War Recap Season 1 Episode 7 ‘The Juicy Bit’
The juicy bit is the hearing after which a judge would issue a binding decision on how to divide marital assets, but let us start with Gillian and the Zephyr shares, because I honestly think this part of the story could have used an additional scene or two to make it clearer. Gillian was the Zephyr CFO to whom Morgan was in the process of gifting his shares (to keep them away from Carla’s reach) when it was stopped by a Mareva injunction filed by Budgie at Nick’s instigation. At least, we assume it was filed, since Nick turned down St. John’s offer of 110 million to Carla; we did not actually see this happen on screen.
At first, given the sudden change in how Gillian treated Morgan following the initiation of the share transfer, I thought it was because Gillian was feeling more comfortable to let her real feelings show because Morgan was not currently in possession of his majority stake. But, assuming that the Mareva injunction was filed and granted quickly, what if the share transfer never made it that far? What if Morgan actually still held his majority share, forced to hold them because of the injunction? What if that was what was angering Gillian, so much so that she had become snappy toward Morgan even in front of the Board? What if it was Gillian who came up with the plan to transfer Morgan’s shares to her, ostensibly to protect them from Carla, but she actually meant to use them to force the sale of Zephyr to Michael Ancker? Why did Cathcarts give the go ahead for this to push through, anyway? What legal protections did Cathcarts give Morgan to prevent him from losing his company whilst his shares were not in his possession? If the share transfer was not yet mostly complete at that time, why was Cathcarts comfortable with low balling Carla at negotiations? Remember the 45 million pound offer?
Based on this penultimate episode, it seemed that the plan to transfer shares from Morgan to Gillian (and perhaps other employees) failed. Gillian played the part of the loyal employee on the stand when she was called upon to testify for Morgan, but secretly, she arranged a meeting with Carla. Gillian wanted the Zephyr sale to Michael Ancker to push through, with Carla’s help. Gillian suggested that Carla change her strategy, from wanting cash to aiming for Zephyr shares instead. Gillian figured that if her shares and Carla’s shares were combined, they could make Morgan a minority shareholder in Zephyr, and force its sale.
Gillian dangled the possibility of Carla becoming a billionaire. I, always a fun one at parties, immediately thought that the offer was two billion for the company. For Carla to become a billionaire, she would have to get half that, and she won’t, because Zephyr has other shareholders, including Gillian. The most that Carla could get was half of Morgan’s shares, and given the offer, that would be valued at less than a billion. I’m just saying, Gillian, like Serena and Nick, was dangling a not quite right figure to Carla.
Gillian did make a fair point about Morgan and the lawyers being out for themselves. To be fair to Morgan, before he found out that Flora was a setup arranged by Carla, he was willing to give her 300 million to meet the figure she wanted at that time. The lawyers, though, both Cathcarts and Taylor & Byrne, were on full CYA mode by the end of this episode. They each held information about the other that could destroy them. With the promise of mutually assured destruction, they decided to settle amongst themselves what they could live with, and sell the figure to their clients.
What was the figure? We don’t yet know. Serena wrote it on a paper, and David handed it to Beatrice, who could only murmur that she trained Serena well. How would they react when they found out that there was a new player in town, that someone had spoken to Carla and suggested a way to make her even wealthier than she thought she could be? Would an actress already past her prime earning years be able to resist a potential massive payday?
Carla took a bit of a beating at court. Prudence, in her opening statement, called Morgan a once in a generation talent, whilst she heaped disdain over Carla’s career. She called this a case of greed, not need. When Morgan was on the stand, Prudence established that Morgan, already a wealthy man from working for years in Finance, created Zephyr in 2015, at a time when he and Carla were not yet cohabitating. That was when Carla’s career was at its peak, and she was spending a lot of time in LA. Morgan, meanwhile, had properties in New York and London. The testimony was classic Morgan; he would hurt Carla, then remember that he loved her.
