“Feuds are never about hate; feuds are about pain,” says Catherine Zeta-Jones as Olivia de Havilland in a seeming thesis statement in the trailer for the first season of Ryan Murphy’s Feud — which dramatizes the bitterness between What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? costars Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. (The former played by Susan Sarandon, the latter by Murphy veteran Jessica Lange.)
The trailer reveals what looks to be a more sensitive take than you might expect if your only experience of a Ryan Murphy show is through American Horror Story or Scream Queens. Though, fear not, this first look still makes you want to write trite phrases like “wicked fun.”
Clips of the series had previously been shared, but this 1.5 minute trailer is the biggest glimpse of what this show will look like and attempt thematically: relishing Old Hollywood aesthetics while mining the tensions caused by the time’s and industry’s notions of gender — while also deeply enjoying the spectacle of watching two revered women in beautiful costumes hating on each other. (Or, per the Havilland line, taking out their internal pains on each other…in ways outwardly reflective of hatred.)
Watch the trailer: