#i keep thinking about shiv spitting in a notebook in kendall's office in the s3 teaser haha

[pynkhues]

Hey! I hope you are doing well in these crazy times we are living in😅. I love your meta on pretty much anything and seeing how you also love the show succession, I would like to ask for your take on Kendall and Shivs relationship. They seem to be very jealous of each other but also seem to perceive the other as their biggest rival and therefore have a grudging respect for the others capabilities. I also noticed how good they are at attacking each others vulnerabilities with Shiv on multiple occasions calling Kendall weak and unstable and Kendall rubbing Shivs gender (mansplaining to her) in her face. Sorry for the long ask and have good day!

Hey! I’m doing okay! I hope you are too. And you don't have to apologise at all! I love wordy anons, haha, even if they sometimes take me a minute to reply to. Thank you for your kind words too. 💖

Honestly, I could pretty much talk about Shiv and Kendall's relationship all day, haha. It's such an emotionally complicated and rich dynamic, and while it's on a show that's chock-full of emotionally complicated and rich dynamics, there's something in particular about Shiv and Kendall's that seems to soar when we see it in action. I think a lot of that is because it's one that's as full of contradictions as it is of these sorts of horrible, unchanging, immovable facts.

They're both petty and competitive and jealous people, like you said, and it's the fact that they've been brought up to see their father's love as a prize to be won that's ultimately compounded those traits and seen them grow into pretty messed up adults, haha. More than anything though, I think it's the competition and the context of Shiv and Kendall's upbringing which has created this sort of paradox for them too.

Kendall and Shiv watch each other closely because they want to be able to see, predict and undermine the other, but at the same time, they try to (badly, a lot of the time) conceal and isolate themselves from each other. On it's own, that ability to know each other and not know each other at all would be interesting, but the show's writers and Jeremy and Sarah in playing Kendall and Shiv really build off of that to show just how lonely and desperate for connection they are too.

That in itself manifests in these moments of fractured connection and protective instincts that are so often self-sabotaged – Kendall asking Shiv to take care of him only for Shiv to sacrifice him at the end of s2 being the biggest example of course, but also moments like Shiv going after Logan in therapy for planting the stories about Kendall in ATN in s1, and Kendall going after Logan for calling Shiv a coward. These beats aren't just about showing that the Roy kids love and need each other, but how much they're isolated from each other too.

Shiv and Kendall don't defend each other when the other's there for instance. Kendall never checks to see if Shiv's okay, and Shiv never actually talks to Kendall about his relapse – these moments show us that the love is there, but the connection isn't. These characters are reaching out to each other at the same time they slap away any hand that's offered.

The thing about all the Roy kids is that they've been played off each other their entire lives and made to believe they want this thing that I don't think any of them actually want, and because Shiv and Kendall are the most competitive, the ones with the hunger and the capacity and the survivalism, I think they've simultaneously seen in each other a rival and a mirror. The result is something that I think often makes them this mass of contradictions with each other – they're both jealous and they're proud when the other succeeds, delighted and upset when they fail, extremely scathing and critical of one another and yet protective too. It's what makes the betrayals all the more painful, and I'm so excited to see what happens in s3.