Feud (TV series)

Summary

The first season, entitled Bette and Joan, centers on the backstage battle between Bette Davis (Susan Sarandon) and Joan Crawford (Jessica Lange) during the production of their 1962 film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?.

On February 28, 2017, FX renewed the series for a 10-episode second season, to be titled Charles and Diana, which will focus on the relationship between Charles, Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales.

Regular

Special guest stars

Recurring

Development

A fan of Davis since childhood, Ryan Murphy interviewed the actress just months before her death in 1989. The agreed-upon 20-minute interview lasted four hours, and inspired his characterization of Davis in Feud. He said, "When I would ask her about Joan Crawford ... She would just go on about how much she hated her. But then she would sort of say ... 'She was a professional. And I admired that'." Murphy first conceived Bette and Joan as a film years before the FX series, and approached both Sarandon and Lange about the lead roles. Sarandon said, "It just felt like it didn't have a context, just being bitchy and kind of funny, but what else? In expanding it to eight hours, you could get more complexity and so many other characters." Season 1 of Feud was being written at the same time that Murphy was forming his Half Foundation, which promotes an increased presence of women in film and television production positions. The season features 15 acting roles for women over 40, and half the episodes were directed by women, including Helen Hunt.

Feud, developed by Murphy, was picked up to series by FX on May 5, 2016. Season 1 is based on a feature-length script called Best Actress by Jaffe Cohen and Michael Zam. Bette and Joan is inspired by the real-life feud between Crawford and Davis, and explores issues of sexism, ageism and misogyny in Hollywood. Sarandon said, "In our story, it was a fact that [the people behind Baby Jane] encouraged the animosity [between Crawford and Davis], first of all to control them, second of all to make what they thought was more onscreen tension, and that really hasn't changed a lot." Melanie McFarland of Salon wrote that the series shows "just how brutal the Hollywood system was on some of the greatest talents in its firmament" and that it "cuts to the root of why collaborating and delighting in the fall of the mighty is eternally marketable." The Crawford-Davis feud was also documented in Shaun Considine's 1989 book Bette and Joan: The Divine Feud.

Casting

Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon were attached to star as Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. Alfred Molina, Stanley Tucci, Judy Davis, and Dominic Burgess were also a part of the cast, in the roles of Robert Aldrich, Jack L. Warner, Hedda Hopper, and Victor Buono, respectively. In August 2016, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Sarah Paulson joined the cast playing Olivia de Havilland and Geraldine Page, respectively. In September 2016, it was reported that American Horror Story executive producer Tim Minear would be co-showrunning the series with Murphy. Jackie Hoffman also joined the cast as Mamacita, Crawford's housekeeper. In November 2016, Molly Price, Kathy Bates and Alison Wright joined the cast of the series, in the roles of Harriet Foster, Joan Blondell, and Pauline Jamison. In January 2017, it was announced Kiernan Shipka was cast in the series as Davis's daughter.

Sarandon admitted to initially being "overwhelmed and terrified" about the prospect of portraying Davis accurately. She said, "She's so big and she really was so big, so I tried not to make her a caricature or someone a female impersonator would do ... That was my fear, that she would just be kind of one-dimensional." Lange said that her performance was informed by her view that Crawford's "brutal childhood" was masked by the "beautiful, impenetrable veneer of this great, gorgeous movie star". Lange said, "So she was always on, which is a tremendous burden in and of itself, but always there was this thing lurking underneath of being this poverty-stricken, abused, unloved, abandoned young child and woman." Both Sarandon and Lange researched their roles by reading books by and about Davis and Crawford, and watching and listening to TV performances and recordings.

Marketing

Murphy gave several interviews about the show during the 2017 Winter TCA Press Tour. To promote the show, FX has relied mostly on word-of-mouth marketing, via social media, teaser trailers, and the star power of Murphy, Sarandon, Lange, Davis, and Crawford. The show's first teaser was released on January 19, 2017, and the second the following day. That same week, Lange and Sarandon appeared on the cover of Entertainment Weekly as Crawford and Davis. FX released another teaser on January 23, two on February 5, one on February 7, and one on February 8. A short commercial for the show also aired during Super Bowl LI. Bette and Joan had a red carpet premiere at the Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles on March 1, 2017.

Broadcast

The first season of 8 episodes, Bette and Joan, premiered on March 5, 2017.

Critical response

The first season of Feud received positive reviews from critics. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the season has an approval rating of 91% based on 65 reviews, with an average rating of 8.03/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "While campily and sweetly indulgent, Feud: Bette and Joan provides poignant understanding of humanity, sorrow, and pain while breezily feeding inquisitive gossip-starved minds." On Metacritic, the season has a score of 81 out of 100, based on 43 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Melanie McFarland of Salon called the writing "creatively wicked" and the series "outrageously fantastic", praising Lange and Sarandon for their performances and for "tempering their decadent rages and vengeful spats with a gutting sense of loneliness that tempers its lightness in solemnity." Verne Gay of Newsday wrote that the series is "Full of joy, humor, brilliant writing and performances, and a deep unabiding love for what really makes Hollywood great—the women." People called the series "bitter, biting and entertaining". The Atlantic's Spencer Kornhaber described the first few episodes as "deft and satisfying" but suggested that "maybe six installments, rather than eight, were all this tale needed". Alan Sepinwall of Uproxx wrote that the series is "big and it's catty, but it's also smart and elegant, with the old Hollywood setting toning down some of Murphy's more scattershot creative impulses."

Not all reviews were positive. Sonia Saraiya of Variety compared Bette and Joan unfavorably to Murphy's The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story, writing that Feud is "neither as brilliantly campy and hateful as What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? nor as contextualizing and profound as People v. O. J. Simpson." David Weigand of the San Francisco Chronicle gave the series a mixed review, criticizing the script and Lange's performance, but praising Sarandon's, writing: "Lange is always interesting, but she’s only occasionally convincing here as Crawford. The voice is too high, for one thing. Sarandon fares better, as much good as that does with such a lousy script."

Ratings

The first episode drew 2.26 million live-plus-same-day viewers, which Deadline characterized as "solid" and made it the most watched program on FX that week. In comparison, the premiere of The People v. O. J. Simpson attracted 5.1 million viewers in 2016, and the FX limited series Fargo got 2.66 million in 2014.