War and What’s Making Us Happy

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I dug this. I thought it was really fun. It's a really kind of diverting show. It's not too heavy. No.

No. No. No. I thought it was a lot of fun.

Nothing's fair in love and war. We all know that. Right? It's especially true in the very watchable series war, which is about a high profile British couple duking it out in a high stakes divorce. That couple is played by Dominic West and Sienna Miller, but the cutthroat litigation between the law firms representing them threatens to rival any of the marriage drama they've got going on.

I'm Aisha Harris, and joining me on NPR's pop culture happy hour is my lovely cohost, Linda Holmes. Hey, Linda. Hello, Aisha. Alright. Let's get right into it.

In War, Dominic West is Morgan Henderson, and Sienna Miller is Carla Duvall. He's a wealthy tech entrepreneur. She's a famous actress, and together, they're headed for divorce. There was a prenup, but their financial and career circumstances have changed drastically in the years since then. Now they've hired 2 of London's most powerful firms as representation, and those attorneys come with their own baggage and histories.

1 of those attorneys is an ambitious junior associate whose ethics are shoddy and extremely consequential to the proceedings, Johnny played by Archie Renaud. War was created by George Kay, who previously cocreated Lou Pan and Hijack. It's airing on HBO and streaming on HBO Max. Now, Linda, I think it's been more or less established that you and I both are fans of legal thrillers, legal dramas. Very much.

We enjoy them.

Yes.

But, of course, like, not all of them are created equally. So I'm curious how this 1 lands for you.

Well, for most of its run, the show is not necessarily primarily legal in nature. It's kind of I mean, it is, but it's more about the machinations between the couple and between the lawyers, but not necessarily, like, courtroom drama until, you know, later in the proceedings.

Yeah.

But I enjoyed this a lot as a kind of, I would call it sort of classy, trashy, British high drama of a sort that I basically really enjoy. It was really interesting to me when I saw that George Kay had done Lupin and hijack, because I think he brings a kind of thriller approach to this show that benefits it, so you don't get too bogged down in the legal stuff. Yeah. The thing that I thought was most interesting about it though, is that it does have that balance of, you know, really brutal fighting between the attorneys and to some degree between the couple. But also this kind of underlying sense that you feel a bit bad for these people.

This couple originally loved each other. You get the sense, and were happy together for a time. And you do follow kind of what is happening in that relationship. I'm curious how you felt about that side of it, sort of.

Yeah. I mean, going into it, I was very intrigued. I am very interested in this kind of dynamic, and especially in a time when we're seeing so many stories about rich people and especially rich people trying to, like, deal with their money. It's like, why do we need this now?

Mhmm.

I will say, I think that, yes, like, the stakes are high, but they're high only for this couple. Like, the rest of us, like, why would we care? Yeah. But yet, I still did find it very interesting to watch, and I thought that I did believe them as a couple who once did love each other and that this wasn't just, you know, this wasn't a a romance that was not just financially beneficial for both of them, but also, like, they cared about each other. And I think that is part of the reason why, like, the only way that this could work as well as it was because if it felt more sleazy

Parts of it certainly are sleazy.

Parts of it are certainly sleazy. But, like, there is something about the way that these 2 are able to really show that they... Yes, they're fighting, and they definitely do not belong together anymore. But you can understand why they care for each other and why, like, so much of what's happening is being more orchestrated by the people around them than it is by them, and I liked that aspect of it.

Yeah. It gave it a little bit of

heart even when it was, like, sometimes veered into tabloid trashy and and all that kind of stuff.

Definitely. And I think Yeah. 1 of the things that helped this feel a bit different from the many kind of look at these miserable rich people stories that we've seen, is that 1 of the dynamics that kinda takes a little time to come out, but as you kinda get to know this couple, they make it clear is that when they originally got together, she was like a super, super, super a list actress. And he was sort of a an up and coming tech guy, if I can put it that way. Like, think he already had money, but, like, he wasn't the

Right.

Mogul that he is at this point in their relationship. And over the course of their relationship, as she has gotten older, her sort of stock as a movie star has begun to inevitably decline. And Mhmm. She doesn't get necessarily the quality of opportunities that she once did. Mhmm.

