HBO Max White House Plumbers (2023) (1 Viewer)

[Adam Lenhardt]

"History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. " -Karl Marx

This five-part HBO miniseries from David Mandel ("VEEP") revisits the Watergate scandal from the perspective of Nixon's "fixers", starting with E. Howard Hunt (Woody Harrelson) and G. Gordon Liddy (Justin Theroux) being hired to work in the White House Special Investigations Unit following Daniel Ellsberg's leak of the Pentagon Papers. Even though the players are real and the events are (mostly) real, the tone has a lot more in common with "VEEP" than All the President's Men.

The first episode has a number of beats that made me laugh out loud, but I do think it might get a little too bogged down in the minutia of executive branch office politics and the Hunt family's drama.

They filmed some scenes outside my work back in August 2021, with the government buildings in downtown Albany presumably standing in for early seventies Washington DC. I took this photo of Woody Harrelson's "Mothership" when I made my coffee run that day:

 

[SamT]

Oh, is this even more comedic than Gaslit? I thought that was the funny one and this is going to be the serious one!

But I doubt their Gordon Liddy could be as crazy as Gaslit's!

 

[SamT]

Saw the first episode. This was a lot more on the comedic side than Gaslit as I remember. What's with the Watergate that lends itself to comedy!

I liked it by the way.

 

[Bernard McNair]

I watched the first episode; the farce was too broad for me and we moved onto Full Circle.

 

[SamT]

I finished it, I really enjoyed it. Give it a try. I enjoyed it more than the other one. Surprisingly without changing tone, it feels more dramatic at the end and also they didn't portray John Dean in a very good light!