American Crime Story might tackle the Monica Lewinsky story

By William Hughes | January 19, 2017 | 1:27am

Aux Features TV

Having already acquitted itself in the critically lauded case of The People Vs. O.J. Simpson, the producers of FX’s American Crime Story have suggested they might take on another mid-’90s stain on the fabric of the national soul: the Monica Lewinsky scandal. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Ryan Murphy has optioned Jeffery Toobin’s bestseller A Vast Conspiracy for possible use by the show. (Toobin’s previous book, The Run of His Life, served as the basis for the series’ Simpson season.)

Toobin’s book—penned back in 1999—tells the story of White House intern, purse saleswoman, and political punching bag Lewinsky, as she inadvertently kicks off the second presidential impeachment hearings in American political history, by agreeing to do with then-President Bill Clinton that which he most liked to do in life.

Still, we won’t be seeing ACS’s version of Lewinsky, Linda Tripp, or the country’s charismatically philandering cigar-lover-in-chief any time soon; Murphy has already announced that the show’s second season will deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the third with the murder of fashion designer Gianni Versace. Still, we can already sense the ears of America’s joke writers pricking up, as they prepare to unearth their best “blue dress” material from the same box they kept that dusty Dancing Itos reference that killed on Twitter last year.

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