Phantasm Forgiveness
Episode 8 of Feud: Capote vs. The Swans begins in 1984, the year of Truman’s death. He visits Babe’s grave who died in 1978. He has been sober for 3 months and visits Jack who is dating someone. He claims that Answered Prayers will be an apology to everyone he hurt and they part amicably. Truman finally starts completing the novel. He wants to give everyone the happy ending they want even if it’s imaginary.
How does Truman apologise to the Swans?
He starts with an apologetic chapter on C.Z. She is sad that he lied for profit. He saw that she was trapped but only exposed the negative aspects. He decides to give her the freedom she wants by taking a road trip to Mexico City. They sell her nude painting to a roadside bar for drinks and they dance as they celebrate her free-spirited nature.
He moves on to the next chapter which feels more candid as he writes about Slim. She wanted love and power and he stripped that by making her unappealing. He provokes her till she hits him and breaks the china, telling her to vent it out but then let go of her rage. For her solution, she holds a black and white ball which is a success. She also gets a position of power and finds her true love.
The next chapter is on Lee. Her biggest regret is that her latest husband is gay and she is constantly in the shadow of her sister, Jackie Kennedy. Truman writes a whimsy tale of helping Lee make a mark in the literary world by ghostwriting her memoir and then poisoning her husband.
Why does Truman have a love-hate relationship with his mother?
Back in reality, Truman hallucinates his mother, Nina who finds the C.Z. chapter pretentious as it doesn’t have raw emotions. She insists that he needs to drink to find his voice again and he drinks while writing Slim’s chapter. She continues to ply him with drinks and pills for Lee’s chapter which she still feels is lacking.
She tells him to stop grovelling and use his hatred to write something real, like her life and her death. A flashback shows Nina hooking up with men for money while scolding a young Truman for interrupting her dalliances. She also finds his flamboyant persona laughable. After her latest fling abandons her, an angry Nina overdoses.
While Present Truman watches her suicide, Ann Woodward joins him since she reminds him most of his mother. He wonders if she can forgive him and she says some things are unforgivable. Ann tells him that the Swans won’t understand his apology chapters and it will do more harm than good as the damage has already been done. She tells him to choose and he burns the complete Answered Prayers manuscript.
What happens at Joanne’s house?
Truman then goes over to stay at Joanne’s house in Cali where he is unable to write and then drowns in the swimming pool. As he dies, he not only sees Babe but also Nina and Ann. Joanne cries at his bedside and then calls Jack who asks about the manuscript. She reveals that he hasn’t written anything new apart from some gibberish in his notebooks.
How does Season 2 end?
It is 2016 and there is an auction on Joanne’s stuff. One of the items on sale is Truman’s ashes which she held dear. Kate O’Shea tries to bid for it but she isn’t able to afford it in the end as it is sold for $45k.
Lee, C.Z., Babe and Slim watch the affair from the back and scoff at the crassness as they judge everyone’s modern outfits. They comment how nothing is like the New York they know and then they walk off into the light. At the end of Episode 8 of Feud: Capote vs. The Swans, we get the dates of when the rest of the Swans died and it says the complete manuscript was never found.
The Episode Review
Feud: Capote vs. The Swans Episode 8 gives Truman the closure he possibly did not get in real life. The montage we get of his book, like the name, the incidents are fictional but are based on the truth he wanted to bring to reality. Unfortunately, the Swans never gave him a chance. A bummer since we see how hard he tries to redeem himself.
The episode also shows us the aftermath of the manuscript and really shows how all of it was for nothing. Truman is left in a hell of his own making, reminding us that while we may pity him in the end he has brought this upon himself, making him a compelling anti-hero worthy of this vicious, glittery show.
However, we can never forget how much of a misfire this episode is as well. None of the apologetic chapters with C.Z., Slim or Lee carry any weight because we don’t know them. The show never gives them a chance to grow, always keeping them on the sidelines. Had they been given enough attention like Babe and Truman, the finale would have been more poignant. In fact, the previous episode feels more like a true finale.
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Read our season 2 review of Feud: Capote vs. The Swans here! |
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Episode Rating
(2.5)