Feud: Capote vs. The Swans Is Apparently Mostly About the Act of Going to Lunch

Lunch IS great but come on!

This show is a curious mess. Individual scenes are excellent — this week, I kept writing the words “this scene was affecting” in my notes — and the performances are very good, especially from Naomi Watts and Diane Lane. The production and costume design are top notch. And yet, as a whole, it is shockingly, surprisingly repetitive and needlessly simple. Here’s what happens this week: Babe comes to terms with the fact that her lung cancer is terminal but we barely see any of this thought process at all; it’s almost completely tackled at a remove, and tacked on at the open and the close of the episode, in scenes that were carefully and beautifully done and with which I think the show could have and should have done more. As she knows she is nearing the end of her life, she really wants to make up with Truman — whom she calls “the great love of her life” — and when they run into each other on the street outside Bergdorf’s, they have some nice small talk and hug. Truman goes to rehab and i…