Feud: Capote vs. The Swans [2024] on Disney Plus

Feud: Capote vs. The Swans proves that you don’t always need to force a second season for a perfect limited series.

Starring Alison Wright, Naomi Watts, Diane Lane, and others, this seaon of Feud explorers the drama between Truman Capote (Tom Hollander) and a group of New York’s female elite. Let’s start with the good.

Everyone is excellent: the Swans, you can tell, are so happy to have been cast, which speaks volumes about both the way older women are treated in Hollywood. But it’s Hollander who steals every scene: all-seeing, all-knowing, whining, drunk, and merciless. As the episodes go, the show reveals itself to be a love story of sorts, and the love that it depicts is not romantic but the kind of all-consuming and platonic love that feels romantic anyway.

However, nothing is as great as it seems. Visually stunning, but with deeper issues.

A writer who aspired to become the American Proust would have never condoned this vagueness, nor would he have approved of presentist dialogues that often err on the side of exposition. Nothing is followed through, no conclusions drawn, no coherence provided.

Each episode, we open with a milestone event or story. But the episode itself gets muddied enough for the viewer to finish it without any kind of satisfaction. In fact, this Feud could have focused more on the women than drowning alongside Capote in depicting his decades-long spiral into alcoholism, drug addiction and writer’s block. “Feud: Capote vs Alcohol” would have been a more fitting title.

Should You Watch It?

Part good, part disappointing, Feud: Capote vs. The Swans has enough juice to keep you going, but it doesn’t stand against the perfect first season.

Where Can I Watch It?

You can stream Feud: Capote vs. The Swans on Disney+.