7MMO
Moderator
Full spoilers follow for War: Season 1, Episode 2.
After a heavy dose of frenetic table-setting in the series premiere, War’s second episode — sharply written by George Kay and deftly directed by Ben Taylor — slows its pacing down a bit as Morgan (Dominic West) and Carla (Sienna Miller) and their respective legal teams enter the pivotal three-day mediation period of their divorce.
Morgan and Carla are each instructed by their teams to put on amicable fronts as both sides strategize how to strike the best deal. That means a lot of strained smiles and literal hand-holding between the divorcing spouses to mask any anger and bitterness. Their facades just barely hold. Behind the scenes, their teams are reckoning how to protect their clients and gain the upper hand.
After Carla was surprised on the red carpet with divorce papers, her lawyers at Taylor & Byrne want to control the developing narrative, namely the matter of Flora Monroe (Rose Williams), the young actress Carla enlisted to honey-trap Morgan in a one night stand.
Taylor & Byrne partner Serena (Phoebe Fox) tries to convince Flora to sign an NDA as a means to protect herself and Carla, but Flora is unnerved by the request. She’s not fond of being paid off as if she were a prostitute. Flora insists she chose to sleep with Morgan because she found him attractive.
Serena’s plan ends up backfiring spectacularly because her new hire, Johnny (Archie Renaux), is secretly on his first assignment as the mole for Morgan’s lawyers at Cathcarts. Johnny is funneling information to both firms about Serena’s offer to compensate Flora and detailing the shakedown engineered by Flora’s greedy mother Mumsy (a scene-stealing Camille Coduri). Needless to say, things are getting messy and murky for everyone as both legal teams play dirty.
Then there’s the curious implication that Johnny is growing romantically (or just sexually) interested in Carla and/or Flora. He hasn’t outright said anything but his search history and longing looks don’t lie. Johnny seems poised to not only screw up his relationship with his girlfriend Bella (Honor Swinton Byrne) but the entire divorce case for both firms.
Flora also seems ready to make things even worse for herself by texting Morgan in the episode’s closing moments. Is she playing her own separate angle or does she legitimately want to be with Morgan romantically again? We shall see.
West and Miller excel in this episode at smiling through their teeth at each other, while Renaux continues to find the humanizing nuances in the double-dealing Johnny. Fox’s Serena seems like the closest thing to a good guy in this story, but there’s enough iffy moral resolve in her that maybe she will end up surprising viewers with an eventual turn to the dark side.
As Serena’s adversaries Beatrice “Queen Bea” Ubosi and St John Smallwood, respectively, Nina Sosanya and Pip Torrens continue to be a great one-two punch duo who find enough wit and aplomb in their predatory characters to put the guilty in guilty pleasure.
Continue reading...
