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It’s the week all of us Feud: Bette and Joan fans have been awaiting and dreading — the last chapter. And what an emotional, melancholy ending it was after seven weeks of laughs, drama, camp and brilliant acting. This final installment of the first season of Feud (season two will be about Charles and Diana) gave us the final acts of the lives of the two Hollywood legends in what turned out to be a sad end to their careers and lives.
Joan Crawford has reached a point in her career where she just wants to work, and is excited by the chance to play a scientist in a new movie called “The Missing Link.” It doesn’t pay much, and she can’t bring Mamacita with her — and who wasn’t relieved when Mamacita returned after so many years to help care for Miss Joan on a part time basis (and nothing was thrown at her head) — but she gets to go to England and make a movie! But, it turns out the film by Freddie Francis, of Hammer Horror fame, is a rather low budget, sordid affair with a new title: Trog. With no dressing room, a camper van her only sanctuary and a costar in a rubber caveman mask, Joan has hit the nadir of her career, a moment that coupled with her drinking has sent her around the bend, telling her agent that she will accept no more acting offers. Joan, in fact, did have one more role after Trog, a guest star spot on the TV series The Sixth Sense, but the show curiously overlooked all of Joan’s TV work, including her appearance on The Lucy Show and her most well-known role as a blind woman regaining her sight before a twist ending comes along on the pilot episode of the anthology series Night Gallery. Her segment was directed by a young man by the name of Steven Spielberg.
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But Joan had a book deal to look forward to, a sort of advice book on everything from fashion to cleanliness. Unfortunately, the people buying the book, young people, seemed to be at a signing not for the book, but to see this woman who starred in Trog and What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?. Feeling like she was just a side show at this point, Joan removed herself from the book signing and from life in general, spending all of her time in her New York apartment. But there was more tragic news as Joan learned she was suffering from cancer.
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Meanwhile, Bette is basically appearing at the opening of an envelope and accepting roles left and right, including taking the leads in several TV series pilots, none of which were ever sold to the networks. While Davis did make a ton of movies and TV shows after Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte including The Nanny, Burnt Offerings and some Disney movies, we get insight here into what kept Bette going in her later years. During a conversation with Victor Buono, with whom Bette had remained close friends, she talked about her role in the TV movie The Disappearance of Aimee in which she co-starred with Faye Dunaway. Dunaway’s total lack of professionalism gave Davis someone to hate even more than Crawford, and she told Buono that if nothing else, Joan was always a total professional on set … but not to repeat that to anyone lest her talk show bookings be cut in half.
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It’s here that we realize, as Bette did, that he career at this point was made from her talk show appearances bashing Joan. Bette also felt she had reached the lowest point of her career when she agreed to appear as the “honoree” on an episode of The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast (and I have to say the recreation of the set was remarkable, but the actor cast as Vincent Price was just dreadful), being poked at by two-bit comics and gossip columnists, with most of the jokes focusing on her relationship with Crawford. But when Victor broke the news that Joan had cancer, Bette was totally stricken. Victor suggested that Bette call Joan to bury the hatchet since they really were the only two women who could relate to what the other had been though and although she refused at first, she did later call Joan … and then was so paralyzed with fear, and perhaps regret, that she never spoke and hung up after Joan answered.
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Interestingly, while we saw Bette’s relationship with her daughter B.D. — and strained is a mild word to describe that — we never saw Joan and Christina, only got a mention here and there of her. But we did see her relationship with her twin daughters with one of them, Cathy, paying Joan a visit with her children. IN a series of vignettes, we did see Joan’s obsessive cleaning but nothing as described by Christina, and she absolutely adored her grandchildren, allowing them to scuff her floors as they slid around on her plastic covered pillows, and deeply touched that they felt she was their “real” grandmother. Even Cathy, who did not speak to Christina, told Joan that she and her sister were lucky to have been chosen by the best mommie ever. (The twins and others who knew Joan closely have vigorously rebuked Christina’s allegations.) But while Joan was enjoying her grandchildren, B.D. was keeping Bette from hers after one of the children alleged Bette had beaten the other. From now on, Bette had to come to them if she wanted to see them, and her visits would be supervised. It should be noted that B.D. also wrote her own book about her mother in the vein of Christina’s, but most saw it as another hatchet job. Joan was aware of Christina’s book, and her publisher had offered her a chance to read it before publication, but she decided not to spend her last days being hurt by someone else’s words.
