After a handful of tedious episodes following Truman (Tom Hollander) and Truman alone, Feud: Capote vs. The Swans is finally giving us what we’ve wanted this entire time: a Babe Paley-centric (Naomi Watts) episode. Thank goodness. Episode 7 may be long overdue, but seeing as Babe’s swan song is the best episode of the season thus far, it’s certainly worth the wait.
We’re back in 1978, where Babe has learned that she has six months—or less—to live before cancer will consume her body. Babe has finally taken control over her life. She yells at Bill (Treat Williams), who tries to cut down her cigarette usage and blasts her for mistreating their daughter Kate. She could continue chemo, Bill insists. But Babe is ready to die. He asks his wife if being with him was truly so bad that she’s ready to kill herself. Yes, Babe says; it really was that bad.
Babe grabs lunch with the swans at La Côte Basque, where Lee (Calista Flockhart) gushes about her recent engagement. Everyone is merry—until Truman is mentioned. The girls ask C. Z. (Chloë Sevigny) how he’s doing, and her sorrowful face, bunched up and mournful, says it all. Truman is really, really suffering. He’d surely love to hear from his friends, who are still, three years later, giving him the silent treatment. Slim (Diane Lane), Lee, and Babe are quiet after this recommendation, so C. Z. finally fights back: They’re only doing this out of rage.
Slim and Lee shake their heads, but Babe agrees: Yes, the women are treating Truman with disregard because if they’re seen cozying up to him after all these years, they’ll be seen as laughing stocks. Slim disagrees—they hate him because of moral reasons, not because of appearances. But Babe expresses her regret over how they handled the situation, wishing she could go back in time, laugh it off, and accept how little it mattered in reality.
Watching the women argue, a stressed C. Z. asks to change the subject. Babe obliges because she has another important discussion topic: She wants to throw a huge party. After describing the intricate details—a lovely seafood tower, napkins folded to look like flowers, a guest list full of New York’s biggest names—Babe explains why she wants to throw the party. It will be held after she dies, as a part of her memorial service. This is how Babe wants to go out: in style.
Babe returns home to find Bill on the phone with Kate, who has no interest in visiting her sickly mother in her final months alive. Bill tries to reconcile with Babe’s horrible parenting, saying that maybe she just “wasn’t built to be a mother.” It’s quite the thing to say about your dying partner, and it would be even more harrowing if we had any image of what Babe was actually like as a mother. So far, we’ve seen one scene of Babe with her daughter in this show. More set-up could’ve provided an extra layer of emotional depth to Babe’s final scenes.
Kate says she’ll only visit when Bill can hear Babe’s “death rattle,” and that’s the end of that. Babe, upset, starts writing a diary of everything she’s done wrong in her life. She’s grateful to have had beauty—not just in her appearance, but also in her friends, her home, and her family—although she took it for granted up until her final moments. As Babe writes in her diary, Truman appears, reading old entries and adding his own edits. Babe is thrilled to see her old friend. They’ll get gussied up and go to dinner.
Before they can make it out of Babe’s apartment, Babe whispers to Truman about a secret. “I’m famous for my discretion,” Truman jokes, giving Babe a hearty laugh. Babe spills: Truman is one of her so-called “top three.” These are people you really mesh with, who you always forgive, who are the most precious resource in life. Some people only have one. Some people don’t get any. “You don’t select your top three,” Babe says. “They’re the ones you collide with—you smash each other into bits, get all mixed up, and never come apart.” This bit is mesmerizing, like the brilliant fireworks that explode outside of Babe’s windows.
This seemed to be a dream, but the hallucination probes real when Babe walks into her bathroom to find a swan swimming in her tub.
“Am I dead?” Babe asks.
“Almost,” Truman says. “In your final hour, yes.”
A fast cutaway to real life shows a sickly Babe squeaking out her last breaths in bed. Kate runs in to say goodbye to her mother. And halfway through the episode, Babe Paley dies, surrounded by her family and the vision of a once-loved one.
C. Z. visits Truman in the morning to break the bad news, and when she wakes him, he can tell—Babe is dead. It’s as if they’re cosmically connected, and Truman sensed immediately that she had departed from the living. Truman says he has to finish Babe’s eulogy, but C. Z. warns that he won’t be invited. Instead, he’ll have to read his current draft to C. Z., who listens with tears in her eyes.
Truman reads his eulogy, which is hard to summarize, because it is so…Truman. The eulogy belongs to him. But let me try: Truman can feel Babe everywhere. Everyone should continue talking with her, because if you listen hard enough, she’ll always speak right back. Instead of mourning her, the world should be able to still see her everywhere—in clothes, in her family, and even in reflections. Truman can see Babe in his reflection, because he gave her all his best parts. Truman hasn’t written the ending—it’s currently just “et cetera, et cetera, et cetera”—so C. Z. thanks him and cries as she leaves.
At the funeral, the swans flock together while grieving the loss of their friend. Babe was the glue that held them all together. Now, an array of women giggle over a giddy Bill, who is already on the prowl for a new mate. “Good luck to whoever he ends up picking,” snarks Lee, “because that is not a job for the faint of heart.” C. Z. adds that Truman would have a wicked quip for Bill’s carelessness. The trio are silent, somewhat sad that Truman isn’t around. They try to make lunch plans for the next week and fail—organizing was always Babe’s job.
After the funeral, Feud makes a harsh cut to Stanley Siegel’s talk show, where Truman is giving an interview while nearly incapacitated from drinking. Swaying back and forth in his chair, Truman looks like a flimsy palm tree in the middle of a hurricane, about ready to crash without support. He blacks out and wakes up in a hospital next to Jack (Joe Mantello), who has taken him to a detox facility. Jack is seeing someone new who convinced him to help Truman out one last time, so here they are.
Jack leaves, and now, Truman really has no one to go to. He’s afraid to be alone. He calls up Joanne (Molly Ringwald), who allows him to stay with her in California. Truman is dying. He’s having hallucinations, which cause him to nearly drown in Joanne’s pool, and he’s physically ill, too. Mirroring the first half of the episode, Truman starts to see Babe in feverish visions.
Babe insults Joanne’s interior design—classic Babe—and tries to assess what’s wrong with Truman. He’s sunburnt, he has a fever, and his heart is swollen. Truman coos for Babe’s cool hand on his forehead. Babe forgives Truman for breaking his promise to never write about her. And then, there’s these lines of dialogue, which eerily parallel those from Babe’s death sequence:
“I’m not alive, am I?” Truman whispers. “I’m dead.”
“You have been for a very long time, Tru,” says Babe.
Then, Babe and Truman are on the beach. Babe runs her hand down Truman’s face.
Cut to Joanne, who calls Jack to tell him Truman has passed. After calling out for his mom, Truman’s last words were, “Beautiful Babe.” This seems like a perfect finale moment, two swan songs echoing each other—but there’s still one more episode before we bid farewell to Capote and his swans.