What I’m Watching: American Crime Story: Impeachment (Season Finale)

American Crime Story: Impeachment: Season 3, Episode 10 “The Wilderness” (B)

Watching this final episode, I thought briefly that I might like to see more of this, and that what happened after and in the public forum wasn’t featured quite enough. But then I remembered that this season has been mostly tedious, taking forever to get to the meat of the story and then overstuffing it with invented conversations between Bill and Hillary. What was interesting in this installment was how Paula Jones leveling her accusations against Bill ended up with her posing nude for an adult magazine, and the contrasting of her being photographed with Hillary sitting for portraits as she began her own political career was an intriguing commentary about the way women’s lives are sensationalized in a way that definitely doesn’t happen to men. While Ann Coulter was delighting in how conservative men would react to the excruciating sexual detail in Starr’s report, Susan Carpenter-McMillan expressed a severe disappointment in Monica abandoning those values. The delivery of the report and the crashing of the Internet is a phenomenon of the time, so different from how Robert Mueller’s own recent report was revealed to the public. It’s definitely possible to see how Juanita Broderick’s accusations and the politicization of sexual assault claims have shaped the environment we see today. Ending with Linda being asked about why she did what she did and her doubling down was a fitting way to close out this season, which did have something to offer but wasn’t consistently terrific. I may watch season four, which is supposed to be about Studio 54, but I’m not sure the investment was entirely worth it. I wouldn’t mind some awards attention for Beanie Feldstein, Sarah Paulson, Annaleigh Ashford, or even Clive Owen, but I’m not sure I’d go beyond that.

Season grade: B
Season MVP: Beanie Feldstein and Sarah Paulson