You know, and meanwhile, he has developed this social media platform that's incredibly successful, and he's now enormously rich. You get that feeling that, yes, they're rich, but there is still a bit of a shift that's taken place between them in terms of whose money we're really worrying about when you talk about something like this prenup that is sort of at the heart of the divorce dispute for much of it is Mhmm. Whether this prenup is gonna be filed right.

We did a drop hands arrangement, as in they each walk away with what they brought to the marriage at the time. The problem is she was worth much more back then, and he was worth significantly less.

And you'd want to reflect that.

Yeah. So I did care about that couple story. The other thing that you alluded to that I think is interesting is this kind of... Originally, it feels a little disconnected, this story of Johnny, this young lawyer who has left Manhattan. He's from London, but he had been in Manhattan working for a firm there, and has kind of come back to London with his girlfriend for kind of not fully clear

Yeah. Reasons. He's got a past.

He's got a past, and he's having trouble. You know, you spend a good amount of time in the 1st episode, sort of going with him to different interviews where he's trying with an increasing amount of desperation

Mhmm.

To find a new job.

I'm talented. I'm loyal. I'm cheaper than I'll admit. And by working harder than anyone else in this building, I will only get better. So I advise you strongly, take me on, or I walk across the street and I get a job over there.

Johnny has been hired by the big old law firm, which is Morgan's law firm, the husband. But he's essentially being used as a mole working for Carla's law firm, which is the smaller, newer law firm. So you basically have and like, I don't know how it works in the in The UK, but like, I looked at this and were like, all these people would be disbarred for this, like, I would think. Yeah.

I mean,

I think you can't pretend to be representing a client while you're actually doing something else entirely. So I assume if they got caught, all these people would be in an enormous amount of trouble.

Absolutely.

But they don't spend too much time worrying about that. And the result is that they have Cath Carts, this big old law firm has a mole in this smaller operation that's representing her. And I'm not sure I ever, like, really got a feel for Johnny as a character that much. Yeah. But I understand why for plot purposes, it's useful to have him kind of throwing a wrench in the plotting that, in particular, Carla's lawyers are trying to do, because every time they're planning on doing something, he is undermining them on behalf

of Yeah.

This other firm.

Yeah. I mean, Johnny is... I kind of called him, like, midway through watching this season, I was just like, he is the Rob Roush from Traders season 4 of this entire enterprise because he's very ridiculously good looking. And he has this way of being able to just, like, move about in the world that I think other characters, especially, like, the other characters who are at his same level at the law firm that is representing Carla, he's able to operate in a way that they are not.

Yeah.

Partially is that he's just, like, brand new, and so he's thrown in, and he has, like, he doesn't understand the way things work, so he's not, like, beholden to it in the same way that they might be. But also, again, he's very hot. And so, like, he has this way of sort of ingratiating himself to everyone, and that gets, like... It lets him get away with a lot more things than I think he ever would be able to in real life, and I found that incredibly fascinating. I also think it's just like, as the season goes on, we kind of get to know each of the different litigation sides, and Johnny fits into that, but then he also kind of reveals...

His presence kind of reveals that, like, they all have histories with each other. Like, some of them used to work together, some of them used to train under...

Mhmm.

They were their mentors or whatever. And I'm not in the law world, but I do find it fascinating that, like, the way that works or can work, at least based on this show, the people you used to work with are now your rivals and how that kind of plays into the way that things work with this couple is incredibly... Like, I just think it does a good job of depicting that in a dramatic fashion. Whether or not it's accurate, like, actually accurate is Yeah. I don't care, but it works.

It just shows how kind of... At least to me, it was like, oh, man, lawyers are... They already have a bad reputation, generally speaking, but this show is not gonna do them any favors.

And I think what's interesting is, I came into this show thinking that maybe it was gonna be 1 of these real, incredibly bleak Mhmm. Nobody here is a human being. Nobody here has anything sympathetic about them. It's just gonna be all about the empty hearts of these rich people and their lawyers. And it's not that quite.

No. And in fact, I would say there's a difference between the presentation of the 2 firms, and that the big old firm, Cathcart's, is more heartless and more Weasley. Inhuman. Yeah. And this other firm that is run by this married couple, and the woman is pregnant, which I think is an interesting kind of little...

