Political scam season is alive and well, with Watergate the backdrop for two historical dramas concluding this week.
Gaslit and The First Lady approach the scandal from different perspectives, but each features a ferocious performance from a Hollywood titan that is getting lost amid the Too Much TV shuffle.
“When Julia Roberts Says No, Other Actresses Cry, Thanks!” reads a New York Times headline from 1995. Michelle Pfeiffer is one name mentioned in a story that touts Nicole Kidman, Sandra Bullock, and Meg Ryan as grateful big-name stars grabbing roles Roberts passed on. More than 25 years later, television is a haven for women over 50. So, it is hardly surprising to see both Roberts and Pfeiffer headlining historical dramas like Gaslit and The First Lady.
In fact, their performances are so mesmerizing that I wish both titles had simply chosen to focus on Martha Mitchell (Roberts) and Betty Ford (Pfeiffer). Excessive drinking, popping prescription pills like candy, and a media fascination with both women unite the GOP wives. Still, their despair, news coverage, and relationships with their teen daughters are a fork in the road. Or, to use another metaphor, they are the different sides of the same politics-meets-addiction-meets-fame coin.
Roberts and Pfeiffer have already received at least one Emmy Award nomination apiece (not to mention their combined seven Oscar noms), and there is a chance they could be competing against each other come September. Another unifying factor is that this pair should be grabbing more headlines in a crowded limited series field.
The truth is, Julia Roberts and Michelle Pfeiffer gave two of the most searing and captivating—i.e. Best—performances on TV this season, in roles that may rank among the most interesting and juiciest of their respective careers. They haven’t gotten nearly the accolades they’ve deserved for them. On the occasion of the Gaslit and The First Lady season finales, allow me to rectify that.
Watergate and its many players have had their stories told in too many ways to count across multiple mediums, to the point that it seemed there was nothing left to excavate. For me, a diet of All the President’s Men, The X-Files, and the brilliant Dick (yes, really) told me everything I thought I needed to know. Somehow I had not heard the name Martha Mitchell (or it hadn’t stuck) until listening to the first season of Slate’s Slow Burn podcast—which Robbie Pickering adapted for the Starz drama—in 2018. It would take four more years for this biopic request that I tweeted at the time to come true, and Martha would have to share this story with several others.
The media-friendly wife of Richard Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell (Sean Pean) wasn’t always a footnote. Gaslit quickly establishes Martha’s celebrity via a To Tell the Truth guest appearance. Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In and The Dinah Shore Show are also titles on Martha’s varied TV resume. Roberts might not look much like Mitchell, but the actress’s legendary megawatt smile helps sell this figure’s “Mouth of the South” persona.
Journalist Winzola “Winnie” McLendon (Allison Tolman) mentions Martha has a “76 percent name recognition with American families,” so I am not talking about a minor D.C. celeb. Contemporary audiences might not be too familiar with Martha, but Roberts is doing her best to make sure that the thorn in Nixon’s and her husband’s side is back generating those numbers. (And in a well-timed release, the documentary The Martha Mitchell Effect began streaming June 17 on Netflix.)
Martha’s celebrity has faded, whereas Betty Ford’s name is now synonymous with the drug and alcohol rehab center that opened in 1982. In its opening episode, The First Lady introduces Betty mixing drinks with Harry Nilsson’s “Coconut” serving as the unsubtle soundtrack choice. For all of The First Lady’s flaws—the main one being that its time-toggling framework spreads every storyline thin—it is impossible to look away whenever Pfeiffer is on screen. Even an on-the-nose song is rendered magnetic thanks to the actress clad in a pink quilted robe dancing like she is ready to throw it back to Grease 2 (aka the best Grease).
The First Lady divides time (not always equally) between Eleanor Roosevelt (Gillian Anderson), Betty, and Michelle Obama (Viola Davis), covering youth, marriages, and time in the White House—and after. Betty's husband was only president for two years (compared to Roosevelt’s 13 years and Obama’s eight), but this doesn’t lessen Betty or Pfeiffer’s impact. Instead, Betty’s arc is more laser-focused, in contrast to the broad-brushstroke, Wiki-leaning depiction of the other First Ladies in Aaron Cooley’s series.
It also helps that Betty’s journey was long enough ago that it doesn’t feel like regurgitating recent history—and who wants to relive the 2016 election in dramatized form? Betty’s vocal support of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), abortion rights, recommending other GOP wives read The Feminine Mystique, and openly discussing mental health are all part of her appeal, which Pfeiffer captures with effortless grace.
Betty’s enthusiasm for a public role that she had not campaigned for exponentially grows when she realizes the influence she can have on issues close to her heart. The emotional roller coaster includes a rare fraught exchange with her husband, Gerald “Jerry” Ford (Aaron Eckhart). Betty’s seething anger is aimed at the now-president (after he pardoned Nixon), and two weeks later she is diagnosed with breast cancer. Watergate and its aftermath are only a fraction of Betty’s narrative, but it also provides the foundation for searing exchanges.
