Despite the title, it's not ice water going into Babe Paley's (Naomi Watts) veins when Feud: Capote vs the Swans episode 2 opens, it's a chemotherapy cocktail. Babe, dressed in designer clothes with a full face of makeup, sits uncomfortably in a private hospital treatment room. Bill (Treat Williams) is with her, unusually attentive.
As Babe is forced to come to terms with her own mortality, the Swans — Babe, C.Z. (Cholë Sevigny) and Slim (Diane Lane) — attend Ann Woodward's funeral in their elegant couture black mourning outfits. Behind them is Lee Radziwill (Calista Flockhart). Ann's son Jimmy (Hudson Oz) gives a eulogy that honors his mother but takes a shot at the social elite who snubbed her, and at Truman Capote.
The Swans are ruffled
At La Cote Basque after the funeral, Babe is drinking, eating and gossiping with C.Z., Slim and Lee. Slim asks if anyone has heard from Truman. Lee says she's had a card from him and that he's in Hollywood acting.
Babe, rethinking her life as she fights cancer, doesn't want to talk about Truman, as it's still an open wound for her. Slim and Lee are cold and passionate about making Truman pay for his sins.
Slim has a plan. She tells the others if they go out socially, they need to make a show of themselves going out with other gay men as companions, to show Truman he's been replaced. Also they should return Truman's notes and flowers and ignore his calls.
C.Z. thinks the plan is cruel, while Babe abruptly tells the group sometimes she is so tired of all of them that she could die. She gets up and leaves.
Truman makes a choice
While Truman (Tom Hollander) is working in Hollywood, he drunk dials Babe, but she won't take the call. Truman pops a pill, takes a shot from a flask and goes over his lines, but he soon starts hallucinating. He sees Lee, Slim, C.Z. and Babe all dressed in red. Sweating profusely, he can't remember his lines. This prompts Truman to make a big decision when he returns to New York, gathering all the liquor in the apartment and pouring it down the toilet.
The plan goes awry
Babe is resting in bed looking through boxes of expensive jewels when Slim brings her some flowers. Babe tells Slim to take whatever jewels she wants. At first Slim doesn't want anything, but as Babe insists she eventually accepts a ruby and gold bracelet that Bill gave Babe after his affair with Happy Rockefeller. Slim also notices a music box, which Babe tells her Truman gave her when he was working on Breakfast at Tiffany's. Slim tells Babe not to mention Truman, but Babe misses him.
While Slim is trying to make sure Babe doesn't let Truman back in, C.Z. is having lunch with him at La Cote Basque. C.Z. tells Truman what he did was a betrayal, but Truman defends himself by saying as a writer he documents what he sees. He adds he's trying to get himself together and asks C.Z. if she will speak to Babe on his behalf. C.Z. tells him she will try.
He also asks if he can spend Thanksgiving with C.Z. and her family and she agrees. As they are talking Lee comes in, cutting them dead with a look then walking away.
Later that day Slim drops in on C.Z. at her farm. She calls C.Z. out for seeing Truman and gives her Babe's ruby bracelet, telling her Babe wanted her to have it. Slim then insists that C.Z. cannot have Truman at Thanksgiving. C.Z. caves, calling Truman and telling him he can't come to Thanksgiving because she's sick. But Truman knows she's lying.
Thanksgiving
After John O'Shea (Russell Tovey) drops his son Chris (Daniel Adaro) off at home, John goes to Truman's apartment. Truman tells him they're not going to Florida, but rather California the next day. John, however, plans to spend Thanksgiving with his family. Truman asks why John's family would want to spend Thanksgiving with him after he left them, which causes John to punch Truman in the face. Yet Truman and John still fly to California together to have Thanksgiving with Joanne Carson (Molly Ringwald), though the tension is thick between them.
Montages show the Swans having a glamorous and extravagant Thanksgiving dinner together while Truman and John get drunk (his previous intentions to stop drinking falling by the wayside) in California at Joanne's party.
Truman, drunk and high, has another hallucination. This time it's his mother (Jessica Lange). Elegantly dressed, with a soft Southern accent she chides Truman for getting fat. She tells him that he avenged her but he's already almost dead and he should join her. Truman tells her he's not ready to die and snaps back to reality.
Also drunk and high, John causes a scene at the dinner table. He and Truman fight, and John hits Truman in front of everyone.
Jack Dunphy (Joe Mantello) calls Babe after Thanksgiving and tells her about John beating Truman in California, then when they got back to New York John put him in a hospital. But Babe hasn't forgiven Truman and she won’t talk to him or see him. What they had is gone.
Feud: Capote vs the Swans airs new episodes weekly on FX. All episodes are available the next day on Hulu in the US.