They don't pay a ton of attention to it. Yeah. But it's an interesting thing that's kinda sitting there.

Yeah. That's Serena and Nicholas Yes. Who are played by Phoebe Fox and James McArdle. Yeah.

Yes. Exactly. Who run this smaller firm. They definitely have a little more humanity to them, which does not mean you don't see them do things that will make you be like, ugh. But they have a little more humanity to them.

They are also on the, I guess, you would call it the victim side of this scheme to plant a mole in their firm. Right. So you're sort of waiting for them to... Are they gonna figure that out? Yeah.

I did like the fact that I think they found a bit of a balance between some people who still have some humanity, and then some people who are just the absolute, most cartoonishly wicked Mhmm. Which is kind of 1 of

the things that you want from a show like this, I think. Yeah. I mean, I... To that point, like, this season kicks off with, like, a honeypot contraption, is, you know

Honey trap, yeah.

Yeah. Carla essentially asks a friend of hers who's a very hot actress, fellow actress, Flora, played by Rose Williams, asks her to sort of, like, test Morgan to see if he will be unfaithful, has been unfaithful, and then, you know Mhmm. Flora carries it out. But even Flora gets to have a lot more shading than you would expect her to have. And and 1 thing that I I kind of thought was interesting about this is that, like, obviously, they seem to be drawing not directly, but, like, to some extent, George k and the writers and all the p...

The creative team seem to be drawing not directly, but indirectly from other recent high profile back and forths and how that plays out, especially in British media.

Mhmm.

And so you get the sense, like, that the lawyers keep talking about how, like, well, if it comes out that he slept with this woman, like, the judge is not gonna like that. Like, it's like cheating is the worst possible thing you could

do. Yes.

And, you know, I think some of us have... I don't wanna say evolved because that sounds condescending. But, like, I think some people have kind of moved on from that as being the worst thing that someone could do in a marriage, but, like...

I think that's fair to say.

But in in Britain, and at least to the public and to the tabloids and to a judge, especially an older judge, that could, like, detonate the Hill case. And so seeing those little bits of how, you know, things have both changed but not changed and how, like, that could be the smoking gun that could, you know, ruin Carla's, like, chances at the money, like, if it's revealed that she did, in fact, pay her friend to do it.

Like Mhmm.

There's so many things that are going on there that I I... Like, it doesn't drill those things home. It's not didactic about it, but it does come up in ways that feel organic, and in the litigation of how they're trying to, like, play chess, essentially Yeah. Totally. And get the other side.

Yeah.

Yeah. And 1 of the things that I also think is interesting about this project is that the idea is supposed to be that it is an anthology series where each season will be about a different case. Mhmm. You know, they have, in addition to this season, they have already greenlit and cast and have talked about the 2nd season, which is gonna star Marissa Tomei and Richard Schiff and some other people. And I'm sore...

I think it's interesting that they want to do it that way. How do you feel about the kind of anthology element of it?

Oh, I'm so in. Yeah. I'm so in for that, especially because it sounds like the 2nd season is gonna focus on defamation Mhmm. Which I think, obviously, that's very, very ripe for a lot of drama. And I do think at least some of the lawyers are coming back or if not all of them, that this will be, like, the same team with different clients.

I love that we will get to learn more about these attorneys and various people and and see, you know, how they handle another case. And I just think it's like, you know, anthology series, they can be very hit or miss. I think some have... Some that are currently running have gone on for far longer than they should because they keep kind of, like, reiterating the same points over and over again.

Mhmm.

But I think this kind of anthology series... I don't know if you've seen something like this recently where it's like a legal drama. So I think that could be... Like, usually, legal dramas, at least in TV form, are case of the week sort of things. Right?

1 of the things that's interesting is that this sort of draws on what legal dramas were like in this... In the age of, like, LA Law and Ally McBeal and The Practice and things like that Right. Where it was always this thing where you really were following the lawyers as these different cases sort of came through.

Yeah.

