Season 1, Episode 8 – Even in its finale, Feud can’t manage to muster enough conflict to make Joan Crawford and Bette Davis’ fictional feud compelling. “You Mean All This Time We Could Have Been Friends?” offers little in the way of growth, resolution, or narrative while it stumbles through shallow emotions to its long-awaited termination.

Season 1, Episode 7 – Feud finally hits the right level of vindictive manipulation in “Abandoned!” allowing both Crawford and Davis to own their personal problems while underscoring the true basis of their hatred. The episode emphasizes the issues of the characters themselves, rather than trying to make a misguided point about misogyny, and the story stands up better with that more personal conflict at the core.

Season 1, Episode 6 – Feud continues to bumble its way through 1960s Hollywood, hitting sporadically upon events and issues without ever pausing to examine them. “Hagsploitation” is another example of the series’ aimlessness, presenting the characters as victims of circumstance without achieving a narrative goal or even providing cheap thrills.

Season 1, Episode 5 – Feud wastes the story of the 1963 Oscars—which began the real-life hatred between Bette and Joan—by ignoring motivation in favor of sequential melodrama. Yet even that can’t manage to generate tension or emotion in this patronizing and reductive rendition of a story that has so much factual dramatic potential.

Season 1, Episode 4 – Feud finally manages to strike the perfect balance between sexism, feminism, actual history, and campy trash in “More, or Less.” With defined narrative arcs for every character, the episode explores the challenges of mixing art and business in the entertainment industry while still incorporating the over-the-top melodramatic moments that the series was created to serve up.

Season 1, Episode 3 – Feud flails by trying to sanctify the nature of motherhood rather than delivering on the promise of titling an episode “Mommie Dearest.” The series wastes all the dramatic potential of Joan Crawford’s and Bette Davis’ notorious parenting in a half-hearted attempt to soften both women, ultimately further cementing itself as a sexist nightmare.