Impeachment: American Crime Story does what it does best in its season finale
On season three of American Crime Story, impeachment was never the point. It was always about the women.
TV Reviews Impeachment: American Crime Story
At long last, we are here. The “impeachment” part of Impeachment: American Crime Story unfolds during the jam-packed, extended cut of the season finale. The Starr report is sent to the Hill like a stealth bomb about to blow the scandal wide open, with an unsuspecting Clinton administration caught completely off-guard. I was going to say the news spreads like wildfire, but we are reminded again and again that it is the late ’90s and we were all relying on ethernet cables.
The point is that it eventually gets to everyone’s AOL account. And yes, we see Bill fuming, and there are mentions of yays and nays, and later we hear that he will be acquitted. But the episode doesn’t linger on the ins-and-outs of behind-the-scenes negotiations with different state reps or focus on scenes of legal maneuvers that saved Bill Clinton’s presidency. Instead, it does what it does best: focus on the women.
That’s because Impeachment never had at its center the actual legislative process that gives it its name. The crime that is under its magnifying glass isn’t even exclusively that of the multiple sexual assault allegations that pop up during the Clinton administration. They are opting for a more poetic understanding of the term, to encompass a much larger dysfunction in society than anything that can be found in the penal code. And it is best epitomized by an exasperated Linda Tripp who exclaims to her lawyer “I trusted our institutions!” It was maybe her biggest fantasy of all.
The show’s main thesis is this: The real crime is that institutions don’t give a fuck about women.
Since it’s the finale, the whole gang comes back together to react to the report. We get snippets of Drudge, Slenderman-bride-to-be Ann Coulter and her minions, Starr and his altar boys, perpetual-voice-of-reason-BFF Kat, and more. Still, the most compelling parts of another exquisite episode are the scenes that contrast the consequences of the four main women we have been following throughout.
Earlier in the episode, we get intercuts of Hillary’s photo shoot for Vogue with the world-renowned Annie Leibovitz with Paula Jones’s shoot for Penthouse in a gaudy mansion. Later, the same technique is used to show a book signing event with Monica while Linda Tripp sits down with a journalist from George magazine. Though in both cases one woman is being celebrated while the other is being diminished in some way, the writing is smart enough to let us know that these are all moments of defeat.
Paula Jones is left high and dry by Susan Carpenter-McMillan who is absolutely incensed that she would do something against her faith like pose nude. Jones tries to explain that this is her last resort—she has a pile of tax and legal problems that cannot be covered by the pennies she makes as part of the Celebrity Psychic hotline. (The ’90s were WILD.) Steve is still unemployed and isn’t sending alimony which sounds about right. Pizza Hut won’t even hire her because she will turn into a “distraction”. Susan does what righteous conservative Christians do which is turn their back on the downtrodden. No religious nor pearl-clutching institution is going to save her.
Hillary Clinton, in the meantime, is polling GREAT. Yeah, there was a time when people in this country actually wanted to hear about Hillary Clinton. Sometime before Fox News and the self-described dirtbag left shook hands, teamed up, and decided to pour all their frustrations and misogyny onto her. Because of her popularity, she is tasked with saving both her husband and the entire Democratic Party.
Oh, I know they encourage her to run for Senate and it’s the first time she gives a genuine smile but think of all the energy she could have used on her own political aspirations if she didn’t have to spend so much time cleaning up Bill’s freaking mess. Truly one of the greater examples of leaning out of marriage so you can lean in to literally anything else, but she was a woman of a different generation.
Then we have Monica, whose entire future is about to be robbed even though she is still young enough to hold some hope. Her bills are also exorbitant, which is why she spends part of the episode discussing a book deal that would be co-written with Andrew Morton, who wrote the book about Lady Di. (Another woman the 90s spit out and destroyed.) Every time she feels better about her situation, she allows herself to dream of a husband and the white picket fence, there is someone in the media ridiculing her.
It finally dawns on her that whatever great love she had for Clinton, it wasn’t enough for him to every help her. In any way. She may be surrounded by adoring fans in her book signing, but Monica isn’t comforted by the attention. It overwhelms her and is another symptom of the dark reality that is her life now. She may be able to hide in a closet, but she’ll never escape the limelight.
Finally, Linda. She, the most unsympathetic of all. Petty, vindictive, nosy, and self-aggrandizing. The Bad Friend before a story of kidney donation and plagiarism ripped Twitter apart. At the end of the show, she is ousted from her job, harassed by passersby, facing a Maryland indictment because her federal immunity doesn’t cover the state, and is still living under the shadow of Monica. Her book deal is dead because no one wants to hear from her. She feels betrayed by the laws and procedures she so staunchly admired.