Prudence took Morgan through Zephyr’s milestones, which did not include Carla. As Zephyr grew, Morgan started spending more time in the US, whilst Carla spent more time in Europe. Prudence produced a photo of Morgan during the US launch of Zephyr in 2018; the photo included Gillian and Eric, along with their partners, but no Carla. Instead, Prudence showed a photo of Carla on the red carpet at the premiere of a film called Rapidity, a film that she was not even part of.
After a brief break, it was Budgie’s turn to cross examine Morgan. She painted him as a child of privilege, then asked where the idea of Zephyr first struck him. Morgan had told this story before, in a Forbes magazine feature – He thought of Zephyr whilst spending time reconnecting with Carla at her cottage in Normandy. Carla had become a laughingstock in social media because of a film she did. Budgie painted that as Morgan commodifying his wife’s suffering.
Budgie then declared that Morgan liked to take credit, and was known to minimise the contributions of his colleagues, to which Morgan strenuously objected. Budgie then went to kill what points Prudence won from the photograph. She asserted that Morgan scheduled the US launch of Zephyr on their wedding anniversary. The launch in the US was June 15, but due to the time difference, it was already June 16 in the UK, and Carla was waking up alone on their wedding anniversary without her husband.
Did Budgie make a point of Morgan being a crappy husband? Sure. But as Morgan himself pointed out, that did not mean he should hand over half his life’s work to Carla. I couldn’t really understand why Serena and Carla looked so happy with this line of questioning. What really shook Morgan was what came later, when Budgie brought up that the name of Zephyr came from a poem. She asked if Morgan could recount the poem, and of course he could not, because it was a poem that Carla knew, not him. Why was there no follow through here?
Morgan was furious at Beatrice and St. John for not noticing the date. St. John was snarky about being expected to remember Morgan’s anniversary, but I am completely on Morgan’s side here. A 200-year-old law firm of billionaires should pay better attention to details. They certainly had enough manpower to comb through every tiny detail of the case; Cathcarts dropped the ball here. They were able to recover with further testimony from Eric, Gillian, and the lady who works at reception at the Zephyr HQ, who all established that Carla had no significant professional contribution to Zephyr. They also denied that Morgan failed to give due credit, Gillian, a bit reluctantly, which Morgan noticed.
The show gave us another moment between Morgan and Carla, when they ended up waiting for their cars together at the court’s back entrance. Rain was pouring heavily. Carla asked Morgan if he meant what he said, or if it was the lawyers talking. Morgan did not answer, but when he saw Carla’s car, he opened his umbrella and sheltered her to her car. They quietly told each other, ‘See you tomorrow.’ With the amount of money at stake, with all the publicity they had had to suffer through, with all the stress of everyone around them wanting a piece of the finance pie, they were able to remain civil when it was just the two of them, even caring. Perhaps that was why Carla did not want to grab a drink with Morgan when he asked, that night that he went to what used to be their shared flat. Perhaps at least some of the love was still there, threatening to be rekindled by proximity.
And now we get to the lawyers, dealing with the fallout of their unethical choices. Nick wanted to get to the office to make sure Johnny would not be allowed in again, but the judge, who called out his phone use, made him remain seated. St. John, who received Johnny’s frantic text (Johnny's code name on his phone was ‘Nursery School’), told Johnny the offer still stood – a job for proof of the honeytrap.
With Nick and Serena trapped in the courtroom unable to warn their firm, Johnny called Cleo and told her Serena needed a receipt for the conservatory that was purchased on Bernard’s card. Cleo, having had no idea what the conservatory was for, got the receipt and gave Johnny the document. Molly, however, was already suspicious of Johnny, and she got Michael’s help in questioning what Johnny was up to. Michael insisted that if a document was needed at court, he was in charge of it. Cleo also told Bernard about Johnny’s receipt request, and Bernard joined in trying to stop him. Michael grabbed the receipt before the elevator door closed, preventing Johnny from walking away with proof that Taylor & Byrne paid off Flora, the lady who slept with Morgan at Carla’s behest.
