The Full Trailer For “Impeachment: American Crime Story” Is Here
After teasing the first look at the series that will no doubt go on to sweep the Emmys and cause massive waves of mid-90s nostalgia for The Gap, FX has dropped the first trailer for Ryan Murphy’s Impeachment: American Crime Story. We get to see what everyone looks like in Impeachment-era styling, wigs, and prosthetics. Just like all Ryan Murphy projects, the results are achieved with varying degrees of success. Some look great (Beanie Feldstein’s turn as Monica Lewinsky) and others will make you wonder what is going on (Clive Owen’s best estimate of a Bill Clinton impression). But I have to hand it to Ryan for the perfect casting in that television above. Nothing brings me back to 1998 like the low-frequency buzz and aggressive static shock I’d get from sitting too close to the ol’ Sony Trinitron tube TV.
Impeachment is all about the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal that rocked the nation in January 1998, after The Drudge Report published the story of President Bill Clinton’s wrong relationship with White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. Ryan worked with Monica Lewinsky to adapt Jeffrey Toobin’s book A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President. The cast includes Clive as Bill, Beanie as Monica, Sarah Paulson as Linda Tripp, Annaleigh Ashford as Paula Jones, Taran Killam as Paula’s husband who sounds exactly like Kenny Powers, Billy Eichner as Matt Drudge, Edie Falco as Hillary Clinton, and Cobie Smulders as Ann Coulter.
The trailer introduces them all and I’m getting mid-to-late 90s from some of the characters, but others look like they know their way around avocado toast and TikTok. But perfectly executed decade-specific continuity is nearly impossible to achieve when so much of the budget went to the same special effects makeup house they took Jared Leto to for House of Gucci. Clive Owen and Sarah Paulson ate up about 90% of that budget. Quick-set rubber and spirit gum is expensive!
Poor Edie Falco only got half as Hillary as I was hoping (I’ll blame it on the budget). I love love LOVE Edie Falco with my whole heart, so it pains me to say that Edie’s Hillary is more like Carmela Soprano if she shopped at White House Black Market. I need more volume in the hair! But the gravest, most offensive character reveal in this trailer is Cobie Smulders’ Ann Coulter.
Yup, that’s supposed to be Ann Coulter. I know The Crown was toying with the idea of putting a disclaimer on their show so that viewers know it’s historically-inspired fiction. But Ryan Murphy doesn’t have to do that here. Everyone will accept this is a very loose re-imagining of the truth because a pretty human woman was cast as Ann Coulter, and not a stale buffet breadstick with two googly eyes pasted on.
Pic: YouTube