It’s hard to admit that someone this unlikeable can be correct and even insightful about a society that vilifies her, however fair that assessment may be. After all, when she tells her story about her philandering father, isn’t it true that well-liked men—which isn’t the same as saying ethical or innocent men—get a pass for all sorts of horrors while women are pushed to sidelines? Isn’t that the narrative we see, time after time, as yet another politician/celebrity/leader/influencer/etc. is called out for sexual harassment after decades of a “unspoken” knowledge regarding their behavior?
Or as she tells the reporter: “I know it looks horrible. I know it looks like a betrayal. But she was his victim. He caused all this. He did.”
Stray Observations
- Monica’s Story became a #1 New York Times Bestseller and in 2012 she signed a $12 million deal for a memoir which never materialized.
- Linda Tripp also wrote a memoir, published by Post Hill Press. This is the same press that would later become infamous because of their plans to publish a book by the cop who shot Breonna Taylor.
- The big winner of the entire Lewinsky scandal? The internet. Between Congress deciding to upload the report before Bill Clinton could even get its hands on it, Drudge becoming a superstar, and the American population obsessing over websites with information, the show gave a nod to the rise of our “click refresh” obsession.
- Drudge yelling at the internet provider for servers crashing is—sigh—relatable.
- Thanks for joining me on this journey! And if anyone knows Monica Lewinsky’s Venmo, let me know. I want to buy her a much belated drink.
58 Comments
Coulter: Ken Starr wrote this? Ken Starr, who probably conceived his children through a hole in the wall between his garage and his prayer room?
Coulter: I mean, Strom Thurmond is reading this right now.Conway: Yeah, with one hand.
Yeah, there was a time when people in this country actually wanted to
hear about Hillary Clinton. Sometime before Fox News and the
self-described dirtbag left shook hands, teamed up, and decided to pour
all their frustrations and misogyny onto her.
She really needs to pick a side.
And yet this continues to wonder why she’s unelectable.
BUT SHE WAS THE MOST QUALIFIED CANDIDATE EVARRR!
“I’m smart and rich, which means I’m perfect for the job.”
She most definitely was, but since Obama was the one who said that, you refuse to acknowledge its truth. Not surprising considering you still insist he is lying about being born in the United States.You Hillary-haters may have stopped her from being president, but as she says in this final episode “history will savage them.” You thought QAnon was the ultimate w against her, but you overplayed your hand. History will now associate all attacks on her with the insane cultists who shot-up a restaurant, purposely spread a deadly disease, and tried to overturn our democracy with an attack on the Capitol.All of you deplorables will be painted with the same crazy brush, like a 21st Century John Birch Society. Decades from now, her warnings about your dangerous klan will still be hailed as prophetic. Hillary’s reputation in history is more secure now than ever because your attacks against her were so grossly over the line of decency and sanity.
‘Not surprising considering you still insist he is lying about being born in the United States.’I voted for Obama three times(once in the primary in ‘08 and in 2 generals) and Hillary in ‘16, so I’d like to ask: Exactly what in the actual fuck you are going on about?
You’re a crazy person, aren’t you? Judging by your sentence structure and writing style I’d say yes, but maybe you were just badly taught.PS: Doesn’t matter who said it and when, anyone who actually believed that Hillary was the most qualified candidate was woefully undereducated in American history.
Even with Trump, Putin, Sanders, and Comey all working
together to stop her, she still earned almost 3 million more votes than
your moronic cult leader. Thankfully his horrific presidency has allowed
people to see how wrong her haters always are.
The
2020 election also showed how difficult it was to win the Electoral
College against Trump. Biden had all his decades of good will (some
earned, some not) and the all important likability factor on his side,
not to mention Trump’s four years of general incompetence on top of the gross mismanagement of the pandemic…and yet he came less than 45,000 votes away from losing.Luckily the pandemic drew enough white male supporters to vote for Biden to make up for his losses with all other gender/racial voting groups. Despite the many advantages he had in the election, he still could not do as well as Hillary Clinton with women and people of color.
Even setting that hypocrisy aside, Hillary has been a coattail rider her entire career. If she could have left Bill in the middle of this and still had a future in politics, she would have. By then their marriage had been a business arrangement for a long time. She had a vacated Senate seat handed to her and the path cleared for the Democratic nomination. As an individual, she may be smart but she is a terrible politician.
Marc Rich’s wife handed her $100K for her Senate campaign when Bill pardoned Marc Rich.I can’t believe that never comes up. The Clintons were like Trump. All the scandals blur together so so much it’s hard to remember them.You still hear Trump using the “My enemies spent all this money and time on a witch hunt and found nothing” that the Clintons invented.
