The second season of Ryan Murphy’s Feud anthology premiered this week with two episodes, 2×01: “The Pilot” and 2×02: “Ice Water In Their Veins.” The series wasted no time diving into all the drama with Truman Capote and The Swans. It was two hours of deliciously good TV that was filled with messiness all around.
Though Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans episode 2×01: “Pilot” wasted no time diving into the drama behind Capote’s decision to release the excerpt La Côte Basque, 1965, from his unpublished book Answered Prayers. It still did a great job introducing us to his relationship with the ladies. In particular, Capote’s (Tom Hollander) relationship with Barbara “Babe” Paley (Naomi Watts). The episode begins in 1955 by showing how he and Babe’s friendship came to be. After Babe’s husband Bill invited Babe on a trip with the Paley’s, he and Babe hit it off immediately.
From the moment everyone learns about Capote, he and his gossipy tales enthrall them. One of which included him telling the entire room filled with strangers that Ann Woodward (Demi Moore) murdered her husband. Who does that? They should have known he was messy the moment he told that story. But we guess they all thought, “As long as it’s not me he’s talking about, I’m good.” In all honesty, as we watched him interact with everyone at the dinner table, we felt as though the people around him didn’t see him as anything more than a court jester, regaling them with the most entertaining dinner theater ever.
Babe’s husband, for example, seemed apprehensive about having Truman join them on their trip because he was a nobody to him. He initially assumed the Truman being referenced was President Truman, who told us all we needed to know. Once Bill got to know Truman, he said Babe would invite him to everything they had. For Bill, Truman was just for pure entertainment and nothing more. On the other hand, Babe is looking for companionship and attention her husband doesn’t give, as evidenced by his many affairs. Truman sees Babe for who she is and seems to appreciate her. He gives her the affection and the ear she needs. And that’s all it takes for them to become fast friends.
Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans 2×01 “Pilot” quickly flashes to 1975, and Truman’s life is in absolute disarray. He is in debt and owes Random House $400,00 for “Answered Prayers” because he has yet to publish it, and they are threatening to sue him for it. He now has alcoholism and has fallen on hard times, but he is trying to maintain an air of superiority, especially around the ladies whom he has lunch with at La Cote Basque. After meeting a man named John O’Shea at a Bathhouse, they become lovers, and he offers to be his business manager. John accompanies Truman on his lunch date with Babe, Slim Keith (Diane Lane), and C.Z. Guest (Chloe Sevigny). While on their lunch date, Truman is confronted by Ann Woodward, about whom he has been gossiping. She is rightfully angry that he has been telling everyone she murdered her husband. Once the confrontation is over, John tells Truman, suffering from writer’s block, that he has all the story he needs in what he experiences with all the ladies. He tells Truman that is the story people want to read.
Can we blame John for Truman ultimately betraying his friends’ confidence by writing about them? No. Sure, John made the suggestion, but Truman could have said no. He didn’t have to write anything about the ladies at all. That was his decision, for which he had to accept the consequences. When La Côte Basque, 1965, aptly named after the restaurant where the ladies do lunch,is released in Esquire magazine, crap hits the fan. Each lady knows it’s talking about Babe and her situation with Bill. Even though Truman changed a few names because their world is so tiny, it is apparent who the piece refers to. Ann Woodward, also referenced in the piece, was aware of its release. Because everyone was already looking at her as a murderer, she knew once the world read the piece, things in her life would only get worse, so she committed suicide. Babe and Slim meet up to discuss what happened to Ann and what Truman did, and it’s then that Slim suggests they “kill” Truman.
Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans 2×02 “Ice Water in Their Veins” picks up with the ladies attending Ann’s funeral. It’s there that we meet Lee Radziwill (Calista Flockhart). After the service, they head to La Cote Basque for lunch and conspire to ensure that Truman is wholly ostracized from their world and the entire world of socialites. Slim and Lee, who are fully onboard with the takedown of Truman, try to convince Babe and C.Z. to join them. Babe, who is battling cancer, is hurting because of Truman’s betrayal. Though she wrestles with the decision, she ultimately joins the ladies and cuts him off. C.Z., the group’s mediator, tries to convince them not to do this.
