Hell yes, it finally happened: Kate Winslet and Matthias Schoenaerts finally banged on HBO‘s The Regime. After weeks of slaps, shoves, and “spicy dreams,” Herbert Zubak (Matthias Schoenaerts) finally found his way out of the palace’s subterranean prison and pushed himself into Chancellor Elena Vernham’s (Kate Winslet) arms at the very end of The Regime Episode 4 “Midnight Feast.” It was crazy, it was weird, and, above all else, it was cathartic. For weeks, we’ve been observing the electric chemistry between Winslet and Schoenaerts, waiting for the subtext to become text-text. Finally, The Regime has cut to the chase and established the Butcsher and the Dictator as lovers. They finally are having sex! Thank god!
The Regime, of course, is HBO’s latest Sunday night drama. Set in a fictional European country, the show takes us inside the mayhem of a despot’s palace. Elena Vernham is a physician-turned-dictator who finds herself in a deeply complex relationship with a disgraced soldier named Herbert Zubak. In The Regime Episode 1, Herbert saves Elena from a would-be assassin, thereby putting him in her good graces. More importantly, he is able to assuage her fears of mold, shifting her attention to crackpot country remedies to ease her hypochondria.
Herbert is very obviously romantically obsessed with Elena. We see it in his face when he beholds her for the first time and know for a fact that he masturbates to her picture. However, after choking her towards the end of The Regime Episode 3 “The Heroes’ Banquet,” Elena arrests her new pet/partner/love interest and throws him in jail. In The Regime Episode 4, Zubak discovers that Elena also has sequestered her most powerful rival, left-wing intellectual Keplinger (Hugh Grant) in the prison under the palace.
Over the course of the episode, Zubak finds himself simultaneously tortured by having to listen to Elena’s broadcasts and seduced by Keplinger. It’s a very obvious allegory for the common man being pulled between two sides of the political spectrum, both set on exploiting him. Zubak has been burned by Elena, but ultimately rejects Keplinger, who reveals himself to be as scornful of the lower class as Elena. Zubak chokes Keplinger to death, which wins him re-entry to Elena’s vaunted world…where he immediately embraces her and declares, “I want to fuck you,” in front of her husband (Guillaume Gallienne) and staff. Elena shoos everyone out and their weird relationship is finally consummated.
The thing that I really love about The Regime — besides the gorgeous art design and Kate Winslet’s fabulous performance — is how Orwellian it feels. It’s not just that it’s an exploration of how a totalitarian regime could easy sweep its way to power. Rather, it’s a show that takes these big Animal Farm-esque allegorical swings; there’s the kind of bleak irony and petty human drama you find in Keep the Aspidistra Flying, as well. Within the rules of this sort of world, it was inevitable that Elena and Zubak finally got together, to take the allegory through to its obvious end.
