REVIEW: American Crime Story: Impeachment – Episode 4, “The Telephone Hour”

"I'm going to move on with my life."

Television Reviews

*SPOILERS*

The pot has gone from a simmer to a full-on boil on American Crime Story. In “The Telephone Hour,” Linda contacts Lucianne Goldberg (Margo Martindale) to spill the beans on Monica’s affair. She continues to flounder about whether she’s comfortable betraying the girl, and Lucianne suggests that Linda record her phone calls with Monica. Monica goes to the White House, and Bill Clinton refuses to see her. She continues to seek comfort from Linda, unknowingly giving her ammo for her tell-all. Lucianne brings Michael Isikoff in to legitimize the story, but he declines to report on it because of the unethical recordings. Clinton secures Monica an interview with Revlon, and it goes well until the man gropes her. Lucianne gets Paula Jones’ lawyers to subpoena Linda as part of their lawsuit, giving her a credible reason to talk about Monica’s experiences. Clinton learns of Monica’s involvement in the lawsuit – even if she doesn’t yet know about it.

Despite centering on the affair between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, Impeachment belongs to Sarah Paulson’s Linda Tripp. This character is a hypocritical, self-interested, dishonest witch. She pays lip service to integrity and friendship while using a young woman in need of an ally for financial and political gain. She’s also narcissistic and paranoid, genuinely believing that the White House has it out for her when it seems more likely that they don’t think about her at all. Linda bristles when Monica remarks that nobody wants her to come back to her old job, and it was worded harshly. The idea of being irrelevant is anathema to someone so self-absorbed and self-serving. It’s also wild to see Linda’s faux outrage and concern for Monica’s well-being. She cares so much about her well-being and mistreatment by the president that she’ll publicly humiliate her and ruin her life. The scene where she says she’s made peace with losing Monica’s friendship is puzzling. Monica obviously means something to her, but not enough to be spared the danger of Linda’s ambitions. It is because, not in spite of, these unpleasant traits, that Linda is so riveting. I realized after the episode ended that Paula Jones, Susan Carpenter-McMillan, and Ann Coulter weren’t present in “The Telephone Hour” at all. It seems strange to entirely leave these storylines out of an episode in a limited series that has a finite amount of time to unfold. However, Paulson gives a performance so fascinating and engrossing that I didn’t miss any of the other characters until after the episode had ended.

Beanie Feldstein is also sympathetic and nuanced as Monica. The scene where she cries after leaving the White House is particularly effective in making the audience see things from Monica’s perspective. I haven’t been in the sticky situation Monica finds herself in. However, I think we can all relate to her shame at her mistakes and naïveté. Monica and Linda’s sleepover, where the younger woman details her past romances, is just heartbreaking. I had no idea Lewinsky had been through such harrowing circumstances. Heck, I didn’t know anything about her except for the infamous affair. How can Linda hear about this girl being groomed and molested at the tender age of 14 and seek only to use her for her own purposes? Is Linda any better than the men who made an impressionable girl think that was all she deserved? Her fascination with the infamous dress and the genetic material it bears is also gruesome. Granted, it’s more than a little weird of Monica to keep it and not have it cleaned. But in a previous episode, Monica referred to her pursuit of older, unavailable men as a “pathology.” Impeachment makes the case that Monica was mentally unwell, and those around her, on all sides, saw it as an opportunity. It’s horrifying.  Margo Martindale is deliciously callous as Lucianne, and I hope we see more of her character in the next episode.

The dialogue in “The Telephone Hour” is great as well. Lucianne’s cold indifference to Linda’s moral dilemma is funny, and I like how they’re building Isikoff up as one of the only reporters with any integrity. He displays the admirable attributes Linda pretends to value, consistently seeking evidence and rejecting unsubstantiated claims and proof unethically procured. Clive Owen is still killing it as President Clinton, and his skillful manipulation of Monica is both believable and disgusting to behold. As we get glimpses of Monica’s childhood and backstory, her relationship with the Commander in Chief becomes increasingly transparent and unsettling. She has a pattern of being used by older, more powerful men, and he has a penchant for manipulating dumb, younger women. Making his employees do his dirty work for him is shady too. It would be easier to at least respect someone with enough backbone to be straight with people to their faces. He relies on his female underlings to get rid of girls like Monica rather than simply asking them to leave, and that’s just sad. Also noticeably absent was Billy Eichner as Matt Drudge. I really enjoyed this smarmy opportunist in last week’s “Not To Be Believed,” and I hope we see plenty more of him after his absence from “The Telephone Hour.” Like Linda, he’s not a nice guy or really likable at all. But the combination of the sleazeball persona and Eichner’s delivery is nothing short of on-screen perfection.

Overall, I really enjoyed “The Telephone Hour.” The cast of Impeachment elevates material that could easily be dull or salacious. The dialogue is witty, and the costuming remains impressive. Things are really starting to heat up as Linda finally goes over the line, fully betraying her friend. Impeachment still isn’t my favorite season of American Crime Story, but I’m fully convinced this was a story worthy of the acclaimed series’ efforts. I’m on pins and needles to see what happens next, as many of the details have been revelations to me.