From the opening episode of HBO’s War, Johnny Warren (Archie Renaux) has been leading a highly illegal double life. To his colleagues, he is simply another gifted young associate at Taylor & Byrne, helping represent film star Carla Duval (Sienna Miller) in her bitter divorce battle. In reality, Johnny is working as a mole for the opposing legal team. Since War Episode 1, he has secretly passed information to his handler, David Schill (Miles Jupp), at Cathcart & Sons—the firm representing Carla’s ex-husband, Morgan Henderson (Dominic West).
In this week’s episode of War, Johnny’s carefully maintained cover begins to collapse, although not quite in the way viewers might expect.
**Spoilers for War Episode 6 “The Simple Act of Paying Attention,” now streaming on HBO Max**
War Episode 6, titled “The Simple Act of Paying Attention,” begins with the case’s other two associates, Molly Giordano (Emma Laird) and Saeed Masood (Shaheen Jafargholi), realizing that someone inside the firm is leaking information. Johnny becomes a suspect, but he manages to persuade Serena Byrne (Phoebe Fox) and Nicholas Taylor (James McArdle) that Saeed is the traitor.
By the end of War Episode 6, however, Serena has worked out that Johnny is the real mole—and the clue is a single “quote” attributed to Keanu Reeves that David Schill is particularly fond of.
“Well, the simple act of paying attention can take you a long way,” Johnny says. “You know who said that?”
Serena stops, then turns around. “Yes. David Schill.” In that instant, it becomes clear that Johnny has been exposed.
War Episode 6 Ending Explained: Does Serena Know Johnny’s the Mole?
Yes—Serena knows for certain. Speaking with DECIDER, Phoebe Fox described the discovery as “a devastating betrayal” for Serena.
“It was so scary, oh god, it was so scary,” Archie Renaux said.
Fox said she had been eager to film the scene after first reading it. “When I read it, I was like, ‘Whoa! Great.’ Then actually to film it was quite complex. The choreography was quite hard, wasn’t it? In the end, I think I got one take on that.”
“People watching it will be like, ‘What choreography?’” Renaux joked. “But on the day, there was someone coming out, and just the way that it—for the line to stop you and turn around—”
“You had to be stopped by an SA, and the SA had to cross on the right. Yes, it was one of those things where, watching it, you’d have no idea. But we spent a lot of time saying, ‘If I take one step and you take two steps.’”
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“The SA comes out on this line, like, ‘No, too early, I’ve got it,’” Renaux added.
“But it’s such a good moment, and I really didn’t see it coming,” Fox said.
“It’s great because he’s done the hard part. Everything else is done,” Renaux said.
Fox also explained that Serena’s sense of betrayal is especially painful because she held Johnny in such high regard. The actress cared so much about that dynamic that she asked War creator George Kay to develop it further in the series.
“I think we’ve established that we have a relationship, that we have a connection, actually,” Fox said. “We don’t dwell on it really in the series, but we’ve sort of—”
“Of the two bosses Johnny has, Serena is definitely the one who looks on him more fondly,” Renaux said.
“I asked George to put a bit more of that in there. I said, ‘I think Serena really should go out to bat for Johnny.’ Because in my mind, a lot of the other characters have had quite privileged upbringings. They’ve come through the public school system and been funneled into Oxbridge, and I don’t think that is Serena’s background,” Fox explained. “She’s like the girls I went to school with who were just very clever girls in a fairly average state school—girls who were smart enough to get into a top university but had to work quite hard for it.”
“I think that she sees an inkling of a similarity there with Johnny. So, in a way, the betrayal is like…”
“Gut-punching,” Renaux finished.
Of course, because this is War, the dramatic reveal also carries a streak of irreverent humor.
“It’s such a funny line as well,” Renaux said. “It’s so random, because I remember reading the first bit and thinking, ‘What? That’s interesting. That’s cool, I like it. Did Keanu actually say that?’ And it’s funny that Johnny’s remembered it and gone, ‘That was actually quite a good one—’”
Fox added, “You don’t think the whole series is going to spin on that Keanu Reeves line.”