Still, it’s Monica’s ordeal that centers the episode. It’s the enumeration of every encounter she had with the president, the details of every sexual liaison, the painstaking descriptions of who touched which body part with which body part or outside implement, the idea of who did what to whom with the intent to arouse and gratify. After spending an entire season largely hiding the actual sexual connection between Bill and Monica from view, ACS Impeachment suddenly rubs our faces in it, making us a party to Monica’s protracted public humiliation. It’s an excruciating choice on the part of showrunner and writer Sarah Burgess—and a smart one. An entire nation hungered for the salacious details of the Clinton-Lewinsky affair. Impeachment serves them to us until we can’t stand it any longer, then serves us more, and more, and more, until choking it down becomes all but unbearable. And even then, Monica is still human and humane, asking her interrogator if she’s expecting a boy or a girl. What did we do to this woman? And what does it say about ourselves that we did it?
I reviewed last night’s episode of ACS Impeachment for Decider.
Tags: american crime story, decider, impeachment: american crime story, reviews, TV, TV reviews