White House Plumbers TV Mini Series 2023

Table Of Content

• White House Plumbers Episode 3 Recap: Don’t Drink the Whiskey at the Watergate
• White House Plumbers cast — Justin Theroux, Woody Harrelson, Lena Heady and Judy Greer
• 'Conan O'Brien Must Go' Review: Conan's Max Travel Series Is Smartly Stupid Fun
• Interviews: Woody Harrelson and Juston Theroux give the lowdown on White House Plumbers
• Travis Kelce Calls Taylor Swift ‘My Significant Other’ in Eras Ticket Auction at Patrick Mahomes’ Charity Gala
• Casting
• How many times did they break into Watergate?

Judy starred in Two and a Half Men, 13 Going On 30, Ant-Man, and Jurassic World. She’s also due to appear in The First Lady, coming out this year, which tells the story of the presidents’ wives. Hunt, Liddy and the Cubans attempt to break into the DNC offices at the Watergate to plant listening devices for the White House. With his family, Hunt’s “forever volunteering” the worst of parenting instincts. Somehow, despite the Nürnberg Rally that was their first dinner party, the Liddys and the Hunts have continued to socialize outside of work. Howard and Dorothy even invite Gordon and Fran to their country club in Maryland.

White House Plumbers Episode 3 Recap: Don’t Drink the Whiskey at the Watergate

Frank Wills' role in the Watergate break-in is pretty accurately portrayed in the show (aside from him meeting Hunt during that first, unconfirmed break-in). On the blog Rediscovering Black History from the National Archives, it says that while on his rounds on June 17, 1972, Wills spotted the tape on a door and removed it. However, when he returned later he saw that tape had been reapplied. This caused him to call the authorities, who then caught and arrested everyone. Other reports, including from the Nixon Library and History.com, mention that there were at least two break-ins — the planting of the failed bugs and the attempt to fix them was when they all were caught. On the second attempt, the entire team goes in together until James W. McCord Jr. (Toby Huss) separates from them and runs into two security guards.

White House Plumbers cast — Justin Theroux, Woody Harrelson, Lena Heady and Judy Greer

White House Plumbers Ending Explained - Screen Rant

White House Plumbers Ending Explained.

Posted: Wed, 31 May 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

They recon the doctor’s Beverly Hills office in ludicrous yet entirely penetrable disguises. They take photos of themselves on a camera borrowed from the CIA but then forget to take the film out before returning it. About halfway through the first episode of the new HBO miniseries White House Plumbers, G. Gordon Liddy and his wife, Fran — played by Justin Theroux and the impeccably outlandish Judy Greer, respectively — have Gordon’s co-worker E. Howard Hunt (Woody Harrelson) and his wife, Dorothy (Lena Headey), over for dinner. Despite its short number of episodes, White House Plumbers has a lot of history to work with. The Pentagon Papers, Watergate, and of course the aftermath of those historical events.

'Conan O'Brien Must Go' Review: Conan's Max Travel Series Is Smartly Stupid Fun

White House Plumbers endeavors to humanize its perpetrators by illustrating that beneath their buffoonery was… lots and lots more buffoonery. The series starts with this imbecility already at maximum volume and then makes it louder and louder. Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck's five-part series argues that the people in charge of the Watergate break-in were, perhaps, slightly buffoonish. The limited series is now available to stream in its entirety. I'm a huge fan of television so I really have found the perfect job, as I've been writing about TV shows, films and interviewing major television, film and sports stars for over 25 years.

Interviews: Woody Harrelson and Juston Theroux give the lowdown on White House Plumbers

Magruder earlier spoke to him and revealed that Nixon needed the photographs of everything that O’Brien had in his bottom left drawer. Even though Liddy has grown as disillusioned with his bosses as Howard, he is still staunchly loyal to Nixon. He tells Howard that if he quits now, he will prove his detractors in the CIA right, and that gets through to the other man. Then suddenly, the fifth episode decides we’re supposed to take everything seriously.

