TV Rewind: Feud’s Bette and Joan Is Ryan Murphy’s Most Underrated Achievement

Editor’s Note: Welcome to our TV Rewind column! The Paste writers are diving into the streaming catalogue to discuss some of our favorite classic series as well as great shows we’re watching for the first time. Come relive your TV past with us, or discover what should be your next binge watch below:

Love him or hate him, choosing a favorite Ryan Murphy show isn’t exactly easy, even for casual TV viewers. Do you go for the camp theatrics of Glee? The perverse macabre of a show like Nip/Tuck? Or the defiant, queer joy of Pose, perhaps Murphy’s most important series of all? That’s before we even get to his flagship “American” shows or the endlessly memeable cult classic, Scream Queens. 

Yet conversations like this often overlook one of Murphy’s very best works. And that’s oddly fitting given how the show itself revolves around two screen legends who fought to stay relevant long after the world discarded them. Old-school Hollywood icons Joan Crawford and Bette Davis should need no introduction, but the first season of Feud did a great job of doing exactly that for those not in the know when Bette and Joan first debuted in 2017.

The FX series starts in the early ‘60s at a time when Crawford and Davis are forced to reckon with their Oscar-winning days being long behind them. But when Joan stumbles upon a potential comeback in the form of Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?, she tries to put aside her rivalry with Bette, knowing that a team-up could be the answer to their prayers.

And so begins one of the most historic and deliciously camp feuds of all time. 

It’s no wonder that Murphy chose this rivalry in particular to kick off his latest anthology. Fuelled by decades of hate and resentment, the clash of these Hollywood titans was more dramatic than any film of theirs could ever be. And if you’ve seen the likes of Mildred Pierce or All About Eve, that’s really saying something.

As actress Olivia de Havilland (played by Catherine Zeta-Jones) puts it in the show’s very first scene: “They hated each other, and we loved them for it.”  Yet Feud refuses to demonize these legends or disrespect them in the same way that Hollywood—and especially men—did at the time. 

Criticize Murphy’s work all you want, but he must also be commended for regularly shining a much-deserved spotlight on older female actors who have been shunned or unfairly sidelined in recent years. With Feud, he managed this on two fronts, both in terms of the iconic double-hander at the center of this story and also when it came to the equally iconic women who play them. “There’s only room for one goddess at a time,” claimed columnist Hedda Hopper (played to perfection by Judy Davis in the most ridiculous hats imaginable), but Feud proves her wrong over and over again. Just as Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? wouldn’t work without both Bette and Joan giving it their all, the same is true of Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon in this show as well. 

Let’s face it; Jessica Lange was the one, true supreme on American Horror Story, and four seasons in, her snarling, bad bitch-facade was unmatched. Throw in that innate theatricality of hers and Lange was always going to be the most obvious choice to take on Crawford. Just as she and Crawford alike are both renowned for chewing into the scenery and spitting it out with wild abandon, Susan Sarandon rips into the brazen boldness of the legendary Bette Davis with a biting glee, capturing the intensity of her persona with what looks like ease. Between them, Lange and Sarandon deserve just as many Oscar nominations as Crawford and Davis won, so it’s a rare joy to see such powerhouse performers at that level tear into the material and each other with such relish on screen.   

Are they identical to the stars they embody? No, but that’s not to say Feud’s Emmy-winning hair and make-up isn’t befitting of Hollywood royalty. And besides, a direct impersonation would actually undermine what Feud strives to achieve. Both stars are still recognisably themselves throughout the series, which very much works in the material’s favor because Lange and Sarandon have also been forced to contend with many of the same issues that Crawford and Davis once faced. By consciously relating these modern-day stars to the past, this throughline of misogyny in Hollywood becomes that much more tangible.

Instead of a mere imitation, what the pair capture best is the feud at hand. The immediacy of Lange and Sarandon’s bitter chemistry is too ferocious to ignore, but it’s not just their fights that had us whooping and hollering at our screens. It’s the moments where these two fiercely complicated women pushed through the rivalry to find common ground that actually resonate most, delving into something far deeper about femininity and self-destruction than one might typically expect to see in a Ryan Murphy show. 

The supporting cast is just as stacked with talent too, with everyone from Alfred Molina and  Stanley Tucci to Sarah Paulson and Kathy Bates pitching in with their own whip-smart dialogue and snappy banter. Yet, just like Crawford and Davis in their later years, Feud’s acting chops were mostly ignored come award season, with only a few key nominations and no notable wins. 

That hardly matters at this point though. With Feud, Ryan Murphy was able to hone all his best qualities, combining those camp theatrics and signature macabre humor with something more substantial that elevated Season 1 above anything else he’s ever been involved in (perhaps with the exception of Pose). Just as Bette and Joan captured a key moment in Hollywood lore that speaks to gays young and old, Feud itself also captures a time when Murphy’s powers were at their peak before diminishing returns diluted his vision across too many shows at once. But perhaps the second season of Feud, titled Capote vs The Swans, can go some way to restoring our faith in him? 

For Season 2, a dream cast of iconic women will throw their extravagant hats into the ring as they try to tear down Capote (and each other as well), yet it’s going to be near impossible to top Bette and Joan, no matter what is brought the second time around. Crawford and Davis spent their whole careers trying to best each other, and no one did it better than them, so besting these legends at their own game, even if it is just an approximation of their real story, will be no easy feat.

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David Opie is a freelance entertainment journalist. To hear his ramblings on queer film and TV, you can follow him @DavidOpie.

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