with her for a moment and apologizes for the things she said to him the night prior. She then tells him that she's pregnant. Tom looks at her in disbelief. Then he asks her if she's for real—or is this some kind of tactic to use against him?

In a way, Tom was right to ask whether his wife was using her pregnancy as a weapon. All signs point to Shiv doing just that. She and the audience know very well that Tom has desperately wanted a child throughout all of season three. They have talked about freezing embryos and what might happen if one of them died and the embryos weren't born yet. Tom has tracked Shiv's ovulation and tried to get her in the mood at her most fertile times. Knowing that Tom has wanted a baby very badly, Shiv waits until the exact moment when she needs Tom to be on her side, which is when her choice for president is losing his grip on the win and Tom, the head of ATN, could swing it back in her favor. When Shiv realizes that her apology to Tom isn't landing the way she wants it to (because Tom is just about done with her antics), that's when she pulls out the big guns and throws the pregnancy in his face.

Babies are not cards to play in an argument. A pregnancy is not a strategic move. Shiv cheapens the value of her own child (and children everywhere) by treating her precious baby as fuel to be used in the fiery remnants of her toxic marriage and political schemes.