And Terry McAuliff personally guaranteed the loan for their house in NY. Nice work if you can get it.
But the Clintons were correct. There was a vast right-wing conspiracy.
She’s a bureaucrat, but fancies herself a politician. She has the mind for policy and all the grunt work that makes gov’t function. Cabinet level work suits her skills better. But those aren’t the same qualities that make a successful politician. Some politicians can be both, experts in policy and being a public face. Some are just are just good at being a face. She wasn’t a face. She was a mind. You can be a politician without a mind. You can’t be a politician without a face.
This holds true in much of life, definitely including the business world. There aren’t too many people who are charismatic leaders and salespeople (both externally and internally to a company) AND top-flight technical / operating minds. So people are well served figuring out which they are.
In Australia we had a similar thing with Labor (Our centre-left party, essential the equivalent of the Democratic Party) the last time they were in power federally (2007-2013).Before they were elected, their two best minds, who were rivals and were not factionally aligned, teamed up to seize the leadership.Kevin Rudd, who was the leader, was one of the best salesman politicians you’ve ever seen. He could sell an idea and sell the public like few before, while Julia Gillard, his deputy was far more wonky and better at the policy work/Question Time stuff.Unfortunately, it all fell apart in 2010 after a series of issues which culminated in Gillard successfully challenging Rudd for the leadership and becoming PM. He declined to contest and went to the backbench before she put him into Cabinet as Foreign Minister.
Ultimately, Rudd white-anted Gillard, she made a series of fuck ups and remained low in the polls while being under shockingly sexist and sustained attack from the right.Rudd reclaimed the leadership from Gillard in June 2013 but Labor was so damaged they limped to the polls and lost three months later.The point I make is that Rudd and Gillard working together was an incredible pair, with someone who was excellent at policy teamed with someone who could sell well.But their relationship was toxic and they ended up destroying each other.
Humility is a pretty rare trait among the political class, so I can’t say I’m stunned that was the outcome of a rivalry partnership (even if it was working).
Nearly a decade on, Gillard, despite copping the most shit from the right, has come away from it all far better than Rudd. She’s virtually entirely stayed out of domestic politics ever since and has been heavily involved in global education efforts for women, suicide prevention and everything.Rudd, like all the other former PMs, can’t seem to stay out of the news, primarily criticising (justifyably) his terrible conservative successors.
Yeah, even her most ardent supporters (and Bill) say she’s not good at campaigning.They all say “she just wants to get in there and put her head down and get to work”, but that’s not how it works. It’s like they think she should be appointed President.
You QAnon crazies claim Hillary drinks children’s to give her mystical powers, but you also make statements about her personal life which would require psychic abilities to possibly know. Not that logic or consistency has ever been a strong suit of you incel dirtbags.Bill was nothing but a liability to her, but she stayed with him because she loved him…whether he was deserving of that love or not. When your Dear Leader was caught bragging about sexual assaulting women, his defense was to attack Hillary through Bill, and you ate it up. Hundreds of thousands of people unnecessarily died because of your choice for President. Thankfully, people are finally seeing you Hillary haters as the absolute deplorables that you are.
What in the blue fuck are you talking about? Every claim you just spewed about me in that unhinged rant misses the mark. We are all dumber for having read it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
I agree. The author notes that, “these are all moments of defeat.”But Hillary’s situation is clearly different. Monica is later seen walking by a Hillary campaign poster. And Hillary was well on her way to being president, something none of the other women came remotely close to.
Oopsie on that opening date card misspelling “September.”I wish we’d seen a little more aftermath for the women — who were Monica’s handlers who should’ve stopped her from that horrific 20/20 interview a bit later? And what did 3 of those 4 main women do for work next? Some of the way this was presented was assuming an audience who really already knew all of it, I guess, so maybe they thought a coda like that would be too corny.The Juanita Broaddrick moment was brutal. The victims were never the point. It’s hard to admit that someone this unlikeable can be correct and even insightful about a society that vilifies her, however fair that assessment may be.Well put. I was impressed with how well they showed us that.
Bill finally ended up paying Paula. I hope her dirtbag husband didn’t get any of it.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Jones
On appeal, Clinton agreed to an out-of-court settlement, paying Jones and her lawyers $850,000 to drop the suit.[2] Clinton’s lawyer said that the President made the settlement only so he could end the lawsuit for good and move on with his life.[3] Jones and her lawyers said that the payment was evidence of Clinton’s guilt.
Jones continues to maintain that Clinton sexually harassed her.[4] Clinton continues to deny it.[5]
Still no apology though.