And that’s what the rest of the episode is devoted to explaining — how Mitchell could grow desperate enough to take these men up on their bonkers scheming. And how Liddy and Hunt climb their way back from the basement of Mitchell’s estimation to his good graces. This is where Kathleen Turner finally comes into play. We learn — not via chyron, but by its cousin, archival news coverage — that Turner is Dita Beard, a lobbyist for a company called International Telephone and Telegraph. In the episode’s cold open, she was typing up a memo about the time Mitchell promised ITT a favorable outcome in an antitrust lawsuit in exchange for a humongous donation to the RNC convention in San Diego. Now, the memo’s been leaked to newspaper columnist Jack Anderson.

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It turns out that Howard’s been sending out notes on White House stationery, including to the flirty flight attendant who he met on the way home from the Ellsberg break-in. I think the threat is that if Howard writes the book on Watergate, the Ellsberg scandal will break, too? I’m not entirely sure, but seeing as the book seems like a TERRIBLE idea, I guess it’s just as well!

Liddy runs upstairs, grabs a gun, and jumps from a second-floor window to surprise and terrorize the egg assailant while Hitler barks. Despite the unflinching physicality Theroux brings to his role, this is not funny. Even if it really happened, it feels stupid to watch it.

He calls it in and eventually the police arrive, catching McCord and the others in the act of breaking in. There were too many characters in this madcap dramedy and they almost all beggar belief — one outlandish caricature after another — except that they’re all real. It’s a problem that Hollywood has solved by telling the Watergate story over and over again, with the spotlight on a different principal within the burgeoning fiasco each time. There’s Nixon stooge Bud Krogh, a deputy assistant responsible for onboarding Howard, played by Rich Sommer (in real life, Krogh’s memoir was part of the inspiration for this series). Domhnall Gleeson plays White House counsel John Dean.

After failing upward, the unlikely pair lands on the Committee to Re-Elect the President, plotting several unbelievable covert ops – including bugging the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate complex. Proving that fact is sometimes stranger than fiction, White House Plumbers sheds light on the lesser-known series of events that led to one of the greatest political scandals in American history. Liddy’s notorious plot to spy on the Democratic National Committee, which led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation in August 1974, is satirically featured in the new HBO limited series White House Plumbers. Justin Theroux stars as Liddy, and Woody Harrelson plays his co-conspirator E. The real life Liddy and Hunt were part of a special White House unit, informally known as the Plumbers, whose job was to prevent or respond to leaks of classified information. There were two operations that night, with one team staying to break into the DNC and another attempting to break into Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern's campaign offices.

Howard tries to assure Liddy and probably himself by claiming that the Cubans will not break under pressure, not realizing that the officers have found the envelope he gave Bernard “Macho” Barker to put into the hotel mailbox. Addressed to the Lakewood Country Club in Rockville, Maryland, it contains membership fees. On the fateful night of June 17, 1972, Virgilio Gonzalez, Bernard Barker, James McCord, Eugenio Martínez, and Frank Sturgis, break into the DNC headquarters at the Watergate complex. Security guard Frank Wills notices tape covering the latches of some of the doors and calls the authorities. Sgt. Paul W. Leeper, Officer John B. Barrett, and Officer Carl M. Shoffler, dressed in what can be categorized as hippie clothing, arrive at the scene and arrest the burglars. After the third attempt effectively ended in failure and the mockery they subsequently received from Dean and Magruder, Howard decides to go on a trip to Paris with his family.

You’ll remember the second attempt — first attempt No. 2, really — from the White House Plumbers series premiere. The ragtag crew of political criminals makes it up to the DNC offices, but Villo doesn’t have the tools necessary to pick the lock. They’re on the Watergate premises just long enough for McCord to get ID’d by a security guard he used to work with.

This five-part limited series imagines the behind-the-scenes story of how Nixon’s political saboteurs, E. Gordon Liddy (Justin Theroux), accidentally toppled the presidency they were zealously trying to protect… and their families along with it. Chronicling actions on the ground, this satirical drama begins in 1971 when the White House hires Hunt and Liddy, former CIA and FBI, respectively, to investigate the Pentagon Papers leak.