'War' Review
Season One.
Aired On: HBO Max.
Release Date: 10/01/26.
Genre: Drama. Thriller.
The Verdict: A Must-See
War is the first season of an HBO and Sky Television show with a very specific, unique hook. It is planned as a pseudo-anthology series, with a different legal focus each season, but the same two law firms facing off in different scenarios. It has the flavor of many HBO favorites — Industry, Succession, Divorce — but with a lighter touch, closer to what you’d see on network television. Sometimes that can be derogatory, but I mean it as a compliment to the show’s watchability.
Season 1 opens with a high-stakes divorce battle between Morgan Henderson (Dominic West) and Carla Duval (Sienna Miller). Carla has been an A-list actress for decades, and was already a star when she married Morgan. During their marriage, he built a social media empire, a “positivity-platformed’ app known as Zephyr. Carla’s alleged role in the building of Zephyr is one of the many things on the table when the two decide to split, as are Morgan's numerous instances of infidelity. The series begins with one of those affairs, as he sleeps with Carla’s former co-star, Flora (Rose Williams), in what turns out to be a consequential one-night stand.
Morgan has the powerful, established firm Catharts on the payroll, led by the stern and experienced St. John Smallwood (Pip Torrens) and Beatrice Ubosi (Nina Sosanya). Carla has put her faith in Nicholas Taylor (James McArdle) and Serena Byrne (Phoebe Fox), a husband-and-wife duo building a firm and a life together (Serena is very pregnant). Dozens of associates work the case on both sides, most notably Johnny (Archie Reneaux). He starts WAR waiting tables, gritting his teeth through awkward dinners with his girlfriend’s most successful university friends. Suddenly, he finds himself wedged between the two firms, keeping secrets from both sides and from his beloved Bella (Honor Byrne, Tilda Swinton’s daughter).
WAR uses Johnny to push the plot forward in a lot of different ways, some of them sloppier than others. George Kay created the show, best known for the Netflix crime caper Lupin and for his work in the writer’s room on the excellent first season of Killing Eve. You can feel the DNA of those shows in WAR, for better or worse. It's compelling and watchable, but you have to go along with certain leaps of logic and give the characters a bit of grace without questioning their intelligence. Everything about Johnny’s behavior is sketchy, and yet all of these legal professionals seem blind drunk to his suspect credentials and the way he slips in and out of meetings with little explanation.
Despite some ludicrous and implausible plot elements, I respected the show’s ability to stay at least somewhat grounded in its central relationship. Morgan and Carla are portrayed as a couple who clearly have lingering traces of their past love, and they show respect and relative maturity about the situation. Even as the tactics get ugly, there aren't really many hysterics or fireworks in the scenes between West and Miller, who are both quite good as titans of culture and seem at least somewhat regretful of how far apart they’ve grown. They are naturally competitive people who want the best for their futures and their legacy. Still, you can feel they don’t want to completely bury the other, even as their lawyers try to push them further and further toward the brink.
The rest of the cast is a who’s who of familiar, likable television actors. Fox, who has done tremendous work on shows like The Great and Task, is once again a standout as a smart, assertive, powerful woman who happens to be carrying life in her belly. The many scenes that focus on the unique professional and personal relationship between Nicholas and Serena are the best WAR has to offer. The bench is deep for this ensemble, with Better Call Saul’s Patrick Fabian, Ted Lasso’s Nick Mohammed, and the legendary Celia Imrie giving life to less consequential characters.
War's soap-operatic storytelling has a lot of beats that made me giggle for the wrong reasons, but I think the show is entertaining enough to make it worth rolling with these growing pains. I like the idea of this established roster facing a new challenge and new expectations, and I look forward to seeing the cost and toll of this season's events. It wasn’t perfect, but I’ll be ready to go to war again in season two.
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