I remember that, but I was just curious about her life
I had hoped that the show would go into the fact that after airing the Broaddrick interview once NBC spiked the footage and forbade anyone from using it again. I always suspected that happened under pressure from the White House. Once the video stopped playing on the air, that part of the story just went away. One of those mysteries best left unsolved, I guess.
UGHH. I am so conflicted about Juanita Broaddrick because I do believe that Clinton probably came on to her in an aggressive way, because Clinton is a terrible fucking person. But Juanita is also a terrible person.I don’t buy her story. I know I’m supposed to believe all women but she just…oy vey. You should watch that interview if you can find it. She comes off as unhinged. Today she’s a raving lunatic QAnon supporter. And if you listen to the podcast that IMO kicked off this season, she kind of hints that it was all part of a conservative “we gotta get this asshole to own those libs!” movement against Clinton and she was just trying to do her part.
I remember Linda Tripp saying that Broaddrick told her that Bill came onto her, but she was very excited about it, and was hoping for an affair. I despise Linda Tripp for what she did to Monica, but I don’t think she was ever caught in a lie.
Wait, never mind, I was thinking of Kathleen Willey, hard to keep all these people straight sometimes.
I definitely believe Juanita but yeah, it’s… she’s not a good person. She’s pretty unhinged. It’s a shitty deal. One of the frustrations I’ll have forever is feeling absolutely certain that Clinton is a predator and a complete piece of shit, and that the women he hurt deserve to be heard, but that they were also used – and also, in many ways, perfectly willing accomplices – in machinery put in place that cared nothing about sexual assault and only about pulling apart a liberal they didn’t like. What a mess all around.
Thank you for your great work reviewing the season. I enjoyed reading your reviews after watching each episode. The reviews deserved more hits and comments! Hopefully your writing will be more appreciated as time goes by, possibly if and when people re-visit this season of “American Crime Story.”
Slenderman-bride-to-be Ann Coulter
Lol.
All that aside, I lived for her scenes. The way she commands a room. Her turns of phrase. Cobie Smulders as Ann Coulter does it for me (and I couldn’t be more ashamed). Thoughts on her speech summing this fiasco all up:
The sitting President of the United States is a felon. We exposed him…But if he ran for a third term today, he’d win…We showed this country exactly who they are and they said ‘Yes please can we have some more!’ They’re who America want in power, not us… We have no rule of law anymore. Was this commentary too on-the-nose? Too much? Or exactly the right amount? I’ll chew on that for a while. Really great finale to a season that was surprisingly more nuanced than
I thought it might be. Really picked up in its second half.
Yeah, Cobie knocked it out of the park as Anne Coulter.
That’s about what I’d expect an outrage machine like Coulter to say, but my take has always been that the public felt that a tawdry but hardly impeachable offense had been used as a basis to ratchet into one that actually would be impeachable (committing perjury before Congress), and that because the latter wouldn’t have happened without the former, this combination of facts didn’t merit throwing him out of office. The economy was performing well, we weren’t at war with anyone, crime was under control, and so yes the people said this is who we want. Coulter was right, but not in the way she believed.
Plus, most of the yahoos that screamed about Bill Clinton’s character are now Trump supporters, so we know they never really meant a word of it. Not all of them, people like George Will and Bill Kristol I guess weren’t completely full of crap. And yes, Coulter is no longer on the Trump train, but in her case, it’s because he somehow wasn’t extreme enough for her, not because of the various crimes he committed.
I don’t pay much attention to Coulter but catching one of her columns a few months ago after a long break, it was surprising how virulently anti-Trump she is. I figured his brand of demonization would be catnip for her.
He stopped separating children from their parents and didn’t complete the wall.
Ah. Checks out.
I liked the quote, but otherwise didn’t care much for the character. I think Coulter and her cronies and Drudge took time away from the central element of the story. I think more focus on the Clintons and Bill and Monica would’ve been a better use of time. On the latter it seemed especially strange that we got so little and it was all innuendo – as if Bill might have had some actual deniability about what happened or something.
Finally, Linda. She, the most unsympathetic of all. Petty, vindictive,
nosy, and self-aggrandizing. The Bad Friend before a story of kidney
donation and plagiarism ripped Twitter apart.
Got it in one: Linda Tripp is Sonya Larson, pretending to be friendly to someone she hates while seizing her story for her own to prop herself up while kicking her “friend” in the face, then shocked when the illegal thing she did while punishing this other woman for having a more interesting life than she does gets her into legal trouble.
this description and scenario took me back to a few women I have worked with like Linda Tripp in the past…while watching a few scenes with her my wife blurted out “isn’t that X?” And instantly knowing who she meant I blurted back “YES!” In real life you can’t see cancers like this woman coming right away, it takes a while for you to realize they’re toxic and if you won’t revel in their toxicity then you must be destroyed via passive aggression, but this show hit you squarely over the head with it, and I kinda liked it.
