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War has some growing to do, but it could be HBO’s successor to Succession and Industry

There are plenty of thrills to be found in the stylish first installment of this British anthology series.

By Saloni Gajjar  |  October 1, 2026 | 2:00pm
Photo: Miya Mizuno/Sky/HBO
TV Reviews War
War has some growing to do, but it could be HBO’s successor to Succession and Industry

The central feud in War, a laser-sharp drama from HBO and Sky TV, isn’t just between the famous couple going through a very public and acrimonious divorce. In fact, the failed marriage between well-known actress Carla Duval (Sienna Miller) and tech mogul Morgan Henderson (Dominic West) is season one’s least compelling aspect. The show doesn’t convincingly convey why their relationship didn’t work out after 10 long years—just the symptoms that contributed to its demise. But perhaps that’s the point. The George Kay-created series is less interested in what makes Carla and Morgan tick, and more in the twisted battle between their respective law firms, who are often more eager to beat the other party than Carla and Morgan. The competing legal teams duke it out using unscrupulous methods, secret weapons, and last-minute deals, drawing enough blood to make War a fun ride. 

The show’s witty dialogue (along with its London setting) instantly brings to mind HBO’s Industry, while its characters trading in Machiavellian schemes and devastating insults lands the first season on Succession-esque turf. While War doesn’t match up to those dramas yet, it has enough going for it—including some sleek visuals. Debbie Burton’s lavish production design and the cinematography from Oli Russell and Oliver Curtis help relay the story further. Carla’s firm of choice, the relatively new Taylor & Byrne, boast lighter-toned and glass-heavy offices with an energy that signals they’re the youthful, buzzier choice. Conversely, Morgan opts for the well-established Cathcarts & Sons, whose wood-paneled headquarters scream old money and foreshadow their  old-school, aggressive litigation style. As the show cuts from one team to the other over and over again, with deposition and courtroom strategies molding and re-molding based on new twists, the drama gets juicier and more thrilling.  

The Ben Taylor-directed, eight-episode season begins by throwing us into the deep end with Morgan, who wins an award for creating a social app that reportedly spreads positivity. He celebrates by falling into a honeytrap set by Carla to confirm her husband’s philandering nature. Later, he serves her with divorce papers on the red carpet of her latest movie premiere—while serving as her plus one. Evidently, the two have it out for each other due to his infidelity and because, when Carla was traveling all over to film movies, Morgan took care of her son from a previous relationship (Aran Murphy, making it two HBO shows for the son of Cillian Murphy and Yvonne McGuinness this fall). 

It sure sounds like War paints Carla in a positive light relative to Morgan, but Kay commendably makes them morally complex figures who do good and bad things to win. It’s just that their personalities don’t develop as the show continues. They both flatten out, with minimal insight into what their feelings toward each other were or are. West and Miller live in a gray area of sorts as a result, sincerely performing the equal parts affection and disdain that Morgan and Carla have for one another. 

War‘s focus on the lawyers is what truly heightens the tension, which makes sense because this is an anthology series, with a second season and a new cast of clients already on their way. One side belongs to Nicholas Taylor (James McArdle) and his smarter, tougher, eight-month pregnant wife, Serena Byrne (Phoebe Fox), who used to work for the Cathcarts before she was passed over for a partnership. As for her former employer, the well-heeled Cathcarts aren’t afraid of getting their hands dirty, especially Pip Torrens’ freakishly devious (and perfectly named) head honcho, St. John Smallwood. Along with his colleagues, he helps concoct a cunning ploy to plant a mole within the Taylor & Byrne walls to feed them information. Enter Johnny Warren (Archie Renaux).

The ambitious, shady rookie morphs into quite the weasel as his attention is pulled between his ongoing gig with Nicholas and Serena and a potential job afterward with the Cathcarts. Shadow & Bone star Renaux portrays Johnny with the right amount of charm—just effective enough to suggest that he’s the kind of guy who doesn’t care about whom he hurts, including his loved ones, as long as it benefits him. Along with Torrens and Fox, Renaux is the standout star in an ensemble that includes Celia Imrie and a mostly wasted Nick Mohammed. 

Johnny finds himself trapped in another triangle between his long-term girlfriend and Carla, a move that allows Kay to weave an ever-more-intricate web of lies:. Will Johnny be caught, and how will his actions affect the divorce outcome? But many of these events, intriguing as they are, occur very early into War, leaving plenty of room for revelations about the lawyers’ personal lives and interests, as well as a messy and incomplete look at Carla and Morgan’s past. While defending their primary client, Nicholas and Serena go through marital ups and downs of their own that render War as slightly more serious than it first appears to be. But the rest of it—Johnny’s sabotaging efforts, a surface-level portrayal of Carla and Morgan as loving parents, St. John’s mockery of Nicholas—plays like a breeze. Despite the heaviness of the title, War is a frothy and fabulous series that manages to hold down a certain level of prestige TV sheen. 

War premieres October 1 on HBO. 

Saloni Gajjar is The A.V. Club‘s TV critic. 

 
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