This 1 is a little more balanced between it's about the lawyers, but it's also about the people in the case. They're trying to do both things. But I do think it's interesting. You know, I look at this cast, and, for example, 1 of the people who works at 1 of the firms, 1 of the guys who works at 1 of the firms is played by Nick Mohammed, who plays Nate on Ted Lasso

Right.

Who's a, you know, at this point, a pretty significant actor to get for your show because of the popularity of Ted Lasso and other things. But he does very, very little in this 1st season. He's not in it very much. Yeah. And my 1st thought was like, oh, I assume he's gonna do more in the 2nd season, but they're kind of seeding him now in terms of who he is.

I don't know if that's true. Like, the reason they're there is things that are gonna happen in a whole future season.

Yes. Nick Muhammad showing up was very fascinating. I also... We've talked about a few of the other attorneys, but I also really enjoyed seeing Celia Emery here Yes. Who's playing...

Her character's name is Budgie, and she's kind of 1 of the lead lead attorneys on the case. I loved her in Better Things playing Pamela Adlon's mom, and I love seeing her here. She she's got, like, a very spicy, saucy edge to her.

Cathcarts can get awfully grumpy. They'll try and hit you in other ways.

Take it to court, mean?

Take it to court, string it out, bleed you dry, and they can do that, Nick. They've got very deep pockets.

You can completely believe she would be a terrifying lawyer.

Absolutely. That... That's the other thing. Like, I think that the banter here and the sort of, like, the dialogue here is just... It's just so juicy.

Yeah. I enjoyed... Even if I didn't always understand what they were saying because I I always have a hard time with British accents, and I was not able to... With the screeners we had, I was not able to watch it with captions. So it was a little bit...

But, like, what I could gather, I was like, oh, yes. I love these little jabs and these little Yeah. Notes here and there. Yeah.

Yeah. And I do respect the fact that I think Dominic West has made a whole... And I wrote about this show for NPR a little bit and made this point, has kind of made a whole career out of playing men who are startled and kind of offended by experiencing the consequences of their own actions. If you if you watched him on The Wire

Yep.

Where he played McNulty, a cop, 1 of his sort of catchphrases was, what the f did I do? His whole career is sort of, what the f did I do? And he was like that as prince Charles. Like, it now came Charles, but then prince Charles on The Crown.

And also the affair. Remember the affair?

He was that way in the affair. And he's that way in this a little bit too. Yeah. He's always sort of like, why is everybody mad at me?

I'm a good guy.

In a way, he's sort of hitting the same note, but in another way... 1st of all, there's a good amount of variation between those characters, but also, he's just really good at it, where you can almost believe that he believes that he hasn't done anything wrong, and why is everyone mad at me all the time. Yes. So I enjoyed seeing him kinda operate in his, maybe, natural habitat.

Yeah. And you can kind of understand why Sienna Miller's character would have fallen for that. Yeah. There's just something very kind of charming about it. And, you know, when they're doing the debating and litigate and the mediation and all that stuff

Mhmm.

It's... 1 of my favorite aspects of it was the fact that we get into both Karla and Morgan's sort of careers and how the way that he and his team, Morgan's team, keep kind of digging at Carla being, like, not film, she's a movie actor.

Like Yes.

All of this sort of condescension as to her career and her job and the fact that now she's doing, like, theater, which is even though theater you would think to British people would be more legit, like, it's seen as a downgrade. Right. There's so much going on in the the way that they talk about just the woman, her career versus his career. That was to me 1 of the... Also just, like, again, getting beyond the surface level, it really kind of understands to some extent what it means to, like, be a woman and what that means to...

At 1 point, having been the breadwinner or, like, the main provider, and then how that switches and

That maybe this prenup that they had was originally more to protect her, and now is origin... Is more maybe to protect him.

Right.

And how they both feel about that. Yeah. I dug this. I thought it was really fun. It's a really kind of diverting show.

It's not too heavy. No. No. No. I thought it was a lot of fun.

Yeah. I think we can both agree. If you're not watching it, you should definitely check it out if you're into this kind of thing. It just goes down really, really well.

It does.

It goes down. And easy. Yeah. And Yeah. Can't wait for season 2.

We shall see how that goes.

Mhmm.

Alright. Well, up next, we're gonna be talking about what is making us happy this week.