Once the lady’s plan begins, we see how affected Truman is by losing their friendship and access to everything he once had. Without them and all these things, Truman feels he has lost a part of himself. He no longer seems to know who he is without the validation of Babe, whom he is closest to. He decides to try to clean up his act, and he meets with C.Z. because she’s maintained a relatively neutral party in all of this. He believes she is the one who can get through to Babe and tell her that Truman desperately wants to speak to her.
Unfortunately, Truman doesn’t think he did anything wrong in releasing the excerpt. Though C.Z. tries to make him see what he did was wrong, he doubles down and pulls the whole “I’m a writer” card. As if it somehow gives him a pass for bad behavior. C.Z. promises to help Truman reconnect with Babe, and when Truman asks if he and John can come over for Thanksgiving, C.Z. says yes. That is until word gets back to Slim after Lee spots her and Truman eating together. The world of a New York socialite is a small one, and if you want to have lunch discretely, it’s probably not a good idea to meet where all the ladies like to go.
On Thanksgiving, C.Z. calls up Truman and pulls a Karen Smith Mean Girls move and says *cough, cough, “I’m sick.” Because Thanksgiving is Truman’s favorite holiday, he’s heartbroken, and he knows that C.Z. isn’t really sick and that she, too, has now chosen to exclude him from the group despite her previous position of neutrality. Truman decides to spend the holiday with his friend Joanne Carson (Molly Ringwald), and it is a very different experience than it would have been had he been invited to C.Z.’s house. Director Gus Van Sant does an exceptional job transitioning back and forth from one home to another. You can see the difference; it perfectly represents what Truman has lost access to. Even Truman himself has a different demeanor. He doesn’t want to be there, and Joanne is his last resort.
During the Thanksgiving dinner, Truman goes off on his own for a bit and, in a bit of a drunken stupor, has a vision of his dead mother, played by Jessica Lange. She tells Truman she is proud of him for what he did by writing about all of the women in La Côte Basque in 1965. She tells him that he avenged her, and him taking out all of those women was him, in turn, taking out the women who never gave her a chance because they viewed her as southern trash. She then tries to get Truman to join her in the afterlife by listing off his health problems, but Truman, who is not done with life, refuses and sends her ghost on her way. It was an exciting episode; we thought this was Ryan Murphy’s signature. He found a way to add some AHS-like vibes by having Truman’s mama appear ghostly.
Throughout the episode, Truman’s ex, Jack, is trying to get Babe to talk to Truman. He continues to tell her how much he needs her, but she remains adamant in her position of keeping him out of her life. Even after John beats Truman and Jack tells her this, she still refuses to see him because she cannot forgive him, and she knows that is what Truman wants—her forgiveness—both episodes one and two of
Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans kept us entertained throughout. We would still like to see some more of the other women’s backstories with Truman, which could happen throughout this series because, without that, we can’t honestly know their motivations for wanting to ruin his life the way he ruined theirs. Here’s hoping the series gives us that.
Other Thoughts
- “Storytellers have the last word.”
- “Never trust a writer.”
- C.Z. telling Ann that Truman has a typewriter and she doesn’t as the reason she shouldn’t have approached him was interesting. So, what she was saying is he can write more stuff about her, so leave him alone.
- It is interesting that the ladies didn’t have Ann’s back when Truman ran his mouth because it wasn’t about them. But the second he started writing about them, it became a problem.
- “I write. I’m always listening. I’m recording. This is the way of our world.”
- “What you delivered was a collection of cruel scalpel cuts without the benefits of anesthesia.”
Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans airs Wednesdays on FX and is available next day to stream on Hulu.
SEASON REVIEWS
- Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans 2×01 “Pilot” & 2×02 “Ice Water In Their Veins” Review
- Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans 2×03 “Masquerade 1966” Review
- Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans 2×04 “It’s Impossible” Review
- Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans 2×05 “The Secret Inner Lives of Swans” Review
- Feud: Capote vs. The Swans 2×06 Review: “Hats, Gloves, And Effete Homosexuals”
- Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans 2×07 “Beautiful Babe” Review
- Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans 2×08 “Phantasm Forgiveness” Review
