WAR Episode 6, Recap And Ending Explained

For any WAR fans who’d been steeling themselves for a relatively dull episode of pre-trial table-setting this week, creator George Kay had something far more exciting in store. 

Episode 6 ("The Simple Act of Paying Attention"), which takes its title from David Schill’s (Miles Jupp) favourite Keanu quote (more on that later), plays out like the deep cover thriller that the show had been promising since the end of Episode 1 — a Departed-esque nail-biter which shows you what it looks like when a web of lies starts to come undone. 

This was the WAR episode when Johnny’s (Archie Renaux) chickens started coming home to roost, with the smoking gun of last week’s Ferrari Testarossa — a joke from Carla (Sienna Miller) that was wrongly typed up by Molly (Emma Laird) and later corrected, only for poor Johnny to send the original to his benefactors by mistake — prompting a full-blown mole hunt at the offices of Taylor & Byrne.

Here’s how it all went down. Spoilers ahead, obviously.

WAR Episode 6, Recap

Episode 6 was the most contained and tightly-wound instalment of the series yet, with the only bit of fresh air coming in an early scene involving Morgan (Dominic West) and his assistant, Eric (Patrick Fabian), on the banks of the Thames. It's there that his closest confidant informs him that selling to Michael Anker could really be the best option for everyone — advice that only lightly conceals the dagger he’s slowly inserting into his back. 

This is one of only two Morgan scenes in the entire episode, the latter coming around the halfway point when he finally does what we’d all been expecting since the start: reach out to Flora (Rose Williams) again — who genuinely and flirtatiously tries to insist that it was something she wanted, before Morgan gets nervous and hangs up. Watch this space. 

What basically goes down otherwise is Johnny’s increasingly desperate attempts to cover his tracks as the walls — aka Molly and co. — start to close in on him. To throw her off the scent, Johnny tries everything from light flirtation to offering up the increasingly nervous-looking Saeed (Shaheen Jafargholi) as a sacrifice. 

When the news of the mole eventually gets to Nick (James McArdle) and Serena (Phoebe Fox), we’re treated to a classic late-night Chinese food scene (a very ‘90s staple of the courtroom drama) at their house with Bernard (Steve Furst), where they come to the conclusion that news of their financial issues might have leaked and led to one of their employees trying to get a head-start on the job hunt by selling them out.

Over at Cathcarts, Schill learns of Johnny’s troubles just as he’s about to visit his newborn, who we learn was born a month premature (a slightly late attempt by the writers to soften the pompous Etonian? Perhaps.) Schill’s eventual response is to go to Sinjin (Pip Torrens), who shrewdly plays dumb about the whole situation, much to Schill’s despair.

Meanwhile, during all of this, there is also a rather important divorce trial to be prepped for, which means the introduction of the barristers on both sides: in the T&B corner, we have Budgie (Celia Imrie), a seasoned and unflappable pro whom we first met in Episode 1; and in the Cathcarts’ side of the ring, newcomer Prudence (Archie Panjabi), who seems to have everyone at Cathcarts scared shitless, which probably doesn’t bode well for everyone on the other side.

As we head towards the final scenes, Johnny starts to lose his cool: first by getting nostalgic about New York with Bella (Honor Swinton Byrne), and later by sending threatening messages to Schill. Finally, he gets a text back and goes to meet him at the hospital, except Sinjin arrives instead and tells him that he might be able to save him if he gets Carla on something incriminating about the Flora honeypot. Johnny promptly goes to visit her, gets snapped by someone en route, almost manages to flirt his way into seeing an incriminating message from Flora, but it turns out to just be a casual chat. If and when Carla finds out about Johnny’s deceptions, it’s going to get rather bloody indeed. 

How WAR Episode 6 Ends

Having come back to office empty-handed from his encounter with Carla, Johnny decides to finally throw Saeed under the bus in the literal 11th hour — how Serena hasn’t clocked that the person staying late each night might also be the one snooping around for documents is a bit of a plot hole. He does this by drafting up an “I confess” email on Saeed’s computer and sending it to both Cathcarts and Taylor & Byrne. In it, Johnny, writing as Saeed, takes full responsibility for all the mole work, claiming to have acted alone in order to win favour at Cathcarts, and signing it “S” at the very end.

It’s immediately brought to Schill, who sees Johnny’s ploy and plays along, telling Suze to ignore it on the basis of taking the higher ground. Unfortunately for Saeed, he’s immediately ejected from the office by security as Serena gives a speech to the troops, getting a rousing slow clap response in return, just before they leave for the trial.

The episode ends with both teams arriving, but not before Johnny shoots himself in the foot once again: this time by quoting the episode’s title, the Keanu Reeves line, to Serena, who immediately clocks it as Schill’s go-to line — leaving Johnny’s cover finally, irrefutably, blown as the credits role.

What to Expect Next Week

With just two episodes to go, I fully expect next week’s instalment to be an all out barn-burner, packed with courtroom action, with the verdict and aftermath coming in the finale. We can also probably expect Morgan to give in to his desires and see Flora again at some point — it simply has to happen. 

What will happen to Johnny after all the shady, desperate moves of this episode is harder to predict: will Serena and Nick live by their founding promise to be different to Cathcarts, or will they use Johnny as a double agent in order to get the trial over the line and win the best possible amount for their client? Did Serena perhaps do the most obvious thing and check the security cameras to see who was at Saeed's desk when the email was sent? All will be revealed next Friday.

One thing’s for sure, next week’s episode is going to rip.