Written by Jon Robin Baitz
Directed by Jennifer Lynch
Jack (re Capote): "Did he say anything?"
Joanne: "He said he was cold. Mother. Mama. Then he said."
Capote: "Beautiful Babe."
All season long we've been heading towards the death of Babe Paley and for the penultimate episode, that's exactly what we got. I expected the penultimate episode to be the one to do it. The episode certainly delivered on that front.
The opening had Babe making it clear to Bill that she had six months to live and she was fairly blunt about it too. We had Babe and Bill tearing into their parenting (lack of) skills before Babe began to make preparations for her own funeral.
That meant one last scene with Slim, CZ and Lee where they talked about Capote once again. Babe never did reconcile with Truman but he certainly was the last face she saw before dying. It was a rather interesting scene with an actual Swan in the bath. Then Babe died and Capote wasn't invited to the funeral and wake, despite CZ pleading his case.
Of course, Babe wasn't the only character to meet their end in this episode. In a slight surprise turn of events, the final act of this one also had Capote himself die with Joanne looking after him after Jack finally severed ties with Truman.
Having Babe be the last person that Truman saw as he was dying, I guess it was rather fitting. Both Tom Hollander and Naomi Watts played those scenes to perfection. Yes, they laid it on thick about Babe almost being a maternal figure to Truman but it worked rather well.
As for Joanne, she was there for Truman in his last few hours of life but boy, was she rather unappreciated? The other Swans had distanced themselves from her and Truman was more fixated on Babe. I wish we had seen more of Molly Ringwald in this season because she was great with her limited screentime.
- I'm surprised that Truman didn't see his mother before he died. Did Jessica Lange only agree to appear in just two episodes?
- Jack's younger boyfriend was Sully from American Horror Story: NYC. We also saw Rick in Capote's final dream in a nice red swimming trunks.
- Jack talked about having to publish Capote's final book, which the latter admitted was mostly written in a scattered manner.
- Chronology: 1978 again for this episode as well as 1984, covering both Babe and Capote's respectively deaths.
Beautiful Babe delivered as a penultimate episode. Excellent performances from both Tom Hollander and Naomi Watts throughout the whole episode, though everyone brought their A game. It's gonna be interesting to see where the finale will go.
Rating: 9 out of 10
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