It’s the final stage of arbitration in the Duval-Henderson divorce in War Episode 4 on HBO, and let’s just say Nicholas Taylor’s stutter step is off. Cathcarts has home field advantage for this latest meeting between the sides, where Nick will lead for Taylor & Byrne. He is in a head-to-head matchup with St. John Smallwood, who calls the play as he leads for Cathcarts. And before Nick can even engage, the older, wiser, more scruples-shriveled lawyer immediately breaks his ankles.
“‘Singer’ was his nickname,” Smallwood tells the room. Back when Nick was a fresh-faced young lawyer. Back when he had a nervous breakdown during his first big legal profession test, which led to a fight with his very ability to speak. To recover from this anxious onset of his stammer, Nick worked with a vocal coach, and the technique was for him to sing. Shades of Colin Firth as the future King George VI in The King’s Speech. But while it worked for Taylor then, the episode comes back to hurt him now, as Smallwood relentlessly, publicly bullies him. Later, Beatrice Ubosi will push back on this tactic, as she checks boxes to keep their side clean on paper. But she is more than willing to stay in the nasty lane.
As Smallwood attacks Nick, literally hoovering up his words, Serena and Carla are mortified as he stumbles. Their side cannot respond to Catcharts’ low-ball settlement number, and the meeting is a bust.
“I’m just ever so slightly” — meaning majorly — “under-fucking-whelmed with both of you,” Carla tells her lawyers afterward. She knows Zephyr is worth like zillions, even if they aren’t completely clear on where Morgan is hiding these assets. But Smallwood’s petty, cutting jabs have turned Nick’s deepest self inside out. He can’t even speak for himself at the table, sitting before his wife and professional partner and their firm’s chief, sole client.
Oh, and also, Taylor & Byrne could quite likely be fucked, because Nick and Serena’s startup firm is hemorrhaging cash. If they don’t win Carla’s case, it will be game over.
The question of Morgan’s Money is also bouncing through the junior ranks. On the billionaire’s socials, Saeed and Molly detect lots of likes and hearts from Michael Ancker, another rich guy. Could some corporate backchannel dealing be in the works? One way to find out is to invite all the young people in London’s business and legal circles out to the club. Saeed is hooking up with Ancker’s handsome executive assistant in the bathroom when word is blabbed of Morgan’s shares-transfer scheme and Ancker’s potential post-divorce settlement purchase of Zephyr.
That’s where this thing is heading — the ugliest of ugliest arguments over who gets to keep bigger and bigger stacks of cash. And maybe Morgan Henderson is having second thoughts. He gazes at a Polaroid of him and Carla, younger and in love on a beach in France. Maybe this whole conscious uncoupling process has become too cruel. At his hotel suite, he handwrites a letter to his still wife. Heartfelt, we assume. But we’ll never read it, because Smallwood rips the missive in half. “We won’t be playing anything straighter or fairer,” he tells his client. “Why? Because that’s not what Carla’s doing.” And Morgan learns from Smallwood that Flora Monroe was Carla’s honeytrap plant all along.
With Saeed’s Ancker/merger intel, Nicholas Taylor is emboldened. He asks Budgie to secure a Mareva injunction, a court order to freeze Morgan’s assets, and even visits Smallwood’s office with a direct ultimatum. (Outside, Nick practices his courage-building singing scales in Catcharts’ limestone lobby; great acoustics in there.) Of course Smallwood rejects Taylor & Byrne’s settlement number. He then leans in for the bullying kill. “You don’t have the balls to take this to court.”
Say what? Serena Taylor lights up when Nick arrives home. In not so many words, he told Smallwood to get bent, and the lawyers cuddle contentedly with their unborn baby. “We’re going to court!” Serena can’t contain her glee. And shout-out to Nick for finding his voice. We’ll see how this plays…
…because there are other developments. Johnny Warren is still spying, and he intercepts and screenshots Taylor & Byrne’s iffy profit-loss statement, which is sent along to his handler at Cathcarts. Johnny Warren is also still flirting, as he delivers T&B ‘s declaration of litigation to Carla. “You don’t have to,” he says, ostensibly to her signing the document. “I want to,” she says. And five seconds later, Carla is making out with Johnny on the couch.
What say you, Nicholas Taylor? Will moving to the litigation phase work to win the Duval-Henderson divorce and save the firm’s financials? Who can say. Especially with this constant current, thanks to Johnny the spy, of Catcharts knowing ahead of time what’s being whispered in Taylor & Byrne corners. The trouble to come won’t be all talk.
Discovery for War Season 1 Episode 4 (“Sing”):
- We were gonna write that framing Sienna Miller as Carla Duval, looking impossibly gorgeous and cool as she lights a cigarette on her stoop, could be construed as fire for the flames of more “Gen Z and everybody else is smoking again” trend pieces. But then War Season 1 Episode 4 on HBO hit us with Nimino’s UK garage track “I Only Smoke When I Drink,” as Molly and Saeed got wrecked in the club, and we suddenly wanted a cigarette, too.
- “Actions speak louder than words…I’m gonna prove every word I say” – But as it does, War is also communicating with Nick Taylor through its primo song placement. Otis Redding is about the most confident guy ever on his classic cut “Hard to Handle.” But can Nicholas Taylor be that in court?
- And just what is a “Mareva injunction? Upon Nick’s request, Budgie got it from the court: an asset freezing order, named for Mareva Comania Naviera SA v International Bulkcarriers SA, first argued in London in 1975.
Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.