"Feud: Capote vs. The Swans," the second season of Ryan Murphy's anthology series, dramatizes the fallout between author Truman Capote and some of New York's most legendary socialites, whom he referred to in his final, unfinished novel as "swans."
As audiences learn in the first episode of the series, which aired Wednesday, Capote (Tom Hollander) sees these beautiful, wealthy women as swans because they glide through society in a way that appears effortless to the rest of the world.
However, if you glimpse below the surface, you would see that the swans have to paddle faster than everyone else just to stay afloat. If they don't, they'll drown underneath the heavy weight of their plumage.
In real life as in the show, Capote was a trusted confidanté to these women and learned about all the ways they were struggling: marital issues, infidelity, substance abuse, and sexual assault, among them.
When he betrayed this trust by writing a searing commentary that included thinly veiled portraits of many of these women for an Esquire story titled "La Côte Basque 1965," everything changed.
After the short story (which was supposed to be an excerpt of his forthcoming magnum opus "Answered Prayers") was published in 1975, Capote was cast out of their inner circle and, in many cases, was never allowed back in.
Here's everything you need to know about Capote's swans featured in "Feud" — and the ones that didn't make his inner circle but still had their secrets exposed in his work.