FX America Crime Story Impeachment : TV Review

The new 10-episode installment of the Ryan Murphy anthology franchise American Crime Story (ACS) premieres on FX on Tuesday, September 7 at 10 p.m. ET, and focuses on Bill Clinton’s impeachment as told from the perspective of not only Lewinsky but also the other women caught up in it. Seven episodes were available for review.

Beanie Feldstein (Booksmart) plays the wide-eyed Monica, who starts off filled with youthful energy and naiveté. The actress, who met Lewinsky personally, describes herself as her bodyguard. And saw it as part of her job to protect the woman she was playing on screen. “I had the great gift of that when I received the scripts, I knew that every word that I was saying was approved and had been to Monica first,” Feldstein said at the same TCA panel.

Frequent Murphy collaborator Sarah Paulson is Linda Tripp, Monica’s friend from her time working at the Pentagon and the person who betrayed her confidence in the hopes of signing a tell-all book deal. No matter how many iterations of American Horror Story or ACS you’ve seen Paulson in, you won’t be able to recognize her at first in Impeachment. She’s all pantsuits, prosthetic makeup, glasses and ‘90s bangs. She transforms herself in a way – from her speech pattern to the way Linda exasperatedly reacts to everything – that’ll make you forget about the glamorous Paulson. You’ll only be able to see office lady and chunky-heels-wearing Tripp.

“There’s a lot of controversy around actors and fat suits, and I think that controversy is a legitimate one. I think fat phobia is real. I think to pretend otherwise causes further harm,” Paulson said in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times regarding the additional padding she wore to play Tripp. The actress also gained 30 pounds for the role. “I think the thing I think about the most is that I regret not thinking about it more fully. […] Should I have known? Abso-f – ing-lutely. But I do now. And I wouldn’t make the same choice going forward.”

A great deal of Impeachment proves to be truly engrossing, as all the semi-familiar pieces of the puzzle come together, but at this point (seven out of 10 episodes were available to critics for review), it’s hard to say if it lives up to the previous two installments of American Crime Story. Part of The People v. O.J. Simpson’s effectiveness was in how it made us reevaluate what happened during that trial through a modern lens, with a greater understanding of all the underreported factors that made the story into a tragedy for so many involved. It was a fascinating portrait of what we both did and didn’t understand about that double murder in Brentwood.

Watching Impeachment, I found myself surprised at how much access and how many details about her emotions Lewinsky offered and allowed to be put on screen. You’ll see Monica portrayed as an impressionable young woman who gets incredibly hurt. But I guess that when your whole life has been aired so publicly and without your permission, there’s no reason to try and hide any longer. And with Impeachment, Lewinsky makes sure to get her side of the events out there.

While Impeachment: ACS‘s head writer Sarah Burgess might have had full access to everything Lewinsky said and went through, a part of this story is still fictionalized. We don’t really know the kind of conversations Bill Clinton had with his advisors, lawyers or Hillary Clinton.

“Monica was incredibly mindful of not wanting to speak to rooms she had not been in,” Jacobson said. “She had a very smart and sophisticated understanding of what felt right to her or not.”

But even with that lack of first-person access when it comes to certain situations and characters – the series is also based on Jeffrey Toobin’s A Vast Conspiracy – Impeachment shows a side of the events that’ll keep any political junkie or fan of juicy, well-written dramas hooked. “Do you honestly think he decided to risk his presidency on a complex perjury scheme involving a 24-year-old and the Revlon corporation?” the senior advisor to Bill Clinton, Sidney Blumenthal (Patrick Fischler), asks in the show when the scandal is first reported. And this story does seem too absurd to be true sometimes.

But if Impeachment excels at something it’s at showing the deeply misogynistic attitudes of the decade, which particularly materialized in the ways the media treated these women. They were made fun of for the way they looked or talked. They were made to believe women’s harassment were non-issues. They were called stalkers and liars. They were transferred and pushed around at work. They were the targets of jokes on Leno, Letterman and SNL.

Executive producer Jacobson says that what really makes an American Crime Story season is that it highlights “a crime that we are guilty of collectively as Americans.” This show made me think about how many things have changed since 1998 – and about how many things still need to transform.

Impeachment: American Crime Story debuts September 7th on FX, with episodes streaming on Hulu the day after. I’ve seen seven of 10 episodes.