Feud 1.08: You Mean All This Time We Could Have Been Friends? - Season Finale

In the season one finale, Joan goes to the dentist, Bette gets roasted, and the show answers the question “If you could have any four people over for dinner, dead or alive…?”

by Jorge Molina

Last night, after seven weeks of behind-the-scenes introspections, gargantuan character work, and many, many hats, Feud reached its conclusion. And if it accomplished anything, it was making clear that, underneath the two legends the world knows as Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, there were two broken women with an eternal strive for outside validation, left empty once the cameras stopped rolling.

The finale presents the last years in the careers of Joan (Jessica Lange) and Bette (Susan Sarandon). But mostly Joan. Because she seemed to have been the most natural recipient of all the themes Ryan Murphy and company wanted to make evident: ageism, mysogny, merciless sacrifice for Hollywood, estrangement, ingratitude, and, mostly, pain...

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Feud 1.07 - Abandoned!

In the penultimate episode of the series, Bette gains creative control and Joan loses everything, while B.D. and Mamacita get out while they still can. Here's Jorge...

Feud doesn’t play favorites.  The show has done a good job (for the most part) at digging down into why these two screen legends acted the way they did towards each other. And they’ve made a point (over and over and over) that they were not as different as the world saw them; they were actually very similar, acting from the same place of desperation and clinginess to relevance.

In this week’s episode. Joan repeatedly boycotts the production of Hush, Hush… Sweet Charlotte, unable to cope with the creative control that Bette has over her as a producer. This eventually ends with her being fired from the picture, and Olivia de Havilland stepping in; the only actress willing to take her spot and also Bette's dear friend...

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Feud: Bette and Joan "Hagsploitation"

Previously on Feud: Bette and Joan 
1. "Pilot" 2. "The Other Woman" 3. "Mommie Dearest" 4. "More or Less" 5. "And the Winner Is" (Part 1) (Part 2)

By Spencer Coile  

Although initially centered on the drama that took place during the filming of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Feud persists. As we enter into episode six, "Hagsploitation," both Bette and Joan have no bona fide hits on the horizon. Sure, Joan is tackling Strait Jacket and Bette has her hands full on TV (much to Joan's judgement) on Wagon Train, but in 1964, the success of Baby Jane has waned. In fact, in a scene that features vase throwing and Mamacita standing her ground, Joan laments that it had been nine months since any offer came her way. Clearly, as the title suggests, there is something more pervasive and sinister that happens in Hollywood, far more dastardly than the actual feud that persists between Bette and Joan: the exploitation of older actresses for the benefit of their audience... 

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Feud: Bette and Joan "And the Winner Is" (Part 2)

Previously... And the Winner Is (Pt 1)

-Wait up for me boys. Tonight I'm bringing you home a baby brother.

by Nathaniel R

Picking up where we left off... and, to quote, Mamacita (the delightfully dry Jackie Hoffman) "pick up the pace, it's Oscar day!"

In the second half of Feud's best episode, after watching Joan & Hedda swaying voters away from Bette Davis and arranging for Joan to both present (Best Director) and accept (Best Actress should Bancroft or Page win), it's time for Oscar night. A whole army of hair and makeup people swam Chez Crawford...

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Feud: Bette and Joan "And the Winner Is" (Part 1)

Previously on Feud: Bette and Joan
1 "Pilot" 2 "The Other Woman"  3 "Mommie Dearest"  4 "More or Less" 

-Do you have any comment on your co-star Joan Crawford being snubbed?

-Define "snub"! 

by Nathaniel R

If you had told me at any point before Feud: Bette and Joan was announced to the world that there would one day be a TV show that spent a full hour recreating the drama of a single Oscar night, I would never have believed you. If that imaginative hurtle was cleared I would then preemptively call it the single greatest TV hour in the history of television. But here we are with Feud and the reality is, if not the fantasy, still the best hour of Feud as a series. The concept of the series has so far outpaced the reality of it that it's lapped by several times already. Which is to say that if you've been reading along you know that I don't love the show. So I'll turn over the finale 3 episodes to team members who are maybe enjoying it a bit more (with one last Feud-related post from me after the season has wrapped). Still, I can't not review this Oscar-themed episode.  "And the Winner Is..." was entirely riveting even though all Oscar buffs had spoiler alerts in their DNA!

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