War: what is it good for? Entertaining TV, that’s what, as the co-production between HBO and Sky is another thrilling rollercoaster ride of a TV show from George Kay.
Probably best-known stateside for co-creating Lupin and Hijack, Kay has made a career of buzzy, showstopping premises with starry casts paired with propulsive plots. And if you’ve seen any of the promos for War on HBO, you may not know exactly what the show is really about. The Home Box Office has been pushing it as a War of the Roses style showdown/celebrity divorce between a movie star named Carla Duval (Sienna Miller, cleverly tweaking her own public image) and a tech billionaire named Morgan Henderson (Dominic West). And yes, the divorce does get ugly, fast, and worse from there.
But what the overall show is really about is two rival London law firms taking on high profile cases; a second season is already in production with the firms coming to blows over a defamation case, starring Marisa Tomei, Kelly MacDonald, and David Harewood. And therein lies the main focus of the show: ethics, and how the law really works in the UK.
Cathcarts is one of the firms, and it’s easy to label them the “evil” one thanks to their dark lighting and cutthroat, do whatever it takes ethos. They’re led by “Queen Bea” (Nina Sosanya), whose singsong voice and pleasant nature, per the name, hides a sting like a bee. And she’s backed up by St. John Smallwood (Pip Torrens, having the time of his life as usual), a slimy partner at the firm with a biting wit used to absolutely obliterate his opposites.
On the other side is Taylor & Byrne, a firm led by the pregnant Serena Byrne (Phoebe Fox) and her husband Nicholas Taylor (James McArdle). Serena used to work at Cathcarts, and thus Taylor & Byrne is born out of the idea of trying to do the law better, cleaner, and from a more positive angle. Their offices are big, bright and airy, full of sky-high windows that scream “we’re open books.”
Will you get some sympathy for the lawyers of Cathcarts over the course of the season? Yes, of course. Are Taylor & Byrne forced into moral quandary after moral quandary, often having to compromise their values? Duh. And it’s laid out neatly in the very first scene as Henderson accepts an award for his popular social media app that’s dedicated to only positive conversations (I have some follow up questions about how that actually works, but the show doesn’t get into the mechanics of Zephyr, the app, so I’ll let it slide). Henderson asks what happened to just talking and figuring things out between human beings? Naturally, things go downhill from there.
There’s another aspect of the show, too, which involves a young wannabe lawyer named Johnny Warren (Archie Renaux). He recently left New York, is interviewing at every firm in town, and in the meantime is working as a waiter, much to the consternation and embarrassment of his PR girlfriend. To the theme of ethics, Johnny is central; and in fact, this is very much Renaux’s show, even if it is an ensemble cast. To say more would risk the wrath of HBO’s “do not reveal” notes, but suffice to say there’s a delicious twist involving Johnny that really kicks War into high gear.
But wait, there’s more! The show is packed with a who’s who of British actors and others, from Nick Mohammed (Ted Lasso) popping up as a lawyer at Taylor & Byrne, to Patrick Fabian (Better Call Saul) as Morgan’s over-eager business partner, to Aran Murphy, dominating HBO screens as “wayward son” on both this and Youth. Every character that pops up is clearly drawn, even brief, late in the game appearances like Archie Panjabi’s trial lawyer, who merely needs to sit there stone-faced for you to know exactly who she is, and what she’s about.
Like with other Kay shows, there are some very blunt, silly aspects. The location of a closing scene (all eight episodes were provided for review by critics) made me guffaw, and some character choices to keep this going for a second season (and possibly more) don’t quite gel with the action we’ve watched previously. I also would like to raise my previous question about how you execute on a popular, positive conversations only social media app (to draw comparisons, an Elon Musk stand-in is waiting in the wings, ready to purchase the app).
But those are minor complaints for an eminently watchable series that may not quite hit the complexity of HBO’s Industry, but will definitely appeal to fans of the superb London banking drama. So once again, War: what is it good for? Some great performances, a wild plot, and a look inside the UK law machine. That’s way more than “absolutely nothing.”
War premieres Thursday, October 1 at 9pm ET on HBO and HBO Max.
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