Johnny’s next stop was Flora’s house; this time, he found Flora home. Flora still insisted that she had wanted to sleep with Morgan. When Johnny pointed out that Carla has not been in touch with Flora since, Flora reasoned that Carla was not allowed to talk to her. Johnny offered to go with her to Cathcarts. Flora pointed out that she signed an NDA, and when she saw Nick calling Johnny’s phone, she asked Johnny what game he was playing. She deduced that something happened and Johnny was panicking. I really wish Flora and Rose Williams had a bigger role this season. If she doesn’t show up at the finale, I’ll be disappointed.
During the court break, a furious Serena was ranting, but Nick calmed her down and told her that the fact that Johnny was trying to gain proof of payment to Flora meant that Cathcarts did not already have proof. Still, Serena wanted Nick to find Johnny, and so Nick went to the one place Johnny for certain would go – home.
Nick had already filled Johnny’s girlfriend Bella in on what happened. Nick threatened Johnny with criminal charges for corporate espionage should he cause trouble. He also took and answered Johnny’s ringing phone; it was David calling, who immediately hung up. Johnny muttered a quick ‘Sorry’, the same thing he said as he left people he had enjoyed a good working relationship with at Taylor & Byrne.
This was the last straw for Bella. She stood by Johnny after New York, but here he was involved, again, in unethical practice. Bella kicked Johnny out of the flat they shared. When Carla called after Bella had gone, he did not answer. He had nowhere to go, though, so perhaps he would head over to Carla's afterwards?
Serena and Nick went to Cathcarts well ahead of the game. They knew about Johnny, and they could prove it. Nick even brought out Johnny’s burner and read St. John’s messages. St. John calmly threatened back with Flora Monroe. Serena and Nick proposed that they forget about Johnny if Cathcarts let Flora go. Putting their allegiances to their clients aside, they needed to make sure that both firms remained in business. They could settle on a number, and if they were happy with it, their clients would have to go along. If this is not an argument for going to law school yourself so you could protect yourself and not rely on others, I don’t know what is.
How would War wrap all this up with just one episode left? I don’t know, and I am eager to find out.
Rating: B
Strays
💼Apparently, Johnny has been downloading documents from the server then emailing them to his private email address. We have only seen him photograph documents but downloading then emailing made sense too, since there were voluminous documents involved in the lawsuit. However, this also ensured there was a digital trail of his corporate espionage. That David did not consider this when he was running his spy was another miss by the Cathcarts team.
💼David walked in when Morgan was berating St. John and Beatrice, and St. John immediately pushed him outside. St. John told him to offer Johnny a job, even if he had nothing on Flora, because they needed him off the board and stop the other side from trying to turn him.
💼Morgan and Eric had a tiff last episode, and now they were friendly, as though nothing happened.
💼I really hope we’ll find out who has been surreptitiously taking photos in the finale.
💼Cathcarts was at 0 last episode. I think they mostly won at Court, overall, so I'm giving them a point for that. However, Nick got to Johnny before any of them, and they still had no proof of the Flora payment (though Johnny planted a seed that might spring next episode), so I’m taking half of that point back to leave them at .5. Taylor & Byrne had 1 point last episode. I thought Budgie’s questioning of Morgan was not particularly strong, with the exemption of the poem. But, they were able to stop Johnny from taking the conservatory receipt from the firm, and Nick was smart in heading straight to Johnny’s girlfriend’s flat. I would have given them another point had they not left themselves exposed with Flora. Johnny negotiated the NDA of their firm’s biggest weakness and no one thought to even send someone to discretely keep an eye on her the moment they found out Johnny was the mole. So, overall, I’m awarding them just a half a point this episode. Cathcarts: .5 Taylor & Byrne: 1.5.
Episode Title: The Juicy Bit
Episode Writer: Emilie Robson
Episode Director: Jennifer Sheridan
Original Release Date: November 12, 2026