FX network’s new Impeachment: American Crime Story video for episode 1 shows the series’ opening scene, in which the FBI confronts Monica Lewinsky. Season 3 of the FX true-crime anthology revolves around the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal that shook the nation and led to the impeachment of American president Bill Clinton in 1998. Based on Jeffrey Toobin’s book, A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President, the season will consist of ten total episodes that will air between now and the end of October.
Lewinsky, played by Beanie Feldstein in the show, was a White House intern who had an ongoing sexual relationship with Clinton, played by Clive Owen. Impeachment aims to tell the story of the women who played key roles in the events leading to Clinton’s trial and impeachment. Once news of the affair caught the public’s attention, Lewinsky was scrutinized by the press and society at large, and every aspect of her life was thrust under a microscope. The series is poised to showcase the sexism experienced by women in the workplace, as well as the media frenzy that resulted from the scandal.
Released to FX Network’s YouTube page, a new video from episode 1 of Impeachment shows the series’ opening scene, in which the FBI confronts Lewinsky about the affair. The FBI, along with Linda Tripp (Sarah Paulson), the whistleblower who exposed the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, pull Lewinsky into a secure hotel room. The scene ends with Lewinsky demanding that Tripp watch the intense interrogation to see “what she’s done to [Lewinsky].” View the entire opening scene below:
In the real-life scandal, Lewinsky began confiding in Tripp, her co-worker at the time, about her affair with the president. Tripp started secretly recording their conversations and eventually leaked them to the government and literary agent Lucianne Goldberg. As history shows, and as the series is poised to play out, the women involved received significantly more harassment and humiliation over the scandal than was ultimately experienced by Clinton himself. Impeachment's focus on the experiences of the women in the story, like Lewinsky and Tripp, rather than the president, is intended to highlight this.
Impeachment has already received a generally favorable critical reception in its early reviews, which largely praise Feldstein and Paulson’s performances as true to the characters they portray. The scene above is tense and foreboding, which fills the audience with the same sense of dread that was surely racing through Lewinsky's mind at the time. No doubt this clip is just a taste of what is to come as the rest of Impeachment: American Crime Story sets out to accurately capture the media circus that surrounded the scandal and its victims.
