I’m conflicted here. As someone who’s never really had a keen interest in historical events, White House Plumbers is not something I’d usually check out. With that being said, this insanely talented cast was enough to convince me to educate myself, at least a little bit, about this infamous political scandal.
I can honestly say this taught me a lot about Watergate. In fact, if someone would have asked me even the day before I started this miniseries, I would have embarrassingly told you that it was a scandal involving torture at the hands of President Nixon. The real events are far less sensational, at least from my perspective. Watergate was in fact, as probably everyone but myself knew, about the break-in at the Watergate Hotel to gain information to ruin the DNC and bolster Nixon’s chances at re-election. Kind of boring. But still very illegal. Something I found painfully ironic was that the two men that led the charge felt impassioned to do so because they didn’t want the democrats to get into the White House because they were colluding with Russia. Ha!
Anyways, there were plenty of high profile political people involved in this hair-brained scheme, but at the center of it all were two boobs: E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy. I really mean it, these two were kind of clowns. The fact that they served the CIA and FBI respectively at one point is kind of concerning. Also, the amount of other people that they enlisted to help them with their scheme makes it almost more embarrassing. It seems to me that their biggest downfall was the sheer number of times they attempted to break into the DNC. While it appeared towards the end that Hunt was growing some brain cells, realizing breaking in for a fourth time would be bad news, it was too late. He was too far in with that complete loon (and possibly Nazi), Liddy.
The only person that I really liked out of this bunch was Howard’s wife (played excellently by the Brit, Lena Heady!). She tried her best for her husband, and even convinced him to finally do the right thing, but she was sadly a victim in a tragic plane crash. I was fascinated to learn of all the conspiracy theories surrounding that crash, and I desperately wonder if any of it is true! Either way, this story was pretty bonkers, and pretty embarrassing. Certainly crazier things have happened since then, but it’s incredible what money and power can achieve…until it’s totally botched by some novices.
Overall, I have to say that this five-part series was kind of boring. I found myself nodding off by the end of each episode, and while the story was bonkers as I said, it just didn’t quite capture anything particularly thrilling. And even though I enjoy a good laugh, I felt that even the deliberately comedic bits felt out of place with this story. All that though is no fault to the excellent casting in this series. You could tune in for that, but if you know this particular piece of history, you won’t be missing much.