Gaslit

Julia Roberts plays Martha Mitchell in Gaslit, an entertaining new Starz series about the Watergate scandal that ended Richard Nixon's presidency.

Like so many of the decisions made in Gaslit, it is a show of devotion that is born out of a dangerous delusion, one which prioritizes power and position over morality. The series, which was created by Robbie Pickering and directed in its entirety by Matt Ross (Captain Fantastic), occasionally attempts to broaden its scope and paint a comprehensive portrait of 1970s American society, but it is only intermittently successful at doing that. If Martha and John are on the downslope of a once-great marriage when Gaslit begins, then John Dean (Dan Stevens) and Maureen “Mo” Kane (Betty Gilpin) are, as Martha sadly observes in the show’s premiere, at “the beginning of something.” John’s a member of Nixon’s White House counsel and Mo’s a stewardess. As a result, much of the drama in Gaslit stems from Martha and John’s toxic relationship, one that ricochets between loving and sexual to abusive and demeaning repeatedly throughout the series. Opposite her, Penn is fittingly sleazy — if a little underused — as John Mitchell, a political scumbag of the highest order who is brought to life in the show via several layers of impressive prosthetic makeup. It’s a show that charts the downfall of Richard Nixon’s presidency but rarely shows the man himself because it’s too busy investigating the motivations of the men (and women) who were willing to commit treason for him.

'Gaslit' premiere recap: Martha Mitchell struggles with her marriage and politics, while John Dean is drawn into the Watergate conspiracy.

John invites her to the fundraiser anyways and once she finds out it’s for the Mitchells, she promises to think about it. Dean changes his mind about resigning and exits the office. But later, Dean “runs into” Mo at the airport (he stalked the hell out of her), and she calls him “a little psychopath” for tracking her down. The election is around the bend, and Mitchell asks Martha to keep things quiet for just a few more months. He was manipulated by Mitchell. “Learn to recognize a snake when you see one,” Haldeman suggests. To thank Dean for his work, Mitchell invites him to Martha’s fundraiser at his house. Martha says she learned long ago that she will say how she feels, and if it doesn’t conform to the president’s message, so be it. (Mostly because Liddy seems like a total nutjob who might murder him where he stands.) But that said, Dean says they should never talk about it ever again. It’s a tale woven deeply into the fabric of American history, but here it’s told with a quirky sense of humor and from a fresh new angle. Dean goes to see his boss, John Mitchell, who says he’s “re-evaluating” personnel. “History isn’t written by the feeble masses — the pissants, the commies, the queers and the women,” the political zealot tells us. Thus is our introduction to this fresh spin on Nixon’s re-election campaign and the scandal that followed, only this time, the story revolves around the lesser-known character who made up his inner circle.

It's a rare return to the small screen for Julia Roberts in Gaslit, the Watergate series premiering on Sunday.

How to Watch Gaslit Series Premiere Today: Gaslit is a show based on the Slow Burn podcast by Leon Neyfakh and will chronicle the events of the Watergate scandal from a less familiar point of view of Martha Mitchell. Julia Roberts will star as Martha, who was the wife of one of the key conspirators in the Watergate scandal. How to Watch Gaslit Series Premiere: Live Stream, TV Channel, Start Time

The beating heart of Starz's new Watergate drama, Gaslit, is its depiction of the volatile marriage between President Nixon's Attorney General John Mitchell ...

