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The Plot Against America

METASCORE

Universal acclaim based on 37 Critic Reviews

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82

USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 37 Ratings

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7.9

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7.9	Your Score
7.9	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 37 Ratings

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The Plot Against America: Part 3

Now Playing: The Plot Against America: Part 3

The Plot Against America

Series Details & Credits

HBO | Release Date: March 16, 2020

Summary: The six-part miniseries based on novel of the same name by Philip Roth is set in an alternate universe where a President Charles Lindbergh favors anti-Semitism and fascism is experienced by a working-class Jewish-American family (Zoe Kazan, Morgan Spector and Winona Ryder).

Creator: David Simon

Genre(s): Drama, Movie/Mini-Series

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Recent Episodes

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S1:E6. Part 6
Air Date: April 20, 2020
tbd
S1:E5. Part 5
Air Date: April 13, 2020
tbd
S1:E4. Part 4
Air Date: April 6, 2020

See all Seasons and Episodes

Metascore

82

Positive:

30

Mixed:

7

Negative:

0

Critic Reviews

100

The Independent Ed Cumming

Jul 14, 2020

Season 1 Review: The Plot Against America is a gripping vision of the dangers of populism and bigotry, which avoids preachiness by focusing on domestic minutiae. This is not the extreme vision of The Man in the High Castle, with its seas of swastikas, but a more nuanced exploration of political upheaval. Read full review

100

New York Magazine (Vulture)

Jen Chaney

Mar 12, 2020

Season 1 Review: Superb. ... To their credit, Simon and Burns, each of whom either wrote or co-wrote every episode, never get too heavy-handed in their attempts to make connections between the story they are telling and the Trump era. ... The cast of The Plot Against America does committed, convincing work across the board. Read full review

95

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Rob Owen

Mar 12, 2020

Season 1 Review: An emotionally moving period drama that feels timely and recognizable in the present. Read full review

88

RogerEbert.com Brian Tallerico

Mar 23, 2020

Season 1 Review: Offering complex, character-driven drama that will linger in your head long after it’s over less for what it says about our past and more for what it’s trying to warn us regarding our future. Read full review

80

The Guardian Lucy Mangan

Jul 14, 2020

Season 1 Review: Over The Plot Against America’s six-hour course, Simon and Burns do their usual exceptional work in delicately fitting pieces of a larger and larger puzzle together to reveal a bigger and more complicated picture at every step. If the beginning seems a bit stagey [...] it finds its feet quickly thereafter. Read full review

80

Rolling Stone

Alan Sepinwall

Mar 9, 2020

Season 1 Review: The Plot Against America can be as difficult watch as the toughest moments of The Wire, Treme, or The Deuce. By the end, Simon and Burns make their story even darker than the novel's, but in a way that feels sadly true to today. [Mar 2020, p.90] Read full review

40

Variety

Daniel D'Addario

Mar 5, 2020

Season 1 Review: This is a show that, even as it depicts a precarious moment and exists in one, cannot bear uncertainty. That’s a tendency that makes it both a fairly unpleasant watch, and a sacrificed opportunity to depict something smaller, more tender, and more ultimately human than the end of the world. Read full review

SEE ALL 37 REVIEWS

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7.9

User Reviews

10

ser66

Apr 15, 2020

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Slow ease into complete terror. The writing, cast, set and costumes are Amazing. This should be a wake up call to the treacherous state of the country and it’s possible direction for the future.… Expand

1 of 4 users found this helpful13

10

Zhoujiaming

Aug 10, 2021

I saw it last year, if it was Charles Lindbergh who defeated President Roosevelt and was elected the 33rd president!

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

10

BiaMaria

Mar 17, 2020

Amazing show, very well written and breathtaking performances, especially Winona Ryder's. Her Emmy is definitely coming this time!

1 of 3 users found this helpful12

9

tonyGreen

May 21, 2020

A wonderful adaption of Phillip Roth's original material. If I had one criticism it was that, when I watched it, the second half of the final came at me too fast to take it in somehow. I think I will have to watch it again.

0 of 2 users found this helpful02

9

davidwill4real

Aug 28, 2020

The best reflection about nowadays on television. David Simon remains one of the greatest writers of his generation. A must-watch.

0 of 1 users found this helpful01

8

JLuis_001

Apr 30, 2020

"Tonight we have taken back America"

A fictional window into the past of the US is a mirror of their present reality.

This story was indeed the perfect parallelism with the US current social and political situation. But it can be applied anywhere.

Another successful miniseries for HBO.

