Taking place over the course of one day, Feud: Capote vs the Swans episode 5 is set the day after Truman’s bombshell piece in Esquire was published in 1975. It opens in a tense Paley household where Babe (Naomi Watts) is seething and Bill (Treat Williams) is yelling. Truman (Tom Hollander) calls. Bill picks up and tells Truman he should kill himself.
On the other end of the phone, Truman is in his bed. He takes several handfuls of different pills that are sitting by his bed and collapses.
After the credits, Truman is lying in the same position, but it's the next morning. The phone rings. It's James Baldwin (Chris Chalk), the famous Black writer and friend of Truman's, who is worried about him. James tells Truman to meet him at La Cote Basque for lunch.
Infidelity and bad parenting
At La Cote Basque, James, who Truman calls Jimmy, is waiting. Truman is mortified and anxious at all the people staring at him when he walks in. But James is there to help Truman face the damage he's caused and find his footing again. He tells Truman he wants to know the real secrets about the Swans, the ones that Truman left out.
Truman says he was trying to go after the men, not the women, but the truth is the women were just as unfaithful as the men. Truman talks about the affairs Babe had, as well as ones by Lee (Calista Flockhart) and Slim (Diane Lane), calling Slim the worst of the unfaithful Swans. While Truman is talking there are short clips of each woman meeting with her various lovers.
Truman points out that when the men were caught, the women make them pay with jewelry, paintings, all kinds of luxury items. But the men get nothing when the women cheat, which he thinks in many ways makes the women worse.
James tells Truman that swans are naturally very aggressive with each other and that different types of swans in the wild will try to kill each other. Truman laments his swans are trying to kill him. But that doesn't stop him from being brutally honest about them, bringing up their racism and classism with James.
Truman continues talking and there are montages of the glittering parties he attended with the Swans. He talks about the inherent social pecking order where everyone had a place. Truman also says that he was stung by those parties.
James and Truman leave La Cote Basque to go to an art gallery. While they walk around taking in the work of Kandinsky and other famous artists, they keep talking about the Swans. Some of the art they're looking at is credited as being part of the private collection of Bill Paley. That leads to Truman talking about how rich people are insatiable. They collect everything but enjoy nothing.
Truman says the Swans have no empathy or compassion, which makes them bad people and bad parents. Truman says all of the Swans are terrible mothers. He talks about their mothering while there is a montage of the Swans being horrible to their children. In one scene Babe tells her young daughter to send all her birthday guests home early while Babe collapses, drunk, crying and fully dressed in the shower.
Defy the foul fowl
James says Truman needs to "defy the foul fowl" and keep writing. Stop begging for their forgiveness and get his drinking under control because it's drowning his talent and insight. But Truman tells James he drinks because he's afraid all the time. Life with the Swans is unbearable, but so is life without them. Truman wants to get a drink, so they go to a bar.
At the bar Truman tells James the Swans would never support him the way he does because they are totally disloyal. He talks about a time when the Swans were at lunch at La Cote Basque and Ann (Demi Moore) was also there. The scene plays out as his voice fades, showing the Swans being deliciously cruel and catty when Ann approaches them at their table.
He also talks about their terror of getting older. Their face lifts, their diets and all the extremes they go trying to appear young. There's a scene of Lee telling Truman he looks weathered and fat and he needs to do something about it.
Eat the rich
James and Truman end the night at Truman's apartment. James gets serious, telling Truman he's thrown away the 10 years since he wrote In Cold Blood and he needs to get back to work. His life's work and responsibility is to write and tell stories, so he needs to get on with it. He suggests Truman get some sleep, then start writing the next day and not to stop until his book is finished and he's killed the Swans and brought down the ruling class.
Truman takes in James' words and gets ready for bed. James calls from the airport to tell Truman one last fact about Swans: in the UK, only the Queen can legally eat a swan.
The scene abruptly cuts to Truman, collapsed on the bed as he was in the scene after the credits. The entire day with James was a hallucination, but one that has given Truman purpose again.
Truman writes for days and doesn't drink. The last scene in the episode is Truman taking a break for a special dinner. He's hired a waiter from his favorite restaurant to kill and cook a swan for him.
New episodes of Feud: Capote the Swans air Wednesdays on FX. They are available to watch on-demand the next day on Hulu.
