Series / The Regime

"The Regime" is a 2024 HBO Black Comedy political satire/thriller miniseries created by Will Tracy, with Stephen Frears and Jessica Hobbs directing episodes and executive producing. It stars Kate Winslet, Andrea Riseborough, Matthias Schoenaerts, Guillaume Gallienne and Hugh Grant.

The series takes place in the final year of an authoritarian Middle European regime whose Chancellor, Elena Vernham (Winslet), faces domestic turmoil.

The trailer can be watched here. The series premiered on March 3, 2024.

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" The Regime" provides examples of the following tropes:

• Abusive Offspring: Corporal Zubak physically assaulted his mother when he was fourteen.
• Abusive Parents: Elena's dream/hallucination of her father speaking to her strongly suggests that he was severely emotionally abusive. In episode 6, Laskin claims there are rumors that he was sexually abusive as well, though Laskin may not have been fully truthful.
• Advertising by Association: The trailer states "From executive producers of Succession".
• Affectionate Nickname: Elena's husband, Nicolas, often calls her "Lenny."
• Background Halo: The first shot of the Chancellor is her silhouetted against a dehumidifier.
• Balcony Speech: In episode 6, The Chancellor delivers one in observation of the ninth Victory Day reassuring the people of her love for them from behind bulletproof glass.
• Bathtub Scene: Of the ice variety. In the fourth episode, the Chancellor is suffering from hot flashes and setting the palace's thermostat way too cold, forcing that else wears to wear heavy coats when not in her presence. She even attends a meeting with her cabinet remotely from her ice-filled bathtub.
• Berserk Button:
  • The Chancellor calls Corporal Zubak a "big baby ox man" despite him repeatedly warning her to stop. In a rage, he ends up grabbing her by the neck hard enough to leave a handprint and nearly strikes her.
  • In the fourth episode, Zubak strangles Keplinger (Hugh Grant) after the latter calls him "butcher".
• Blaming the Victim: In "Midnight Banquet," the Chancellor is informed about a protest where a mounted police officer's horse got spooked and kicked a pregnant woman in the stomach; both the mother and unborn child died. With a total absence of empathy, she points out that the woman should have known better than to attend a violent protest while pregnant.
• The Bully: How Zubak leads. He threatens to hang Agnes out the window by her ankles. Unsurprisingly, no one but Elena is entranced by the idea of him taking over the country, and the rest of the government works together to keep him out of power for as long as possible.
• Cluster F-Bomb: As one can imagine from a show with writers from "Veep" and "Succession," the dialogue tends to be rather floridly profane.
• Convulsive Seizures: Oskar has a seizure during the Banquet of Heroes, as Chancellor Vernham has forbidden medication in favor of folk remedies, and the doctor can no longer sneak medications to his mother for Oskar. It is likely to have been provoked by the lights from the show.
• The Coup: Vernham dismisses any reports of civilian deaths, starvation (claiming that nobody starves in Central Europe) and all other signs of unrest as enemy propaganda. Just before she can announce her resignation (with the intent to place Herbert Zubak as her successor), the insurgents break into the palace.
• Crappy Homemade Gift: Corporal Zubak paints a portrait of the Chancellor for Christmas. It looks like it was made by a six-year-old. When Vernham is asked if she likes it, she manages to say that she appreciates it, but puts her foot down when he tries to hang it in the same room as her official portraits of state.
• Dead Star Walking: Hugh Grant is cast as Keplinger, Vernham's predecessor and appears and dies in the same episode.
• Dirty Communists: The Chancellor and her allies denounce their political opponents as "Neo-Marxists."
• Exact Words: Elena holds a livestream in episode 5 with the intent of resigning as chancellor and handing the office to Herbert, but the palace is stormed before she can actually say it. Herbert points this out in the next episode, reminding her that she hesitated.
  • Comes back into play in episode 6: Elena says that members of her own government rebelled against her, because the ministers who turned on her during the coup were actually acting against their own chancellor who had never resigned her office.
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Averted. At a banquet, the Chancellor performs Chicago 's "If You Leave Me Now." While she doesn't have a terrible voice, she is noticeably tone deaf, which she covers up by slipping into William Shatner-esque spoken word. Many in the audience are visibly trying not to cringe, but Zubak stares at her with adoring eyes.