Mitchell said she was held hostage in the hotel room for days and was even pinned to the ground by the guards and injected with sedatives. Things got much worse for John Mitchell that fall when The Washington Post reported that he was in charge of a secret Republican slush fund used to gather intelligence on potential threats to President Nixon. He denied it, but as we know now, the reporting checked out. So Mitchell suggested his wife stay out on the west coast for some additional r&r while he returned to D.C.. On his way out the door, Mitchell ordered his security guards to keep Martha in the dark about the news and asked them to prevent her from reaching out to any reporters. “It could have been worse,” Mitchell said to the press after receiving his sentence. An article in McCall’s recalls headlines from the time reading "MITCHELL GIVES UP POLITICS FOR LOVE." This was after weeks of Martha phoning reporters and intimating about the Watergate and the ensuing cover-up. Nixon’s staffers labeled her a desperate alcoholic in the papers and spread rumors about her “mental instabilities” on television. As the head of CREEP, Mitchell was the one to give G. Gordon Liddy the green light to break into Watergate. (Fun fact: As a kid growing up in New Jersey, G. Gordon Liddy used to eat rats to strengthen his resolve. Never one to hold her tongue, Martha Mitchell and her penchant for gossip found a welcome audience in the D.C. press. According to the article, Mitchell often greeted his wife with “an unruffled ‘Hi gorgeous.’” In the same piece, Martha says, “John is an extremely outstanding person.” She claimed that nothing bothered him. Nixon was forced to resign in no small part due to Martha Mitchell’s whistleblowing, John Mitchell was in prison due to his misplaced loyalty to Nixon, and Martha Mitchell was left penniless and on the verge of death due to the Nixon administration’s ruthless corruption and her husband’s cowardly cruelty. Martha Mitchell (née Beall) was born in 1918 in rural Arkansas. Her father was a cotton broker, and her mother was a teacher. When Nixon decided to run for president in 1968, he tapped Mitchell to oversee his campaign.

Julia Roberts is fantastic as 'mouth of the south' Martha Mitchell in this prestige bit of TV – and she knows it.

This side of the story is superior to the Four-Lions-at-the-White-House farce of the break-in, and it is far more intriguing, though it is fun to see Chris Bauer (of The Wire and The Deuce fame) as the half-chilling, half-bumbling James McCord. There is just a slight sense of unevenness. (This isn’t light on symbolism, and those familiar with the Martha Mitchell side of the story will spot many signposts along the way.) The scene in which he is challenged over the definition of a gemstone is pure silliness, and very funny. Watergate and Nixon are a familiar story to many, though, so in order to breathe some fresh air into it, the series takes a sideways glance, using “mouth of the south” Martha Mitchell (Roberts) and her husband as its way in. It is based on a highly acclaimed podcast, Slow Burn (the Watergate season); it is a period drama that looks the business; it reframes a well-known historical story; and it is led by A-list movie stars, in this case Julia Roberts and Sean Penn. Once, this combination of ingredients would have made Gaslit a rare delicacy. It plays many of the macho antics for comedy, which works well, because it is often dealing with belief-defying stupidity. Plenty of people saw the clip of Dan Stevens on The One Show that went viral recently.

Stevens was initially keen to sit down with the Republican lawyer, but the actor changed his mind once word got out of the planned meeting.

A bit more money and the same thing for another decade,” Stevens replies, “or the great unknown. “But the question is what would satisfy you? Stevens says now, “It’s not something I expect people to readily understand.

Julia Roberts, Sean Penn, Dan Stevens, Betty Gilpin and more star in this political thriller that lacks cohesion.

Shea Wigham in "Gaslit" (Starz)"Gaslit" sizzles with some hilarious lines, not all of them spoken by Martha, who does get zingers like: "Jesus Christ wouldn't make it through the Republican primary." And a lot to try to balance. The gaslighting of the title doesn't begin right away, it isn't the biggest part and it's also an anachronism to call the show after a kind of psychological abuse that would not be known to Martha or any of the characters at the time. "Gaslit" is being billed as the Julia Roberts show, but it's really an ensemble piece. Over the course of the seven episodes given for review, it sparks the most when the minor characters are allowed to take the stage. His portrayal of John Mitchell stands out in the series, as does, of course, Julia Roberts as his wife, Martha. Deeply loving, deeply violent and always sparring, increasingly desperately, the two have a relationship that recalls another Martha, from "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

Today, we know that Mitchell, the wife of U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell under President Richard Nixon, was right: Nixon was inextricably tied to the 1972 ...

