Truman Eats a Swan in This Episode of Feud
Literally. (He also falls into an Illustrative Coma.)
Friends, please join me in a round of our new favorite — or at least most ubiquitous — song: This Show Did Not Need to Be Eight (!!) Episodes. This week’s offering clocks in at a total of 47 minutes, including ads, which is VERY short for a drama1. And once again it can best be termed an Interesting Mess, with the returns on the “interesting” parts, unfortunately, diminishing — although I am fascinated by some of the structural and storytelling choices. And I did wonder, in the course of watching this, if I’d have enjoyed this particular episode more if I weren’t already annoyed by this show as a whole.
Here’s what happened: Everyone is (yes) mad about “La Côte Basque 1965,” which has just come out; Babe, for example, OBVIOUSLY doesn’t want to talk to Truman and Bill Paley basically tells him to drop dead. For some reason, as we know, this reaction is perplexing to Truman — and apparently, actual Truman was surprised by the backlash, which, as I’ve mentioned, makes me think his powers o…