Kate Winslet's The Regime Is Hardly a Coup for HBO

The Regime opens with a chyron placing the action in "Middle Europe," but it would be just as accurate to say that HBO's political satire is set in the state of delusion.

Created by Will Tracy, a writer on Succession and Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, The Regime hinges on the unignorable fact that the emperor has no clothes — in this case, Chancellor Elena Vernham (Kate Winslet), the autocratic leader of a small European nation. Nearly a decade into her tenure, Elena is as powerful as ever, but she insulates herself from the needs of her people by remaining inside the palace, and in recent years, her paranoia about imagined threats, like black mold, has eclipsed concerns about pressing, real-world issues, including the mounting resistance among rural farmers. Aides know Elena is losing her mind, but they're afraid they'll become the next victim of her instability if they stand up to her; instead, they placate her, filling the palace with dehumidifiers while working behind the scenes to curb her more extreme impulses and keep the country running.

Elena is living in a fantasy land, but she's smart enough to know that her confidantes are shielding the truth from her (even if she's less certain of what that truth may be). In an attempt to get a more complete picture of the outside world, she hires Corporal Herbert Zubak (Matthias Schoenaerts), a soldier who provoked the country's ire when he opened fire on a miner protest, earning him the nickname "the Butcher," to follow her around with a moisture-testing device. The chancellor is drawn to Herbert's lack of status — "You are not anybody, and that means I can trust you," she tells him — but she's so conditioned to believe that her citizens love her unequivocally that she mistakes his humble roots for good intentions. As Herbert's influence over Elena grows, their new isolationist, anti-American agenda puts the soldier, who grew up in the poverty-stricken region of Westgate, at odds with the elitist members of her cabinet (played by David Bamber, Danny Webb, and Henry Goodman) and her ineffectual, jealous husband Nicky (Guillaume Gallienne).

Over the course of six episodes, Elena's volatility comes into greater focus, and Winslet gives herself over to the demands of the role. She embraces the campiness in the chancellor's mental and emotional unraveling, playing up her mania as Elena takes the microphone for ill-advised musical performances — including a Christmas number that comes later in the season — and suffers the onset of perimenopausal symptoms (prompting her to Zoom into a cabinet meeting from an ice bath), as well as her depression when she's met with the slightest obstacle. Winslet's no-holds-barred performance is one of the show's highlights: She seems to be having a blast playing the frivolous, unpredictable chancellor, a part that couldn't be more different from her grounded work in previous HBO projects Mildred Pierce and Mare of Easttown.

Schoenaerts has a more difficult time cracking Herbert, in large part because the character remains an enigma for the duration of the limited series. The Belgian actor effectively conveys Herbert's quiet rage and his desire to be seen as more than "the Butcher," but The Regime doesn't clarify his motivations beyond his initial goal of winning over Elena. He speaks passionately about the dangers of "danc[ing] for foreign cash like a sick f*cking bear at the circus" and uplifting the working class, but it's not clear if he actually believes the vision he's selling to Elena, or he's decided brutal honesty is the best way to endear himself to his new boss. Even as the two become more dependent upon one another and Elena's government falls apart, Herbert remains unknowable; as a result, the show struggles to sell their relationship, and their many moments of intimacy, which build toward an inevitable climax in the finale, fail to achieve the desired effect.

The intense focus on Elena and Herbert's relationship takes away from more interesting facets of the show, particularly the ideological dispute at the heart of the conflict between Herbert and Elena's greedy ministers. The development opens the door to explore the myriad ways people in power exploit those beneath them — a theme Tracy explored in his 2022 film The Menu — but an in-depth examination of Herbert's progressive agenda, which includes land reform and a redistribution of resources to help poor farmers, quickly becomes secondary to the push-pull of his charged sexual dynamic with the chancellor. As the resistance movement grows, threatening Elena's rule, any further introspection is abandoned altogether in favor of predictable storylines about their devotion to one another and the power struggle among palace insiders.

The Regime's most successful subplot involves palace manager Agnes (Andrea Riseborough). Elena's right-hand woman, Agnes is the picture of loyalty — she even allows Elena to "co-parent" her son Oscar (Louie Mynett) — but when Elena's erratic behavior threatens Oscar's wellbeing, her devotion begins to wane, and she considers taking drastic action to protect her son. While the show doesn't establish why Agnes feels so strongly about Elena, instead preferring to make vague references to their shared history, the storyline serves as a rare acknowledgement that Elena's narcissism and incompetence has a devastating impact on innocent people, lending real stakes to a story that otherwise plays like cynical political theater.

But Winslet's performance, no matter how fun it may be, and Agnes' inner turmoil aren't enough to make up for The Regime's deficiencies. The political satire takes big swings as Tracy tracks Elena's unraveling, but the show around her is too muddled for those attempts to truly connect. If HBO hopes for another Kate Winslet-led coup in the limited series category, it'll have to look outside the palace walls next time.

The Regime premieres Sunday, March 3 at 9:00 PM ET on HBO. Join the discussion about the show in our forums.

Claire Spellberg Lustig is the Senior Editor at Primetimer and a scholar of The View. Follow her on Twitter at @c_spellberg.