In terms of being an actual tv production, this show is top notch. The acting, production value, and writing are all brilliant. Jeff Daniels throws in his best performance in quite a while, and I even enjoyed Brendan Gleeson's seething malignance in his portrayal of President Trump (even though I think it's probably not quite accurate and has more than a little personal bitterness thrown in).
The narrative itself plays pretty loose when it comes to the truth. There's many things this show expects the viewer to take as solved, undisputed fact, even though many of these "facts" are highly disputed, and have since even been flatly proven false. I don't find that really matters though as this is a tv show, and as always this is "based" on a true story, NOT a true story.
The real gem of the show, I find, is the narrative Daniels weaves with the Comey character. It's kind of a fascinating social statement told from the point of view of a high level bureaucrat, in his seemingly self delusional belief that his only fault is that he's just too darn good, too darned right, people just love him too darn much. He creates himself as Mary Sue, and seems to think if there's any fault in any of the proceeding events, it's not even conceivable that any of it is his. The FBI and himself, were just a sterling organization, and then the big evil meany bad women came along with her emails, and then the "Sammy The Bull" of business was elected, and it all went south for the bureau, and there was just nothing they could do to stop it, despite their personal amazingness.
I don't say any of this as if it's bad, I find this is a refreshingly honest, if maybe delusional take on the events. But it at least circles around what is perhaps the only real truth of the matter, if it doesn't actually hit the mark; which is that all people just live in that unique little shade of grey that is our own selective, self-serving morality, and we all tend to think we're doing good, even when we do something wrong. And in reality, there's no real heros or villains, especially on capitol hill, and it's just all messy people screwing things up and smiling as they do so, expecting an A on their test.
The narrative itself plays pretty loose when it comes to the truth. There's many things this show expects the viewer to take as solved, undisputed fact, even though many of these "facts" are highly disputed, and have since even been flatly proven false. I don't find that really matters though as this is a tv show, and as always this is "based" on a true story, NOT a true story.
The real gem of the show, I find, is the narrative Daniels weaves with the Comey character. It's kind of a fascinating social statement told from the point of view of a high level bureaucrat, in his seemingly self delusional belief that his only fault is that he's just too darn good, too darned right, people just love him too darn much. He creates himself as Mary Sue, and seems to think if there's any fault in any of the proceeding events, it's not even conceivable that any of it is his. The FBI and himself, were just a sterling organization, and then the big evil meany bad women came along with her emails, and then the "Sammy The Bull" of business was elected, and it all went south for the bureau, and there was just nothing they could do to stop it, despite their personal amazingness.
I don't say any of this as if it's bad, I find this is a refreshingly honest, if maybe delusional take on the events. But it at least circles around what is perhaps the only real truth of the matter, if it doesn't actually hit the mark; which is that all people just live in that unique little shade of grey that is our own selective, self-serving morality, and we all tend to think we're doing good, even when we do something wrong. And in reality, there's no real heros or villains, especially on capitol hill, and it's just all messy people screwing things up and smiling as they do so, expecting an A on their test.