It took seven years to finally get a second season of Ryan Murphy's anthology series FEUD, and was it worth the wait? I very much enjoyed that first season way back in 2017, which was centered on the acrimony between Hollywood legends Bette Davis and Joan Crawford during and after the making of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE. I'm a life long movie buff, so that season was right up my alley, but this second one, which detailed the falling out between author Truman Capote and a circle of high society New York ladies, who were dubbed The Swans, was quite a different cup of tea. The main problem with this second season, as I saw it, was why would anyone care about this story in the 21st Century? While Capote remains a well known author, and is remembered as a very vivid personality in the media, the names of Babe Paley, Slim Keith, C. Z. Guest, Lee Radziwell, Ann Woodward, and Joanne Carson would require some serious googling these days. So would William Paley, Jack Dunphy, and sadly, James Baldwin.
The basic facts of the story are that after the success of his non-fiction novel, IN COLD BLOOD (which virtually created the True Crime genre), Truman Capote was a literary sensation at a time time-the mid '60s and early '70s-when best selling authors were genuine celebrities. And none more so than Capote, an out and out homosexual at a time when being one was anathema in America, one who loved the high life, and partying with the famous on a regular basis. Full of gossip and good stories, he became a constant companion of The Swans, a circle of very wealthy women-all of whom had married well and divorced better at one time or another-because he was excellent company and a needed confident. He lunched with them on a regular basis, and livened up their dinner parties, and they got the vicarious thrill of basking in the company of an accomplished celebrity. They were considered to be in that rarified group of what was once known as "the beautiful people." But Capote was first and foremost a writer, and what he heard from these women, he wrote about, most infamously in a 1975 piece in Esquire magazine that was a thinly disguised fiction in which some particularly juicey tales of the Paleys and others were put out there for all to see. Guilty of airing dirty linen in public, and betraying confidences, Capote was cut off from his famous lady friends and permanently banned from their circle. There were serious repercussions from the Esquire piece, including a suicide, and the fury of women scorned was considerable. Capote defended himself by saying he was a writer and what did they expect him to do, and spent years pining for a way to get back in The Swans' good graces, all the while trying to finish his novel, ANSWERED PRAYERS, as he sank ever deeper into alcoholism.
Murphy and Gus Van Sant, who directed most of the eight episodes, really try to get the most out of their material, and do a very good job of recreating a time and place long gone. But one problem I had was with the non-linier way the story is presented. The first two episodes deal with the Esquire piece and its immediate aftermath, but then jumps back to the mid '60s in the third for a recreation of Capote's famous Black and White Ball, then it's back to the mid '70s again, while nearly every episode goes in for some flashbacks to an earlier time. I thought the season would have been better served if the story had been told from a beginning point so we could better appreciate where everyone was coming from, what had been betrayed, and what had been lost. Another thing a viewer had to keep track of was the changing POVs from episode to episode, some of which were told from the point of view of one of the Swans, usually Babe Paley, and they portrayed Capote in a very bad light, while other times, things were recounted through the author's eyes, where the shortcomings of the ladies are on full display. It often felt like the viewer was being thrown head first into the story, and it was up to them to figure out who was who. Though Murphy and Van Sant clearly loved the formidable Swans, they do give their Devil his due, making us feel Capote's genuine hurt at being ostracized by a close circle whose affection he valued. What the season really doesn't explain is why he wrote the Esquire piece, though it does suggest it had something to do with his long dead mother, and how he might have been testing the love of stylish older women who reminded him of her. I liked how the show doesn't flinch when it comes to Capote's decline, portraying his excessive drinking and the downward spiral that ensued; he was a very talented writer who had great acclaim early in life, but whose talent seemed to collapse under the weight of success, excess, and middle age. The Swans, who work very hard at appearing impeccable and flawless, are nevertheless snoots and snobs, women who reveled in their exclusion. In the end, one can't help but feel that all of them, both Capote and the Swans, were the losers, because time was always moving on, and the culture which they lorded over, really didn't last very long.
One of the best things about this season was the incredible casting and performances. The Swans were so well played by Calista Flockhart as Lee Radziwell, Chloe Sevigny as C. Z. Guest, Diane Lane as Slim Keith, Demi Moore as Ann Woodward, and especially Naomi Watts as the cancer-stricken Babe Paley, whose friendship Capote seemed to value more than any other, and whose forgiveness he most desperately sought. Tom Hollander made for a mighty fine Capote, perfectly capturing the helium-voiced elfin gay persona the author presented in public, but also letting us see the fierce and fragile human being behind the façade. In one of his last roles, Treat Williams was great as the chronic womanizing CBS head William Paley, while Molly Ringwald was Joanne Carson, the one friend Capote had till the end. Murphy gave the role of Capote's mother, appearing in the story as a ghostly muse, to his long time AHS co-star and former Joan Crawford stand in, Jessica Lange, who does her standard Dragon Lady performance. Joe Mantello, Russell Tovey, and Vito Schnabel are the men who came in and out of Capote's life.
Of the episodes, I thought the strongest were the first two, "Pilot" and "Ice Water in Their Veins," which really threw us into the middle of the story. I did not dislike "The Secret Inner Lives of Swans" where Capote spends the day with a visiting James Baldwin, well played by Chris Chalk, who attempts to raise his spirits and remind him of what a great writer he is in the wake of the Esquire debacle. There is a twist at the end that I'm proud to say I figured out before it was revealed. In usual Ryan Murphy style, it is the next to the last episode, "Beautiful Babe," is where most of the plotlines and conflicts are resolved. The season finale, "Phantasm Forgiveness" is pretty much taken up by a dream Capote has near death, where he tries to finally make amends, and win his old friends back. It has more than a few poignant moments, and does suggest a final fate for the manuscript of ANSWERED PRAYERS, which was never found after his death. And the final scene with certain characters in the afterlife is a pure Ryan Murphy touch.
If nothing else, I would say this second season of FEUD was a successful look back at a time long before the digital age, and before American pop culture became ostentatiously vulgar, where standards and style, and appearances, really mattered. The execution was not always the best, but the story was presented in a way that kept me coming back for the next episode. And whatever this season's faults, I cut them a lot of slack because Murphy did include a scene of Capote on the set of MURDER BY DEATH with some actors in the background playing Peter Sellers and James Coco. That was a real treat for a movie lover like me.
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