It’s less than a half-hour into the pilot of War that Celia Bridge’s barrister Budge is asked to justify the procurement of a scandalous photograph critical to a high-profile divorce statement, which could be framed as the thesis of the series. How it was obtained, she says, “is regrettable, but it exists.” Speaking frankly, “it makes the world a far more interesting place.” The word “interesting” is the key, because it’s used instead of “important.” There’s only material value in a highly-publicized divorce case between two people who already have more than enough to provide themselves for generations, but the allure of seeing how the other side lives has fueled tabloid reporters and news consumers since long before the digital era. There’s a lot related to celebrities and wealth to be upset about, and severance circuses aren’t one of them. War is aware of this reality, but it’s also conscious of how the exchange of theoretical assets over superficial feuds is the most guilt-free version of media addiction.
War is the first in what HBO has already confirmed will be a multi-season drama in which each year’s slate of episodes will be focused on a new case. It’s not only a great concept for an anthology, but the perfect setup for a legal series; not since Damages has there been a courtroom show in which the accumulation of evidence is given a season to explore all the juicy details. I’d imagine subsequent seasons of War might delve into topics that have legitimate consequences, but the first is about the split between the social media entrepreneur Morgan Henderson (Dominic West) and the British actress Clara Duval (Sienna Miller). The marriage is already depleted by the time the series has started, but the inciting incident is a honeytrap set up for Morgan involving the 25-year-old actress Flora Munroe (Rose Williams), which Clara put in motion without the approval of her consulting lawyers.
A general rule-of-thumb in storytelling is that the audience will only accept one unbelievable moment if it’s integral to the motion of the plot, but War has two, one for each aggrieved party. Prior to the honeytrap ploy, Morgan’s lawyers Beatrice Ubosi (Nina Sosanya) and St. John Smallwood (Pip Torrens) contacted the ambitious young lawyer Johnny Warren (Archie Renaux) with a proposal to infiltrate Clara’s inner circle. The sins are slightly different; Clara triggered the plot to secure the photo of her husband with his pants down, whereas Morgan simply agreed to go along with his lawyers’ malpractice. Yet, he was the one who cheated in the first place, so any sense of morality is relative.
War is a distant cousin to HBO’s other business-oriented contemporary media dramas of Succession and Industry, albeit not with the same ambition; all three were created by award-winning British writers, contain humor at the expense of bureaucracy, and can be traced to recent events. Succession is a loose reimagining of King Lear and The Godfather that invoked parallels to both the Murdochs and the Sacklers, and Industry has charted the collapse of economic stability through a generation of young people whose future was screwed before they were born. There’s nothing in War that couldn’t have been said by similar divorce satires like The Squid and the Whale or The War of the Roses, but the quaintness in which the scandal is projected is nostalgic. War is able to make drama out of a filing kerfuffle or an inelegant public comment, the likes of which would be drowned out in modern discourse by far more vile news stories circulated on social media.
The other significant parallel to Succession and Industry is that War doesn’t have any traditionally “likable” characters. There’s a lot that can be forgiven if the dialogue is sharp and witty, but War has a premise where no one involved is motivated for a reason other than personal gain; even Johnny, who has the most to lose because of a slip-up at his previous job in New York, is willing to cut ethical cords in order to appease any side willing to give him a bonus. The only sympathetic characters are those on the periphery, with The Souvenir star Honor Swinton Byrne as Johnny’s girlfriend Bella Croft. Another fun casting is Patrick Fabian, best known for his excellent performance as Howard Hamlin in Better Call Saul, who’s coincidentally cast as another smug lawyer who nonetheless has more clarity and managed expectations than any of the duplicitous figures he’s been chummy with.
The issue with the barrage of “eat-the-rich” satires so common on television nowadays is that anger’s exhausted. There’s enough frustration with the upper-echelon of the 1% that it would be frivolous to paint them as being identically flawed. Clara and Morgan are guilty of being nuisances who’ve overstayed their place in the spotlight, but they’re not directly linked to cataclysmic harm. They’re far more buffoonish than reprehensible.
That War has taken its aim at media moguls and pretentious Hollywood stars could’ve felt tired, but it’s as good of an explanation as any to justify why the characters would be so well-suited for a public conflict. Morgan might be slightly out-of-touch and detached, but his job is based on the understanding of how people interact; conversely, Clara’s new role as the wronged wife of a toxic billionaire is just another performance to add to their resume. War is conversant in evolving pop culture terminology, but it’s shot and edited to be closer to The Crown than Scandal. That’s appropriate for a show about the facade of opulence; it’s only “important” if we decide that it is.