#and the subservience to shiv only lasts as long as she's his only way into the family

[snoppy]

I'm sorry but I think its good that tom is saying stuff that makes you all uncomfortable. I think everyone is a little too willing to make him the hurt innocent underdog

[grassbreads]

I have not been able to stop thinking about the 3x9 ceo Tom theory and how good at is since I first read @shootingaflower‘s take on it, so uh, here are some of my many thoughts on the matter:

For a few reasons, I’m pretty certain that the Gerri/Roman dick pic incident is going to end with Gerri staying on as an executive with Waystar, but losing her position as Interim CEO. This leaves an opening.

As of right now, given the tragic dick-downfall of Roman and Gerri, Tom is the only character that has gained favor with Logan this season, rather than lost it. Like Shiv said, he “banked gold” with him when he offered to take the fall for cruises, and Logan’s made it clear that he’ll remember that. When everyone else is fucking up to hell and back (or just personally annoying him, like Shiv), and Tom has recently proven himself to be incredibly loyal and subservient, he’s really the only choice for replacement that makes any kind of sense.

And with that reasoning out of the way, let’s talk about all the ways this theory makes me insane:

First of all, it does a super good job at bringing a sense of meaning to Tom’s season-long prison crisis, which I think we very much need. Right now, given that he spent so much of his time this season fretting about it, the resolution to the “Tom’s going to jail” plotline feels a little hollow. His getting off the hook came out of more or less nowhere, and except for worsening his relationship with Shiv a bit (which probably would have happened anyway), nothing ever came of all that emphasis. If Logan made Tom CEO, though? Now that would be payoff. Letting Tom reap the rewards of his offer would be a brilliant way to make the threat of prison keep feeling like it was significant without him actually having to go, and it would be so cathartic to give him a win in exchange for all that misery and stress.

Plus, the way all this works as a twist on Shiv is fucking delicious. Her encouraging Tom to offer himself up as sacrifice was one of the all time cruelest things she’s done to him, and I think it really cemented (for both Tom and the audience) just how little he can rely on her for love or tenderness. So if she gets fucked over and loses the CEO position to Tom specifically because of the offer that he only made because she encouraged him? Talk about karma being a fucking bitch.

CEO Tom also creates a huge opportunity for more playing with the Tom/Emperor Nero comparison, which I am also obsessed with. The story of Nero and his wife, as Tom tells it at least, is that he killed her by kicking her down a flight of stairs. There’s a really amazing web weaving post that’s been going around digging into the Tom/Nero parallel, but my one problem with that post is that I just don’t think Tom could ever physically hurt Shiv. No matter how bad their marriage gets, I cannot see him doing that. What I can see, however, is Tom “killing” her in the Roy sense of the word, and his taking on the CEO position would absolutely be that in her eyes.

As of 3x8, Shiv wants to be CEO now more than ever, and she sees Tom as her tool/ally in that fight. She’s desperate for it, and she’s also actively gaming and manipulating the situation with Roman and Gerri to try and put herself on top. This is her chance to move up, and there’s no telling when she’ll get another one. Given how much she takes for granted that Tom’s on her side, his using this opening she’s helped create to steal the job she wants so desperately would feel like a huge betrayal. It would kill her, both emotionally and with regards to her career.

Then we’d have Tom taking on the highest non-Logan role in the company (hello emperor parallel) and “killing” his wife all in one plausible move. And given how she treated him last episode, right now is one of the only times that I think Tom is actually capable of doing something that would hurt her.

Plus, once Tom is made emperor and his wife's been “killed,” there’s space to explore the rest of the Nero parallel. Tom doesn’t mention it to Greg, but it’s widely said that Nero’s wife was pregnant when he killed her, and Tom and Shiv have been talking about having kids a lot, so it’s possible they could do something with that connection. And, of course, there’s the whole “Nero castrates and marries Sporus” thing, and whether or not anything explicitly romantic or sexual happens between Tom and Greg, there’s a million ways they could push that parallel.