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Alright. Now it's time for our favorite segment of this week and every week, what's making us happy. Linda, let us know.

Alright. So what is making me happy this week is a new Netflix documentary called Paralyzed by Hope, The Maria Bamford Story. And it is directed by Judah Apatow and Neil Berkley, and it is, as you might imagine, about the comedian Maria Bamford. You know, he's kind of moved toward doing these kind of documentaries about comics and comedy Right. Recently, and he sat down with her.

He he kind of got her to do this. She there's a great scene where she kind of is like, well, yeah, absolutely. You can follow me around. We'll do a documentary. You have to pay me, though.

She feels like if I have to be on, and you're you're gonna follow me around, then you should pay me. And so he agrees to that, and... But it's all very kind of lighthearted. And then she goes on to... It intersperses, you know, looks at her life, following her around, looking at her stand up comedy, showing clips of her stand up comedy, going back a long way to when she was a violin act.

She was comedian who also had a violin with her, and apparently, there were... There was more than 1 woman comedian at the time kicking around, doing a violin act. It deals with the part of her life when she was a Target spokesperson, which I had forgotten that she was the... This Target lady Oh. For quite a while and quite successfully, and how she came to decide to stop doing that.

And she just seems to be a person everyone loves. There's a sequence when they start to talk about... The interviewers start to reveal to some of the interview subjects they're talking to what she's doing in terms of developing material, how she's meeting up with people who agree to kinda give her an audience for material. And they just crack up laughing because they can't believe this is how she's doing it. But the affection for her is so palpable.

I just think the documentary is ultimately really satisfying and lovely. Again, it's called Paralyzed by Hope, the Maria Bamford story. It is streaming on Netflix. I highly recommend it. It's funny.

It's sweet. It's sometimes sad, but it's it's great.

That sounds lovely, Linda. Thank you so much.

Yeah. What's making you happy, Ayesha? So

what's making me happy? This 1 is for my board game fans, my fellow board game nerds, and especially my board game nerds who love Wingspan and, like myself, have spent many, many hours playing Wingspan, which, of course, is a very fun game that's about, like, collecting birds and and hatching birds and all these fun things.

I tried to learn it once, and it was too complicated

for me. You know what's not as complicated? Maybe. I don't know. It's FinSpan, which is from the same people, the same developer as Wingspan.

FinSpan is for the marine biologists in your life. Mhmm. So it's fish instead of birds, and, essentially, you are a marine biologist. And each turn, you, like, get to take a dive into different aquatic zones and attempt to hatch eggs and form schools and collect fish. It's actually, like, way more streamlined than Wingspan, and everyone is playing with an open hand.

So there's still a lot of strategy involved, but you also have a little bit more, like, clarity. Like, you can kind of understand the machinations, I think, a little bit better, especially if you're just starting out. I think it's just different enough from Wingspan to feel worth it. The gameplay is quite different, but it still has, like, the same very beautiful art and cool looking fish, if you like fish. Some of them are scary.

But, like, some of them are scary or not very pretty, but, like, they're very well designed and detailed. The 1 downside to this game, I will say, is that the boards you play with are quite big. And if you have a not very big table like I do, it can be a little bit more difficult to play. I think you can play with up to 5 people, but my table can just barely accommodate 2 of us.

Got it.

That's something to keep in mind. Eventually, I will have to get a bigger table. I've needed 1 anyway.

I was gonna say, you just gotta get a bigger table.

But, yeah, FinSpan is fun. I highly recommend it. I also think it will be good to play with, like, young kids Mhmm. If that's something you're considering. Like, I think it'll be a little bit easier than Wingspan.

So...

Young kids or people like me who find it too difficult.

Yes. Yes. So that is FinSpan. You can get it wherever you would get board games, and that is what is making me happy this week. That brings us to the end of our show, Linda Holmes.

It was just the 2 of us, but we had a blast. I had fun.

Absolutely. It was wonderful

to sit here with you. Yeah. This episode was produced by Hefsef Batima, Liz Metzger, and Mike Katsef, and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello, Come In provides our theme music, and thank you for listening to pop culture happy hour from NPR. I'm Ayesha Harris.

We'll see you all next week.

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