Yes, ‘War’s shocking episode 1 ending was inspired by Olivia Wilde’s custody serving

Between honey traps and legal moles, War‘s first episode is already brimming with dramatic twists. It saves its best — and nastiest — for last.

The new legal drama follows the contentious, high-profile divorce between actor Carla Duval (Sienna Miller) and tech mogul Morgan Henderson (Dominic West). Throughout War‘s first episode, the pair each plot how to kick off the divorce proceedings, all while hiding their plans from the other. Carla’s legal firm, Taylor & Byrne, opt to serve Morgan via email after the premiere of Carla’s new film, The Milliner. Morgan’s legal firm, Cathcarts & Sons, opts for something much filthier.

The episode ends with Carla and Morgan walking the red carpet at The Milliner premiere. As she signs autographs, a Cathcarts lawyer walks up to her and serves her with divorce papers.

Morgan serving Carla in public at an important career event immediately recalls how Jason Sudeikis’ legal team served his ex-partner Olivia Wilde with custody papers in 2022. A process server served Wilde while she was onstage at CinemaCon, promoting her second feature film, Don’t Worry Darling. In a 2026 appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast, Wilde described the experience as “one of the most fucked-up things that I went through” and “incredibly traumatizing.” In 2022, sources told Variety that Sudeikis “had no prior knowledge of the time or place that the envelope would have been delivered.”

The parallel between Wilde’s real experience and Carla’s fictional one wasn’t an accident.

“There’s a nod to the Olivia Wilde serving at the end of the pilot of War,” series creator George Kay told Mashable in a junket interview. “We had lots of chats in the writers’ room about all of these kinds of crazy things that go on in celebrity divorces.”

When Carla receives the divorce papers, she immediately puts on a brave face for the many cameras and fans lining the red carpet, none of whom know the contents of the envelope.

“I was so excited to shoot that scene because of the level of hiding that she would have to do,” Miller told Mashable in a junket interview. “It felt like acrobatics, to some degree. What a nightmare to be in that position, with everybody looking at you and having to hide how wounded you are.”

As for Morgan, who looks on as Carla’s life implodes, West described his reaction as “smiling while you’re twisting a knife.”

The episode ends with the pair taking photos together as if nothing is wrong, holding it together in public before presumably tearing each other to pieces in private.

“The fact that they’re successful in being able to hide it says a lot about them as characters, because I think I would have left my premiere at that point and gone and cried in a bathroom,” Miller said. “But not these two, because they are formidable.”

New episodes of War premiere Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.