Release the Extended Tom and Greg Fight
James Holden In the series finale of Succession, Greg Hirsch (Nicholas Braun) and Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) steal away for an intimate moment in a powder room; stare each other down under dim, moody lighting; and get physical. Tom pins Greg to the wall in a heated, passionate moment, and the two explore each other’s bodies … with their fists. If you’re a fan of the series and have spent any time online over the past five years, you’d be forgiven for thinking this scene was building up to a steamy Disgusting Brother–on–Disgusting Brother make-out, because TomGreg has been far and away the most popular ship from the series. (Fans of another popular ship, Stewy and Kendall, were also fed in the series’ final moments.)
Tom and Greg are such a popular pairing, in fact, that a New York Times reporter flat out asked the two actors if they “did a take where you kissed at the end.” The answer is no, and Macfadyen said that, throughout the series, he and Braun “didn’t play it like that” in regard to romantic tension between the two. However, he appreciates fans projecting their own ideas onto the duo, and Braun said that he has sent the viral “You Belong With Me” fan-cam to Macfadyen. They also revealed that it was their idea to lay their hands on each other for real during the fight; it was too intimately shot to fake. “There were some takes where we hit each other more times,” Braun said.
Even if Macfadyen and Braun insist that they weren’t playing the characters as being attracted to each other, Braun’s description of their chemistry still manages to sound pretty freaking romantic: “It’s just the joy of being private. These guys love to have secrets and secret conversations. There are moments where we would, like, smile at each other.” And the characters share something even more powerful than a kiss toward the end of the episode when Tom is crowned as Emperor and marks Greg as his own with an auction sticker on his forehead — the same forehead Tom once kissed. He claimed him as one would claim a vase at an estate sale, like, This is coming home with me. Nero and Sporus in aeternum.
