Airdate: Feud: Capote vs. The Swans

Ryan Murphy’s long-awaited anthology Feud returns to TV in 2024 with Capote vs. The Swans, on Binge & Showcase.

The series, based on the bestselling book ‘Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era’ by Laurence Leamer, stars an ensemble cast including Tom Hollander, Naomi Watts, Diane Lane, Chloë Sevigny, Calista Flockhart, Demi Moore, Molly Ringwald,  Joe Mantello, Russell Tovey and the late Treat Williams.

Acclaimed writer Truman Capote (Hollander) surrounded himself with a coterie of society’s most elite women – rich, glamorous socialites who defined a bygone era of high society New York – whom he nicknamed “the swans.” Beautiful and distinguished, the group included grande dame Barbara “Babe” Paley (Watts), Slim Keith (Lane), C.Z. Guest (Sevigny) and Lee Radziwill (Flockhart). Enchanted and captivated by these doyennes, Capote ingratiated himself into their lives, befriending them and becoming their confidante, only to ultimately betray them by writing a thinly veiled fictionalisation of their lives, exposing their most intimate secrets.

When an excerpt from the book, ‘Answered Prayers,’ Capote’s planned magnum opus, was published in Esquire, it effectively destroyed his relationship with his swans, banished him from the high society he so loved and sent him into a spiral of self-destruction from which he would ultimately never recover.

Written for television by Jon Robin Baitz, Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans was directed by Gus Van Sant, Max Winkler and Jennifer Lynch. The show is executive produced by Ryan Murphy, Alexis Martin Woodall, Baitz, Van Sant, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Naomi Watts, Eric Kovtun and Scott Robertson. It is produced by 20th Television.

Thursday 1 February on Binge / 9:30pm on Showcase.