Every week, watching Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans feels like an emotional rollercoaster. And it makes us question whose side we should be on continuously. But that’s what makes it so good. It’s like we have a back-and-forth to determine who is right or wrong in this situation: Truman or the swans. Hence, the title Capote Vs. The Swans. Will we have the answer by the end of the series? Who knows, but we’re enjoying it.
Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans 2×06 “Hats, Gloves, And Effete Homosexuals” takes place in the year 1978, which is three years after the release of La Côte Basque, in 1965. Truman and C.Z. Guest are still friends, which was nice. Despite this, it’s clear that he still misses his friendship with Babe more than anything because he continues to ask about her. It borders on obsession, and Truman’s behavior with his ex-boyfriend’s daughter, Kate, indicates that.
Truman has taken Kate under his wing because she wants to be a writer. Truman sees more for her. He wants her to be a model, and he tries to turn her into one of his swans by getting her a makeover that is pretty much how Babe looks. It’s creepy and shows he can’t let go of the past. He even takes her to lunch at La Côte Basque, where he runs into Slim and Lee. Everyone around Truman can see he is having issues letting go of the past. Even the photographer who does the photoshoot for Kate asks Truman, “What year are you stuck in?”
The swans, Babe, Lee, Slim, and C.Z., also deal with the changing times. Sure, they are still having their lunches at La Côte Basque, but when they step outside, they are reminded that things are not the same anymore. C.Z. and Babe are in for a rude awakening when they go shopping for gloves and realize the department store they once frequented no longer has a glove department. It’s a bit of a shock to the system when the young store clerk delivers the news to them in a snarky way that I’m sure wasn’t intentional, but it’s clear the world around them has changed.
As Truman is attempting to navigate the changing times, he’s also facing a lawsuit from Gore Vidal, about whom he made some disparaging comments while appearing on a late-night TV show. According to C.Z., Lee knows the story and is the only one who can help Truman get out of the lawsuit. Lee refuses and rather nastily says that it’s just “Two fags fighting.” C.Z. is appalled by this and tells Babe as much. This leads to the two of them having a conversation about the relationship between women and men who are homosexuals. I couldn’t help but feel that even these two women were seeing gay men in the wrong way.
Though they say they owe homosexuals a modicum of respect and the relationship is vital, the conversation they have refers to them almost as if they are accessories to carry around. C.Z. says that they rely on gay men to take them out and act as a buffer against prying eyes and hands. And Babe says that a gay man won’t drop you when you reach a certain age. They will lift you higher. Truman isn’t around to hear any of this conversation, and I suspect that C.Z. and Babe don’t believe what they are saying is problematic, but it is.
Truman is trying to find ways to recapture his youth; he goes out to Studio 54 with C.Z. He even starts a new relationship with a young handyman named Rick. It’s short-lived, though, because Rick, who seemed to think that Truman’s life was exciting, learns it isn’t, and the novelty soon wears off. Truman spends so much time trying to stay relevant, but he’s lost who he is.
He seems to know that because he tells Kate his career is being a persona now, not a writer. That’s why it’s so difficult for him to finish his book, even though everyone around him keeps telling him to do so. He is far too focused on being Truman Capote, the personality, than the writer.
One of the things I found to be sad about Truman is that he has a constant support system in his ex, Jack. Jack is there for him in all the highs and lows, and even when Truman turns on him, he still lets him know he’s always there for him. He’s blunt but always honest with Truman, which is more than can be said of his swans. Even C.Z., with whom he maintained a friendship, didn’t tell him right away that Lee was unwilling to help him with the Gore Vidal lawsuit or that she said something so vulgar about him behind his back.
Once she did reveal this information to him, it was clear Truman realized it was something C.Z. had been keeping a secret for a while. Not only that, but when she told him this, she didn’t even say anything to indicate that she stood up for him, and I think that was probably what he was waiting to hear.
At this moment, I think Truman starts to understand that the friendships he’s cultivated with his swans over the years were, in some ways, very one-sided. Jack says as much when he tells Truman that he never needed the swans. It was them who needed him. He tells him that in writing La Côte Basque, 1965, he freed himself from them. I think Truman, in a way, feels that freedom because he begins to write again, and it seems as if he may be ready to finish Answered Prayers.
Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans 2×06 “Hats, Gloves, And Effete Homosexuals” was another episode that was on the calmer side. And it once again left the viewer feeling for Truman. Seeing C.Z. cry in silence in the kitchen as she watched Truman’s interview on a talk show was, in some ways, telling us to feel for him. Still, it also said that the swans knew how much he was falling apart, yet they silently sat by to watch his downfall. Any one of them could have been there for him, but because their feelings of betrayal were cemented so profoundly, they could not move forward.
Other Thoughts
- This show’s opening graphics and title card always impress me.
- “You’re as stiff as a B-movie robot.”
- “If you want to be a writer or any person of note actually, you must realize the importance of that which is overheard.”
- “It’s finally happened…I’ve gone out of style.”
- I knew Truman and Rick wouldn’t last. Rick was not into being in a relationship with him at all.
- Truman is so darn stubborn. Literally, everyone around him kept telling him to apologize to Gore Vidal and that the lawsuit would be over, but he just would not budge.
- “If everyone’s turning against me, when do I dare sleep?”
- “We’re their Pomeranians to cuddle. But once we growl, it’s off to the pound.”
- I am glad I don’t write books because if I went out somewhere and all people did was ask me, “When is the book coming?” I’d go insane.
- Watching Kate and Rick grow so close, I was shocked when he left Truman to go be with his fiancée. I just knew something might have been developing between her and him.
Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans airs Wednesdays on FX and is available the next day to stream on Hulu.