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The cancer, however, was taking its toll on Joan leading to bouts of dementia. In the series’ most heartwrenching scene — and the one that’s getting some criticism for taking too much creative license — Joan is awakened by laughter in her living room. Making her way there, she sees her old friends Hedda Hopper and Jack Warner, dressed to the nines and having a grand old time. When they ask Joan to join them, she is suddenly her younger, more glamorous self and the three share their war stories of old Hollywood. And then an uninvited and unexpected guest appears — Bette Davis. Joan is not pleased but she joins the group and they all carry on like the best of friends. Hedda and Jack leave the two women to talk things out, and Bette suggest they play a card game called Regrets. Joan doesn’t want to play so as to not dredge up old memories but Bette convinces her to draw a card, certain cards they had to express a regret, and others they had to express something they wished they had done.
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Joan drew the first card and said she was sorry she wasn’t more generous with Bette. Bette drew her card and said she wished she’d been a friend to Joan. Joan’s face lit up and said it wasn’t too late, they could start now and called for Mamacita to bring the champagne to celebrate (even though Joan had quit drinking). When Mamacita finally entered the room, we suddenly see Joan, her grey hair a mess, in her nightgown, sitting in the living room, confused and wondering where everyone had gone. Such a gut-punch of a scene because had the Hollywood machine not pitted these two women against each other from the start, they probably could have been the best of friends. Some may have seen this moment as a bit of Ryan Murphy’s fancy, but those close to Joan have said she often was found having conversations with herself, or with people she used to know from her Hollywood days, so the moment is not so far-fetched. And from Murphy’s own conversations with Bette just a few weeks before she died, he learned she had wished that she and Joan had been more cordial with each other. Murphy just used these facts to construct a truly bittersweet moment because we know the two of them never spoke again.
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In fact, Joan died shortly after that, and when a reporter called Bette to get her reaction (and Bette hadn’t heard the news yet at that point), she gave the only reaction she could: “My mother said you should never say bad things about the dead, only good … Joan Crawford is dead. Good.” It was certainly a cruel remark, but I don’t think Bette meant it. It goes back to her believing that her bank account relied on her saying mean things about Joan Crawford. But the episode culminated at the Academy Awards, the framing device for the series in which Olivia de Havilland, Joan Blondell and others had been seen talking about the feud for a documentary. Bette, however, refused to participate. As the ceremony’s In Memoriam segment began, everyone gathered to watch Joan’s fleeting image. Blondell remarked that all she got was two seconds, and Bette said that’s all any of them will get, and then they all toasted Joan.
After everyone left, the film crew was packing up, a bit defeated that they would never know what really happened between Bette and Joan, and someone said the real story, what they really wanted to know was what it was like on the set of Baby Jane that first day. What did the two women do? How did they interact with each other? In the first episode, we saw them behave cordial but distant, and the episode’s final moments gave us a Bette and Joan, laughing and carrying on with each other as if they were the best of friends. It’s a moment of hope after such a sad end to the feud.
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Feud: Bette and Joan has been a complete joy to watch from beginning to end. It took me an episode or so to accept Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon as Craword and Davis, but both of them gave bravura performances and we can expect to see them battling it out come Emmy time. Most of the bets are on Sarandon to win for her performance as Davis, but I truly feel Lange gave us much more insight into a Crawford most people only know as the monster from Mommie Dearest (ironically, Crawford once said she’d want Faye Dunaway to play her in a movie). Lange delved deep into Crawford’s psyche and revealed more deeply who this person was, where she came from, the struggles she faced and endured throughout her life. Sarandon was terrific as Davis as well, and she also had her moments, but I think Crawford was written better and Lange acted the hell out of it. The show’s production design, from sets to costumes, was also top notch and the recreations of the stars’ famous, not so famous and infamous movies were amazing. Overall, I’m betting the show will take home many awards, all of them much desereved. My hat is off to everyone involved, and I am going to deeply miss these folks coming into my living room every Sunday night.
What did you think of the finale and the season overall? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!
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