Succession's Big Finale Brawl Was Changed To Keep Sarah Snook Safe

Perhaps Sarah Snook's finest moment in all of "Succession" is her performance in that climactic scene in the series finale, where Shiv changes her mind and decides to vote against Kendall. There are a million potential reasons why Shiv shivved her brother in the end — was it out of jealousy, self-preservation, a sense of justice, a desire to save her marriage, a genuine belief that Kendall wasn't up for the job, or something else entirely? Snook leaves it to the viewer to decide. I personally choose to believe she was motivated by her love for Tom; for me, Shiv screwing over Kendall is the "Succession" equivalent of Rachel rushing off the plane in the "Friends" finale. 

In addition to Snook's performance, what makes this scene work so well is the fact that Shiv hasn't quite made up her mind yet at the start of it. If Kendall had handled the situation with a little more grace, it's easy to picture a version of this scene where things moved the other way. When Shiv brings up the fact that he sorta kinda killed a waiter back in season 1, an honest response from Ken might've saved him. Instead, he panics and tries to convince them he "false memoried" it; suddenly, even Roman is turning against him. Things escalate to the point where Ken and Roman are fighting on the floor, and Shiv's now able to vote against Ken without feeling too bad about it. 

The fight choreography in this fight is fascinating, partly because violence has always been pretty rare on "Succession," and also because Snook was pregnant at the time of filming. A lot of how the fight played out was the result of efforts to keep Snook as safe as possible.

"Originally, it was meant to be more between Shiv and Kendall who are fighting — potentially pulling a phone out, and throwing it at Kendall, and having it escalate like that," Snook explained in a recent interview with Variety. "We had a choreography rehearsal between Jeremy [Strong] and I. And then on the day, I felt good about being able to advocate for myself, going, 'Let's just remember this is a fight scene that we haven't really properly rehearsed that we're sort of feeling out with a pregnant woman.'"

In the version of the scene we got, most of the violence was between Roman and Kendall. The trigger is Roman making a cruel joke about Kendall's non-biological children being "randos," which prompts Kendall to grab his head and dig his fingers into Roman's stitches. It's only near the end of the scene where any sort of violence happens between Kendall and Shiv, and it's very brief.

"What ended up happening, which was far more honest and realistic to the scene, is that when Shiv goes to leave, Jeremy grabs my hand," Snook explained. "Up until that point we'd rehearsed — but the instinct from Kieran [Culkin], as Kieran as much as it was from Roman is like, 'Get your f***ing hands off her. She's pregnant!' And then leaps at him."

Roman pulling Kendall off of Shiv is a great moment in part because it feels like a culmination of everything we've gotten to know about him. When Kendall is hurting Roman, Roman doesn't defend himself because he's used to passively putting up with physical abuse and thinks he deserves it. (And admittedly, the dig about Kendall's kids was genuinely vile.) It's only when Kendall touches Shiv that Roman leaps into action, echoing a scene in "Succession" season 2 where Ken stands up to Logan after he knocks out Roman's tooth. Except this time, Kendall is the one taking Logan's usual place, and Roman is taking up Kendall's. 

"It was sort of perfect," Snook said, "because they wrestled themselves onto the floor, and it's just like, 'What are you doing? You can't be CEO. Look at you! You are on the floor wrestling with your brother. I'm going to go back in and say no. And I feel very confident about that now.'" It's a funny yet depressing moment, showing that for all the Roy siblings' dreams of being taken seriously, their final scene together is them behaving like rowdy schoolchildren in the middle of a public board meeting. It's a profoundly embarrassing moment, and one that Kendall in particular will probably never move past. 

Beyond all that, the scene simply serves as another fun example of how the show changed in response to Sarah Snook's pregnancy. The decision to make Shiv pregnant was made surprisingly late in the game, but it all worked out smoothly. As far as Snook is concerned, the changes required only helped make the finale even better. "It ended up being fine in terms of my safety," she said about the Roy brothers' boardroom brawl, "and much better in terms of the scene."