Judy Greer (Almost) Single-Handedly Saves ‘The First Lady’

Showtime‘s The First Lady might be the most frustrating show on television right now. It stars many of the most brilliant actresses in Hollywood as three of the most fabulous First Ladies in history: Gillian Anderson as Eleanor Roosevelt, Michelle Pfeiffer as Betty Ford, and Viola Davis as Michelle Obama. Their co-stars include Aaron Eckhart, Kiefer Sutherland, Dakota Fanning, Lily Rabe, Ellen Burstyn, Eliza Scanlen, and Kristine Froseth. The show is directed by Emmy-winning auteur Susanne Bier. The First Lady should be good! Better than good, it should be great! But it’s a boring, shallow, incurious look at the lives and loves of these amazing women. The First Lady blows.

But then Judy Greer shows up. The beloved actress pops up as Nancy Howe in The First Lady Episode 2 “Voices Carry.” Nancy is an old pal of Betty Ford’s from the local PTA and she works in the White House gift shop. It is Nancy who gives Betty the warmest welcome to the White House and it is Nancy who encourages Betty not to drop an upcoming White House state dinner.

Judy Greer doesn’t have a big role to play in the episode, much less the show, but she infuses every second she’s on screen with real pizzazz. Greer might be the only actor in the whole cast who is able to make the didactic, obvious dialogue sound natural and fun. For a few short scenes, Judy Greer comes close to making The First Lady good. Fun, even. Judy Greer (almost) saves The First Lady from itself.

For those few little scenes, I couldn’t help but wish that The First Lady wasn’t a laborious look at three famous wives, but a daffy dramedy about Betty and Nancy in the White House. After all, Michelle Pfeiffer’s Betty Ford was already the most compelling part of The First Lady. Her performance is full of twitches and quirks. While the other characters plow through the White House like wikipedia entries made flesh, Betty seems to have a real soul. That spirit comes to life when Nancy shows up. Pfeiffer and Greer had great platonic energy! They felt like, well, real people talking to each other.

The First Lady is a strange show that seems to misunderstand entirely what people want from a show about historic First Ladies. It feels like a painful history lecture and not a nuanced portrait of the people behind the past century’s headlines. That is, until Judy Greer arrives.

To quote the great Super Yaki t-shirt: Judy Greer should have been the lead.