Scoop (2024)
April 7, 2024 9:42 PM - Subscribe
How the BBC obtained the bombshell interview with Prince Andrew about his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
I've watched this twice. The first time I was fairly kinda bored, albeit I was also distracted at the time so that might have been part of it. The second time I watched it on mute/with captions while listening to the original Prince Andrew interview and also some interviews with real-life Sam and Emily, and I got more into it. Maybe I just needed that context.
Mostly this is Billie Piper being all big eyed and authoritative and dramatic, it's kind of a slow-ish build somehow despite the Epstein stuff being set off right off the bat. It goes from "media laying off everyone yet again" to Sam lining up the big interview and talking Prince Andrew into telling his side of the story and taking charge of the narrative. One guy on Andrew's team is all "what the hell were you thinking?" to Amanda the press secretary(?) and Amanda seems to be all, "well, Andrew's charming, get into a room with him and see it." I forget who pointed this out, but I read someone saying that these people are supposed to be bucking Andrew up, and they um, certainly did.
Rufus Sewell's Prince Andrew is well done in a horrifying way, especially when he's all, "I knew Jimmy Savile" and "Trousers?" He seems to politely handle himself well at first and occasionally does spit out the politically correct answer, but also he just doesn't seem to quite get at the same time why all of this is bad? Like "it was the most convenient place to say," sir, you can't afford a hotel? And just the whole "good lord, you're a bad liar" thing. We're all just here to watch him dig a hole.
I've watched this twice. The first time I was fairly kinda bored, albeit I was also distracted at the time so that might have been part of it. The second time I watched it on mute/with captions while listening to the original Prince Andrew interview and also some interviews with real-life Sam and Emily, and I got more into it. Maybe I just needed that context.
Mostly this is Billie Piper being all big eyed and authoritative and dramatic, it's kind of a slow-ish build somehow despite the Epstein stuff being set off right off the bat. It goes from "media laying off everyone yet again" to Sam lining up the big interview and talking Prince Andrew into telling his side of the story and taking charge of the narrative. One guy on Andrew's team is all "what the hell were you thinking?" to Amanda the press secretary(?) and Amanda seems to be all, "well, Andrew's charming, get into a room with him and see it." I forget who pointed this out, but I read someone saying that these people are supposed to be bucking Andrew up, and they um, certainly did.
Rufus Sewell's Prince Andrew is well done in a horrifying way, especially when he's all, "I knew Jimmy Savile" and "Trousers?" He seems to politely handle himself well at first and occasionally does spit out the politically correct answer, but also he just doesn't seem to quite get at the same time why all of this is bad? Like "it was the most convenient place to say," sir, you can't afford a hotel? And just the whole "good lord, you're a bad liar" thing. We're all just here to watch him dig a hole.
There’s another mini series in the offing with Michael Sheen as Prince Andrew and Ruth Wilson as Emily Maitlis. Not sure the world needed two, especially as the actual interview is so jaw-droppingly …awful. It was all there.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 9:43 AM on April 8 [2 favorites]
posted by TWinbrook8 at 9:43 AM on April 8 [2 favorites]
It didn't seem like a movie-sized story, to be honest. I put this on in the background while darning socks, and it was fine but not particularly engaging. At the end, I thought to myself, "Surely the real interview can't have been that bad," and watched the real interview, and it was worse. Even if Andrew were not guilty (a big, big, big, big if), he seemed concerned only with his own image, and not in the least about Epstein's victims or horrifying actions. He seemed inhuman -- unable to even simulate the appearance of empathy. Yet another product of the sick system that is the British monarchy.
posted by ourobouros at 9:57 AM on April 8 [6 favorites]
posted by ourobouros at 9:57 AM on April 8 [6 favorites]
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posted by obfuscation at 5:48 AM on April 8 [1 favorite]