  • Later, at her father's birthday party, she sings Happy Birthday to him and follows the upper harmony line perfectly, with no hint of tone deafness.
• Hope Spot: Agnes finally accepts it's time to escape and is ready to do so, but the insurgents breach the palace. In the chaos, she is shot and killed before she can get to her son. The poor little boy is left all by himself, hiding under a table and with no idea what happened to his mom.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • Chancellor Elena Vernham is not based on any one politician, but aspects of her personality are sourced from various authoritarians and state strongmen from around the globe.
    • Her paranoia and tendency to isolate herself for weeks at a time suggest Vladimir Putin, as does her launching an invasion and denying that it's an invasion or that any innocent people died.
    • Her status as the daughter of another, less successful far-right politician suggests Marine Le Pen, the French politician currently in charge of the party her father founded.
    • Her protectionist stances and gaudy taste recalls Donald Trump.
    • Being the authoritarian-populist ruler of a Central European country gives off similarities with Viktor Orbán's Hungary.
  • Her populism and attempt to stronghold the news bring to mind Italian Council President Giorgia Meloni.
    • The coup taking place on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day is reminiscent of the downfall of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Elena also gets her name from Ceausescu's wife Elena.
  • Senator Judith Holt, an American politician involved in foreign policy with a blonde bob, is more than a little reminiscent of Hillary Clinton.
• Oop North: Agnes, who makes sure the palace runs smoothly, has a distinct Yorkshire accent that emphasizes her no-nonsense nature.
• Panthera Awesome: The leopard is the country's national symbol. The flag consists of a field split diagonally into a red and a blue area, with a leopard in the center. Promotional materials show the Chancellor sitting with a leopard at her feet.
• Ruritania: The unnamed Central European country the Chancellor leads is implied to be this, outside the confines of the palace. The country's major resources are sugarbeets and cobalt, and the peasant-born Herbert Zubak speaks with a thick accent.
• Skyward Scream: In the season finale, Elena tears up papers (flyers dropped by the Westgate Resistance Army, claiming that they have taken power) in a forest, saying "Fuck them all!" and screaming while looking at the sky.
• Terrified of Germs: Chancellor Vernham is terrified of mold, given she inherited the same illness (AAT deficiency) that led her father to develop lung disease. Everybody around her enables her paranoia; in the first episode, she can be seen sitting surrounded by four industrial-size dehumidifiers. She is even more paranoid about this obsession being known to the public, as it makes her look weak.
  • The mold receives a Call-Back in episode 6 when Laskin tortures her into cooperating by strapping her into an oxygen mask attached to a tank labeled "Danger, Black Mould."
• That Old-Time Prescription: At Zubak's suggestion, Chancellor Vernham has bowls of steaming potatoes placed all over the palace. She raves about the healing effects of potato steam, but others complain that the palace now smells like an "Irish whorehouse". She gets so obsessed with folk remedies (mustard rubs, black radish, etc.) that she forbids anything resembling Western medicine. Agnes has to resort to obtaining epilepsy medication on the sly for Oskar, her son.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: In the third episode, the Chancellor declares after the reunification with (or invasion of, per the international community) the Faban Corridor, "There are times when one must choose the hardest road. I have chosen that road. And I have done so in the name of liberty." It is unclear, however, if she genuinely believes this.
• Wham Episode: Episode 5, "All Ye Faithful". After a six-month Time Skip from the previous episode, the insurgents breach the palace just before the Chancellor announces that she is resigning. Zubak barely manages to get her out. The remaining members of the Cabinet leave her behind. And Agnes is shot and killed while trying to get to Oskar.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The first season ends without revealing the fate of Oskar, whom Elena and Herbert left behind in the palace during the Christmas Eve coup.

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