A plodding new series shows us the infamous Seventies US political scandal through the eyes of Martha Mitchell, wife of Richard Nixon's attorney-general, ...

And John Dean is too concerned with jockeying for White House position to enjoy that he’s on the exclusive guest list at all. The Mitchells always made a fractious pair, but watching the buoyant John and Mo struggle to negotiate the Watergate fallout and John’s infamous role in it (Starz has asked journalists to avoid specifics to protect the show’s suspense) becomes one of the series’ more intriguing subplots. For a picture of marital bliss, Gaslit instead looks to John Dean and his leftie girlfriend Mo Kane (a plucky Betty Gilpin), characters whose scenes feel lifted from a different, lighter series. He’s joined by Dan Stevens as enterprising if naive White House lawyer John Dean, who will eventually be asked to lie for the president, and Sean Penn, struggling to distinguish himself from underneath the waxy prosthetic jowls of his John Mitchell mask. And not even Roberts’s blistering portrayal of a woman terrorised into silence is enough to save a drama that is somehow both plodding and overreaching. Julia Roberts can elevate a scene with nothing but the staccato of her whisper or the anxious fondling of an earring.

Julia Roberts stars as the wife of John Mitchell, President Richard M. Nixon's attorney general at the time of the scandal.

The men of "Gaslit" are preoccupied with shifting blame and sticking others with assignments that will backfire on them in the end. Martha Mitchell wasn't good, not in the way the patriarchy demanded in 1972 and beyond. Roberts said on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" that Martha Mitchell would be popular today. From the vast distance of 50 years, the events of Watergate seem a tame precursor to the assaults on democracy that America faces today. In one scene, "Gaslit" even coyly plays on past adaptation of the story like the 1976 film version of "All the President's Men." It shows Bob Woodward, shown only from the back, slipping into a court hearing for the burglars. It's "Lord of the Flies" with black suits and stiff cocktails before dinner. Roberts is superb as she reveals the toll the smear campaign took on Mitchell and her marriage, which is rooted in real passion but threatened by her husband's wavering loyalty. "Gaslit" describes Mitchell in its press notes as "the first person to publicly connect the Nixon administration to Watergate." But in real life, she was no progressive whistleblower. After the bungled 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee's offices in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., leaves members of Nixon's team scrambling to cover up their dirty deeds, Mitchell becomes a potential liability for the White House. The effort to keep her quiet results in her being drugged and virtually kept prisoner for days. In the early 1970s, Mitchell was discredited by the Nixon administration as mentally unstable. And if that doesn't conform to the president's message, so be it. A biography of Martha Mitchell by journalist Winzola McLendon describes a floral arrangement sent to her 1976 funeral by an unidentified fan.

A new series Gaslit follows the lesser-known characters that were caught up in President Nixon's Watergate scandal. The series follows the attorney general ...

Glipin is best known for her role as Debbie in the Netflix series Glow. The first episode of the series is now out for UK viewers to enjoy. Mitchell, who’s Nixon’s best friend, must decide whether he has to be loyal to his wife or the President.

Martha Mitchell spoke out against Richard Nixon – and his involvement in the Watergate scandal – at a time when it wasn't considered appropriate.

She was the first person to publicly blow the whistle on these people. Even the heroes of the story were racist and sexist and marginalizing the people whose stories should have been told.” Gilpin says when you see the Watergate story from the female perspective you realize “they are women in 1972 struggling with the obstacles that women of the time dealt with. “Gaslit,” Executive Producer Robbie Pickering says, doesn’t focus on the minutiae of the case, but the two marriages “and how complicity either destroys or binds relationships together. In “Gaslit,” a STARZ limited series, producers attempt to show what kind of intrigue was afoot in the Nixon White House. Martha Mitchell was sort of refreshing, even to people who didn’t agree with her politics.”