Oh, how The Foundling has fallen. In the third episode of The Regime, “The Heroes’ Banquet,” Matthias Schoenaerts’s Corporal Zubak is banished from the palace after an intense and violent confrontation with Kate Winslet’s Chancellor Elena. On a new episode of Still Watching, hosts Hillary Busis, Richard Lawson, and Chris Murphy dissect Elena’s sudden change of heart, and how it may shape Zubak’s future. Plus, Guillaume Gallienne drops by the podcast to discuss playing first gentleman Nicky.
Zubak starts the episode riding high as Elena’s right-hand man, convincing her to eat dirt and employ sweeping land reform in the state we’re still calling Genovia. However, Zubak turns on Elena after she reveals that she and her cabinet have been “skimming off the top” of the country, stealing billions from her citizens and storing the money in an offshore bank account called the Belize Fund. But Elena has bigger things to worry about then Zubak, as an impulsive decision to annex the Faban Corridor may have landed her in international hot water, without any allies.
Although Zubak has seemingly driven a wedge between Elena and her husband, Nicky, Regime star Guillaume Gallienne still believes in their relationship. “I’m sure that there is love,” says Gallienne regarding Nicky’s relationship with Elena. “There must have been passion at first, because he left everything, his wife, his kid. He left everything.” And despite being cast out of his marital bed, Gallienne believes Nicky still has a certain sway over Elena that no one else has—not even Zubak. “He’s got one advantage that the others don’t have—he’s not scared of her,” he says. “That is a very important thing. He can actually speak the truth to her.”
While Nicky may be able speak truth to the chancellor, the power dynamics of their relationship are set in stone. “He’s a bit of a masochist,” Gallienne says. “I think he quite likes to be dominated by her. He likes to be her rug.” Gallienne’s offscreen relationship with Winslet was much less fraught. “The first scene we had was in the car, and we laughed so much,” Gallienne says. “We were laughing so much in this car, that Stephen [Frears] came to us and went, ‘Calm down, kids.’”
They apparently had such a great time that Winslet invited Gallienne to stay with her during the shoot. “She very quickly said, ‘I’m living in this house during the shooting. Don’t go to the hotel, come to the house,” Gallienne recalls. “And so we lived together for quite a long time during the shooting.… We got along very, very well. She’s so honest and very clever, and she’s very courageous.”
Will Nicky and Elena make it to the end of The Regime still happily wed? Is this the last we’ll seen of Corporal Zubak? Has Elena unwittingly kicked off a civil war in Genovia by annexing the Faban Corridor? We’re halfway through The Regime, and it’s still anyone’s guess as to who will end up in charge by the series’ end. As always, send any questions, comments, or thoughts about the series to Still Watching at stillwatchingpod@gmail.com.