HBO and Sky go to ‘War’ (Season 1 Review)

Discussing the inside of the black hole in Interstellar, Neil deGrasse Tyson said, “We don’t really know what happens there.” For War, HBO and Sky teamed up to challenge Hijack creator, George Kay: do the same, but with a celebrity divorce instead of a black hole.

There’s a Downton Abbey-esque approach to the drama because while War is centred on the divorce between two titans (a tech billionaire and an A-list actor), much of the entertainment factor comes from the people that work for them. In this case, divorce lawyers, but this show has immediately scratched a genre itch I didn’t think I had.

There’s an obvious consideration when taking the premise (the legal and operational human capital behind individual public figures) and expanding it beyond this very limited scope. There’s an element of humanisation that goes on that could have been hard to stomach given the current global economic climate. However, War largely sidesteps that because of how smartly it’s written.

Kay, whose Hijack Apple describes as a global hit, understands tension as an abstract concept. Whether on a plane, on a train, or in the semiponymous war room for the aggrieved general, Kay has a strong sense of how to draw viewers in by creating a deliciously high-tempo show that will hit for fans of political intrigue-type machinations as applied by teams of lawyers to their clients.

Dominic West (The Wire) plays Morgan Henderson, a philandering tech billionaire whose app – Zephyr – is, in honesty, slightly undercooked (considering how important the platform is in the couple’s divorce proceedings). On the other side of that divorce is Carla Duval (Sienna Miller), a famous actress whose popularity isn’t necessarily demonstrated as A-list so much as it’s told. Therein lies probably the one critique I have of War, that the in-universe stature of its leads isn’t explored beyond implication and one other thing. It’s the “other thing” that not only saves War, but makes it an incredibly unique show: what it lacks in character development it makes up for in how it uses those characters.

Loyal foot soldiers in Prada, the supporting cast to West and Miller’s generals weave together the complexities of a marriage where business and social capital are so intrinsic to its composition. The show is an ensemble and there wasn’t a single weak performance, only some characters who felt serviceable. Highlights, however, were plentiful.

James McArdle (Playing Nice) and Phoebe Fox (Black Mirror) are a husband-and-wife team operating a family clinic. Kay avoids the low-hanging fruit for their storyline and doesn’t cause the husband and wife team to also struggle in their marriage. By doing this, the experience becomes contrasting a good married “team” with one that’s falling apart. The added irony is that Bad Team has, in part, asked Good Team to help it fall apart, which adds to the underlying tension in the show and allows for its cast to explore the base similarities that anybody watching can empathise with.

Archie Renaux (Shadow and Bone) is Johnny Warren. Wikipedia states, and I presume HBO would want me to as well, that he’s an ambitious young lawyer. He’s so much more than that, and Renaux is absolutely the standout of the show. The frustrating thing about War being an anthology series is that the viewer won’t be able to track his career and use him as a thread, but I’m incredibly excited to see how a similar character like him could be used in the greenlit second season. My bet is that Luca Pasqualino (Skins), confirmed for Season 2, will fill in this role and I’m intrigued to see if Kay will go with the exact function of Renaux’s character or abstract it. Either way, watching Johnny onscreen felt like the best parts of the Wes Gibbins episodes from How to Get Away with Murder.

War is a unique show, and George Kay is a fantastic writer who knows how to write and cast characters that cause seasoned actors to deliver surprises, even decades into their careers. No show deserves to exist beyond a simple intention to create art, and if art can be this entertaining, I’d like to see a hell of a lot more of it.

WAR PREMIERES ON HBO/SKY ON 1/2 OCTOBER RESPECTIVELY. NEW EPISODES RELEASE WEEKLY. CHECK OUT THE TRAILER BELOW.