In front of the press, Betty is a figure of strength who throws a football post-surgery (and she did), but Pfeiffer deftly portrays the private grief and trauma when she looks in the mirror at her mastectomy scars. Dialogue-free moments shake the script’s tendency to state the obvious, and director Susanne Bier gives the actress time and space to say it all with a look, a sigh, or tears. Later, when Betty has to shut down the pro-ERA operation she has set up in the East Wing, Pfeiffer’s face does all the heavy lifting.
In the following episode, “Nadir,” a fog of day drinking and prescription pills cannot hide the First Lady’s contempt as she watches TV and berates “that hypocrite Nancy Reagan.” Betty’s poise in public contrasts with the spiral that slowly unfolds. In comparison, Martha’s unfiltered opinions are sold as part of her Southern Charm, before she gets labeled paranoid and hysterical.
Each woman has a cocktail in one hand and a pill bottle within reach. The latter reflects the painkiller culture of the time, which continues to this day. It would be easy to lean into the messy wife cliche, but Roberts and Pfeiffer imbue these roles with swirling shame, resentment, and the ability to pretend they are fine—or at least attempt to. An expensive dress, a can of hairspray, and some pearls hide many sins, but it is impossible to suppress slurred speech.
Slipping into overacting when playing an intoxicated person is common, but Roberts and Pfeiffer could host a masterclass on how to do it right. The attempt at measured articulation, failing to focus or maintain eye contact, and looking perpetually weary is a fraction of their inebriated bag of tricks. Slow speech is a ruse to cover how drunk they are, and appearing under the influence on national TV reflects the thin line between a perfect wife mask and a hot mess.
Martha is vilified and mocked as her criticism of Nixon grows louder and her stories turn extreme. In later episodes, she swings wildly between sedate and manic; a hollow reflection replaces her once puffy face after her health deteriorates. A flashback to when the Mitchells first met in the 1950s shows the glam Roberts audiences are familiar with, which starkly contrasts with the present-day stupor.
Neither woman crosses the other’s path in either show, but the timelines intersect. Betty’s dreams of moving to Palm Springs are put on hold in 1973 (when the vice president resigned), and a flicker of crushing disappointment that she won’t be heading west anytime soon is quickly replaced by a practiced smile. But Betty is no shrinking violet, and unlike Pat Nixon, she won’t maintain a cheery visage without uttering her thoughts on matters beyond the decor.
Pat Nixon is a target for Martha’s disdain. In the first episode of Gaslit, Martha, with a butter wouldn’t melt smile on her face while posing for photos, mentions how Pat is purposefully scheduling clashing events. Using her Southern charm as a cudgel, Martha takes the high road by rearranging her party, but not without a well-placed jab.
“Are you implying that the first lady isn’t blowing her husband enough?” asks Martha’s incredulous husband after the reporter has gone. Yes, this is precisely what she is doing, but first, she feigns indignation before a perfectly well-timed, “She wouldn’t know where to start.”
Spiky back and forths between the Mitchells are equal parts foreplay and a sign of how terrible this marriage will become. Bickering turns into screaming matches resembling a Washington DC revival of Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? with a dollop of Blanche DuBois as the insults heat up. Roberts eats up every moment of these two-handers with Penn, and their chemistry reverberates with love and loathing.
“I’ve always had a hard time deciding whether Martha Mitchell was a spunky, savvy lady who divined the truth about Richard Nixon earlier than a lot of other people or simply an impossible, unreliable, self-destructive pain in the kazoo,” Katherine Winton Evans wrote in the Washington Post in 1979. Roberts offers a nuanced reading that represents both opinions and is part of recontextualizing a maligned woman trend.
“Martha Mitchell’s story is a pitiful tale. Nothing, except morbid curiosity, would draw one to it,” concludes Evans, but clearly, she did not foresee the future limited series landscape. It is also a story worthy of our time, and the humanity Roberts breaths back into Martha amid the toxic Washington landscape is a balm.
“She’s completely insane. I love her,” is how the future Mo Dean (Betty Gilpin, also delivering a layered performance) responds to the mention of Martha. Whereas Betty receives praise for her dignity and courage, Martha slides further into public embarrassment.
Betty’s dancer’s poise ensures she holds herself high even at her lowest low. She gets up on the Cabinet Room table for her final White House photos, and Pfeiffer’s playful energy captures the essence of the original image. Martha’s access isn’t as gilded as Betty’s, and in the end, her reputation cannot withstand the hit jobs. Pickering uses the Gaslit finale to offer up an apology to Martha without airbrushing the messiness out.
“Some days, it is impossible to be me,” Martha says with a wave of her hand to excuse her lateness in the finale. In the case of both Betty Ford and Martha Mitchell, both legendary actresses prove it is possible to deliver a fresh take on Watergate, the White House, and political wives.
