Warning: Major spoilers for The Regime episode 6 “Don’t Yet Rejoice”
HBO’s The Regime ends on an unexpected note, while the death of one key character underscores the main theme of the series. “Don’t Yet Rejoice” picks up shortly after the events of The Regime episode five, where Chancellor Elena Vernham (Kate Winslet) and advisor/bodyguard/lover Herbert Zubak (Matthias Schoenaerts) had to flee the palace. They find themselves alone and hunted by the resistance, and after taking shelter with a seemingly kind local, they are betrayed and turned over to the newly formed National Freedom Front.
The NFF is headed by Laskin (Danny Webb), the former head of the security service. He has joined forces with the resistance, but they still need Elena to secure a peaceful transition. Vernham reluctantly agrees to help her enemies but is later rescued by American mercenaries, who offer a deal: in exchange for restoring Elena to power, America will be offered favorable trade terms. Sadly for Zubak, they also need a scapegoat to blame Vernham’s disastrous year on and is soon executed. The Regime ends with Elena celebrating her ninth Victory Day, and giving a speech to an adoring crowd.
The Regime’s cast has been the highlight of HBO’s satire since they brought humanity to characters that could feel a little broad. The odd romance between Vernham and Zubak gave it some heart, but “Don’t Yet Rejoice” sees the chancellor’s many mistakes forcing her into a corner. Despite tanking the economy of The Regime’s unnamed country and causing a civil war, she still has a lot of supporters.
To save herself, Elena is told that Zubak must be sacrificed. Herbert is to be the scapegoat for the chancellor’s terrible decisions, with his death meant to signal the country is back under control. The Regime has offered brief glimpses into the person beneath Elena’s monstrous exterior, and offering up Herbert as a sacrifice is a decision that breaks her heart.
The couple spends one last night together before Zubak wakes up to see a pistol pointed at his head, and a gunshot runs out. It’s unclear if the troubled soldier realized Elena was giving him up, though his dream in episode five suggests he always knew she would betray him eventually. Given his own awful deeds, it’s hard to have too much sympathy for Zubak, though the show reveals the choice will continue to haunt the chancellor.
The first episode revealed Elena kept her father Joseph’s body displayed inside a glass coffin at the palace. This is despite the fact he had been dead for over a year, and his body was slowly decaying. The Regime episode three saw Elena having nightmares about Joseph, who berates her leadership abilities and intelligence. This implies the chancellor and Joseph had a very unhealthy relationship while he was alive, but she was seemingly freed of him when the resistance smashed the coffin while storming the palace.
The Regime’s final scene reveals Zubak has taken Joseph’s place in the mausoleum, with Elena laying flowers on his grave. Vernham might be projecting power and control to the rest of the world, but internally, she carries the same insecurities and issues she had a year before. Dreams and nightmares have played a key role in the HBO miniseries, with the couple even attending dream therapy in episode five, “All Ye Faithful.”
In all likelihood, Elena will be dreaming of Zubak now, who will give voice to her worst impulses and thoughts. It wouldn’t be a major surprise if, in a few years, the chancellor leads the nation into another mess of her own making and the cycle of chaos starts afresh.
After trying and failing to turn the chancellor and Zubak against one another, Laskin uses Elena’s fear of black mold to his advantage. She agrees to help the NFF’s transition to power, but as Laskin and his men escort her out of the building, they are shot and killed by mercenaries. Elena and Zubak are then whisked away to a meeting with Bartos (Stanley Townsend), the nation’s top businessman. He has secured a meeting with U.S. Senator Holt (Martha Plimpton), who aims to stem the bloodshed sweeping the country while securing a political victory.
The nation is at a tipping point, but America believes Vernham still has enough supporters to stay in power. The U.S. wants to assist in return for the country’s dormant cobalt mines being reopened and other favorable trade terms. This probably means an immediate end to the nation’s fruitless trade deal with China too.
It’s a dark and cynical note for The Regime to close on, with America completely indifferent to Elena’s annexation of the Faban Corridor or the thousands of civilian casualties caused by the civil war. So long as the chancellor is willing to serve the economic interests of those who placed her back in power, she won’t have to answer for those actions.
The ending of The Regime episode four saw Zubak and Elena surrender to their animal instincts right in front of Nicky (Guillaume Gallienne), the chancellor’s loyal husband. Nicky soon exited the country, with the abrupt end of his marriage taking a psychological toll. Regardless, he still wanted her back, and The Regime’s finale confirms Nicky and Elean got back together when she returned to power. As the chancellor prepares to give a speech to the nation, he snuggles up to her, while asking what the previous year’s anarchy was “all about?”
Elena thinks about this for a moment, but all she can muster is that she had “a little wobble.” The chancellor might care about Nicky, but it was clear she didn’t fully love him either. It’s a marriage designed to project stability to the world, but behind the scenes, they are essentially roommates. So long as he has her back, this is enough to make Nicky happy.
Andrea Riseborough’s Agnes was the most sympathetic character in The Regime, with the palace manager remaining loyal to her chancellor despite the various messes she created. That changed when the chancellor snatched Agnes’ young son Oskar (Louie Mynett) away from her. With the nation crumbling, Agnes was offered the chance to flee with Oskar, but before she could make that a reality, the resistance stormed the chancellor’s palace. In the violence that ensued, Agnes was shot and killed while Oskar hid under a table in terror.
Surprisingly, The Regime’s “Don’t Yet Rejoice” never reveals what happened to Oskar. In an interview with Decider, showrunner Will Tracy revealed he didn’t “… necessarily have an answer” regarding Oskar’s fate. Tracy did note that he didn’t believe Oskar was killed, but he wanted the audience to decide his fate for themselves. In the final scenes with Elena and Nicky, no mention is made of their surrogate child either. Given that the chancellor refused to turn back for him while she fled the palace, Oskar probably isn’t on her mind anymore.
The Regime’s first episode found the chancellor celebrating “Victory Day.” This marked the seventh anniversary of deposing the former chancellor Keplinger (Hugh Grant), and “saving” the nation. Of course, this is largely propaganda, with most of Elena’s policies and eccentricities leading the nation’s economy to tank while taking away civil liberties. Her wild ride with Herbert stems from wanting to be taken seriously and be seen as a powerful leader by the international community.
The cost of this was thousands of deaths and being forced to sacrifice Herbert. In The Regime’s ending, Elena delivers an impassioned speech to an adoring crowd, who swallow her various lies about the leftists, China and others being to blame for the year of bedlam. Elena might be back in power, but she has learned nothing from the experience, while her supporters remain unwaveringly loyal.
In a way, it should have been simple to predict The Regime’s finale. No matter how awful or selfish the chancellor’s actions were, she never had to pay for them. She is briefly kicked out of power in “Don’t Yet Rejoice,” but she becomes the chancellor again mere days later. Not only that, she still has a nation of adoring supporters, despite the fact she is stealing from them and her schemes made their lives much harder.
Even in the finale, where Elena loses something she cares about, she doesn’t grow from the experience in any meaningful way. Elena’s goal is to stay in power and be admired and adored, period, and it doesn’t matter who suffers in the process. The Regime’s message that authoritarian leaders are bad and politicians – even supposedly “good” ones like Hugh Grant’s ill-fated Keplinger – aren’t to be trusted may be simplistic – but it’s certainly an evergreen one.