American Crime Story S03E07 is the seventh episode of the third season of the true-life crime FX TV drama anthology series. Entitled “Impeachment” this season revolves around the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal and is based on the book A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President by Jeffrey Toobin.
Entitled “The Assassination of Monica Lewinsky”, American Crime Story S03E07 is the probably the best episode of this third season thus far. Well, that is to be expected as this is the episode the proverbial shit hits the fans in the sex scandal. There is no more ponderous development of the characters of Linda Tripp and Lewinsky – this is the payoff and the narrative moves swiftly to cover these infamous events.
All the participants of this sordid tale have been sent to their respective corners to lick their wounds and plan for what comes next. None more than President Bill Clinton and the First Lady Hillary Clinton. The steps that the couple take to preserve their situation and to fight the allegations demonstrate the power that they collectively wield compared to the protagonists of the piece viz. Tripp and Lewinsky.
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For Lewinsky and Tripp, the bottom of their worlds basically fall off. While both are not quite innocents and by no means victim, their actions back-fired on themselves in a manner that neither could have envisaged. The ugliness of public shaming that has become routine in the social media age essentially began here with this scandal.
American Crime Story S03E07 does an excellent job in depicting the damage that the media does on both Lewinsky and Tripp – while true that both had brought the attention on to themselves to a certain extent but the scale of the abuse was simply not justified.
With three episodes left, American Crime Story S03E07 is an excellent primer for the shit show that is still to come. Essential.
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