0 of 3 users found this helpful03

3

Rewrite

May 22, 2020

I found The Plot Against America disappointing.
There are far too many one-dimensional characters whose motivations remain a mystery. The result of this is a lot of loud arguing. I feel like I’m watching a televised version of the worst part of Facebook – the pointless political posts andI found The Plot Against America disappointing.
There are far too many one-dimensional characters whose motivations remain a mystery. The result of this is a lot of loud arguing. I feel like I’m watching a televised version of the worst part of Facebook – the pointless political posts and the insipid argument that follow in the comments.
The lack of character development is surprising coming from David Simon and Ed Reed. Their signature series, The Wire, was made so interesting exactly because it delved so deeply into the many sides in the drug war. The major characters were fully developed. You cared about most of them; even Stringer Bell had a few redeeming qualities (and a cool name). Both Homicide and The Deuce displayed similar depth.
I haven’t read the Phillip Roth novel the show is adapted from and have no plans to. I’ve done enough research to know the show’s plot is mostly faithful to the book, but I don’t know if the characters are as wooden as they are in the show. If they are, this is an artistic failure by Simon and Burns. While the book is told solely through the eyes of young Phillip, the show is told through a mix of characters which is a good change. Unfortunately, most of these characters are difficult to sympathize with. The only people I liked were Phillip and his mother Bess, both of whom were not coincidentally the best developed characters.
Unfortunately, Herman (Phillip’s father), is the person we see the most and who most needed to be fleshed out. Instead it seemed like most of his scenes were yelling at various people or complaining about the state of the nation. What was most difficult to understand was when he seemed to purposely choose battles that were unnecessary. I understand standing up for oneself and one’s family, but he makes poor choices in choosing his battles.
As a father your family comes first, yet Herman was constantly putting them in jeopardy for his own honor. He only stops acting this way when Bess delivers him an ultimatum. Perhaps there was something in his past that would make this flaw understandable, but we’ll never know because the writers never bothered to show that. This would have been a much better show if there were far less yelling and more nuanced debates. Herman’s character could have been fully developed that way. It would have been even better if the motivations of the ‘bad guys’ had been explored. What were the fears and anger that drove them towards fascist tendencies? Charles Lindbergh would have been a perfect start. Herman seemed divided between his Jewishness and his American identity. The whole assimilation issue was touched upon when Phillip’s brother Sandy goes to live with a family in Kentucky as part of a Federal program to integrate Jews into American society. I would have loved to see a discussion of all of this. The other problem I had with the show was historical. While Charles Lindbergh’s anti-Semitism was accurately portrayed, he never advocated policies like those carried out in the show. FDR is portrayed as a savior in the show even though he was no friend of the Jews. While he never advocated such policies either, he did carry them out something worse against Japanese-Americans at the same time he made little effort to help the Jews fleeing Nazism. https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-irony-of-the-plot-against-america/
Secondly, I can’t help wondering why the Kennedy’s left out? Joseph Kennedy was a virulent anti-Semite, politically active, and a correspondent with Lindbergh. Kennedy was at least as well-known as Henry Ford, also a Democrat, and would have been a perfect addition to the Lindbergh cabinet. Lastly, a minor complaint, but unless I missed it the show never explains why we didn’t go to war with Japan. The book mentions something about a diplomatic resolution (good news for all those Japanese-Americans who wouldn’t be relocated to ‘internment camps’). One could argue that this is a show for our times, that previous nuanced Simon-Woods shows were for a time when we ‘less divided’. I’m skeptical that we’re more divided than we were in the 1960’s (let alone the 1860’s), but for the sake of argument I’ll accept that. In that case the last thing we need is a show where everything is black and white and propagates the lazy thinking of us against them. Even if we are divided, there are hundreds of different points of views on many different sides that Simon and Woods could have colored in for us as they’ve done so well in the past.
The mini-series ends with the possibility of a sequel, though that seems unlikely. If there is a second season, I only hope the creators will return to their roots and redeem a middling effort. But at this point I can only recommend this show if you are, like I was, laid up in Quarantine with an interest in history and having run out of all the many other better shows to watch.… Expand

2 of 4 users found this helpful22

SEE ALL 9 REVIEWS

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Seasons & Episodes

82

Series Overview
Season 1

82
- Season 1 Overview
  Air Date: March 16, 2020
- tbd
  S1:E6. Part 6
  Air Date: April 20, 2020
- tbd
  S1:E5. Part 5
  Air Date: April 13, 2020
- tbd
  S1:E4. Part 4
  Air Date: April 6, 2020
- tbd
  S1:E3. Part 3
  Air Date: March 30, 2020
- tbd
  S1:E2. Part 2
  Air Date: March 23, 2020
- tbd
  S1:E1. Part 1
  Air Date: March 16, 2020