, Monica Lewinsky is on her way to meet her confidante and friend Linda Tripp for what she believes is a nice chat between friends. As Lewinsky descends the escalator, she is trailed by a stone-faced man in a black suit, and when her friend greets her in the food court of the mall, it becomes clear that she was led there under subterfuge. Tripp has betrayed their confidence, and Lewinsky’s secret is now a part of the larger plan to bring down Bill Clinton.
neatly ticks all of those tired boxes. The cast is stacked like a curio cabinet of his favorite toys, featuring Sarah Paulson as the show’s immediate locus. Tripp’s low self-esteem and the media’s portrayal of her as an old, bitter woman acting out of a selfish desperation seems to be the focus here, but Murphy refuses to drop this approach for a more nuanced take.
Before Lewinsky makes it to the food court at the mall, she gets a Starbucks and attends a step class, gamely engaging in light cardio before heading home to wistfully pack a box full of her Clinton memorabilia—a stuffed dog, a copy of—in preparation for her big move to New York, where she will leave the affair with the president behind.
But Paulson’s Tripp is hampered by her fat suit as well as pounds of prosthetics as she attempts to convincingly portray a power-hungry woman bound by loyalty to a job that cares little for her. In, Tripp’s body image issues are framed as the driving force behind her poor decisions, as if the sadness she feels about her body naturally manifests in treachery and a complete disregard for other people.