Whenever there’s someone like her in the mix, it takes a while to tease out why there is so much distrust, pettiness and backbiting in a work place, friend group, etc. It’s also pretty amazing how quickly things heal themselves when you figure out who’s seeding it all, and get rid of them.
“Because of her popularity, she is tasked with saving both her husband and the entire Democratic Party.”Wow that’s…not exactly how things happened irl.
cue the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme
Yeah, it wasn’t her popularity, it was because people felt sorry for a woman who had been so thoroughly publicly humiliated.
I guess polls might have said that but as I remember people either already didn’t like her or were very happy for both her and her husband to just go away after the bullshit that had been going on because of Wee Willy’s Winky. Then we had 9/11 and the Democrats going along with everything because of ‘patriotism’…not remembering a single thing about her ‘saving’ the Democrats, they torpedoed themselves very nicely.
Though I think we all figured Al Gore was gonna win 🙁
She was immensely popular, thanks to the impeachment. In 1995, she was still below water at 43% favourability (though even that is higher than before she became First Lady); but by the end of 1998 she was at an astonishing 67% favourable. By comparison, Obama peaked at 61% in the first couple of months after his inauguration, spending most of his presidency in the high 40s or low 50s. This huge boost – and the revived popularity of her husband, who enjoyed a slightly lower (64%) but much longer-lasting popularity as a result of the accusations against him – is what kickstarted her own political career, which would have been unlikely to have happened had she not benefited from that wave. [she’d hit those same levels again as Secretary of State (66%), which is why she seemed so unstoppable when seeking the nomination for 2016. When you have literally one of the most admired and universally well-liked politicians in half a century running as your candidate, what could possibly go wrong?][unfortunately, Clinton’s popularity has always been directly proportional to whether anyone was being asked to vote for her at the time. People loved the idea of Clinton in the abstract, but then hated her whenever she becomes a plausible reality…]The other astonishing measure of her popularity is the Most Admired Woman survey. Usually, whoever is married to the President gets this accolade. But Clinton was the Most Admired Woman not only ‘93-’94 and ‘97-’00 (with a two year period being beaten by Mother Theresa, until the impeachment brought her back), but also from ‘01 continuously through to ‘17. Laura Bush only got it one year, and Michelle Obama never got it while actual FLOTUS, only after the left turned on Clinton after she lost. Out of 25 years, a quarter-century, she was Most Admired Woman in America for 22, including 16 consecutive – her nearest rival is Eleanor Roosevelt at only 13 years (10 consecutive). It’s easy to underestimate just how popular she was!
People forget that she was very popular until “left wing bias media” started writing articles about how unpopular she was.
was I the only one who thought Edie Falco was an awesome choice as Hillary but still felt the performance didn’t click? Maybe her haircut reminded me too much of Carmela Soprano, I don’t know. Wonder what Hillary thought of it.
Eddie Falco is too likable to play Hillary Clinton. I KID I KID!!
I think I’m missing something, but isn’t the book Monica’s Story an actual book now? What do you mean it never materialized?
in 2012 she signed a $12 million deal for a memoir which never materializedThat was going to be a second book.
Do you think she had to give the money back, and that’s why she agreed to consult on this show? I always wonder about big advances for books that never actually get written. Do you have to repay the advance with interest?
I don’t know about interest but an advance is a bet on the future earnings on your forthcoming book so yes, am pretty sure she had to pay it back. But someone who knows more than I do about publishing should feel free to correct me, if necessary.
I just looked it up, apparently the reason they were willing to pay so much is because she had emails from Bill that she was going to publish, with a lot of intimate details about Hillary and such. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone from the Clinton camp paid her (maybe even matching the advance) to not publish.
I would not have minded getting all the ins and outs and legal maneuvering that saved Clinton, just because I am curious how they pulled it off, and I love seeing dramatizations of that sort of thing. (Like Steven Spielberg’s underrated political thriller “The Post.”) But I know that’s not really the point at this point.I also wouldn’t mind a Talking Dead-style aftershow for this series.
I pathetically paid $20 for this season on iTunes before it even started because I knew it wouldn’t be streaming anywhere. Don’t regret it.
Now if they’d done this my way, as a Horror Story mashup, we could have had Leslie Jordan as Lindsey Graham.
Ah the 90s, that wild prequel to the shit show of the next 20 years.