'White House Plumbers' review: Watergate played for laughs

WHAT IT'S ABOUT Former CIA operative E. Howard Hunt (Woody Harrelson) and onetime FBI agent G. Gordon Liddy (Justin Theroux) are looking for work, when circumstances — and history — throw them together. Under the aegis of various White House operatives, including "plumber" handlers Egil "Bud" Krogh (Rich Sommer), John Dean (Domhnall Gleeson), Jeb Magruder (Ike Barinholtz) and James McCord (Toby Huss), they lead a mission to break into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. Their wives, Dorothy Hunt (Lena Headey) and Fran Liddy (Judy Greer) don't know what their husbands are up to but will soon enough. This five-parter directed by "Veep's" David Mandel is based in part on Krogh's 2007 memoir. (A "plumber?" Their mission was to stop leaks to the press.)

MY SAY In real life, Hunt and Liddy were obviously characters, but comic or sinister ones? Buffoons or masterminds? With a certain "third-rate burglary" as evidence, "White House Plumbers" makes an obvious or at least easy choice. Theroux embraces "Gordo" much as Shea Wigham did in 2022's "Gaslit," as an unhinged gonzo patriot who'd take a bullet for his president and probably one for his beloved Fatherland too. With tightly trimmed black mustache and his breezy Deutschland Uber Alles platitudes, his Liddy could almost pass for Ted Lasso — an alt-universe one, to be sure. 

Harrelson's Hunt, meanwhile, is a tightly wound nutjob whose jaw is permanently locked into place. He's the Ollie to Theroux's Stan, the Abbott to his Costello, or — as Hunt himself bleakly observes late in the series — the Vladimir to his Estragon. Those are the two who stand around waiting for Godot (in the play of the same name), unaware that an indifferent universe has turned its back on them — Gordo and Hunt's fate too.

 Along with the rest of the gang they assemble that can't shoot straight, these two can't pick locks, work walkie-talkies, or install bugs. They can never get their stories or aliases straight, let alone the mannequin wigs they use for disguises. They bungle their way through three or four attempted break-ins until that last, fateful one. The boys do score one for the team when they get Dita Beard to refuse to testify before the Senate. Played here by (an almost unrecognizable) Kathleen Turner, Beard was the ITT lobbyist who wrote a memo implicating the Nixon administration in a payoff scheme.

She's funny too but like everyone else in "Plumbers," just one more stick figure servicing a string of punchlines. For Liddy and Hunt, those invariably come at their own expense. Neither has an inner life, or conscience, or enough self-awareness to see the futility (or absurdity) of their schemes. Both fathers and husbands, you're left to wonder, who would ever marry these two? At least you'll pity the long-suffering ones who did.

 "Plumbers" also teases some of the famous conspiracy theories, notably Hunt's presumed role in the JFK assassination plot when he was CIA station chief in Mexico City. Along with a few other wink-and-nod references by Hunt, his "Godot"  line recalls the once famous (and long discarded) "Three Tramps'' theory, which had Hunt spotted near the Grassy Knoll on Nov. 22, 1963, dressed as a homeless person. Because both Vladimir and Estragon were also "tramps," the implication, or tease, is obvious — Hunt was maybe a "tramp" after all?

Dorothy Hunt's death in the crash of United Airlines Flight 553 on Dec. 8, 1972 (the fourth episode) also spawned countless conspiracy theories, one involving the FBI and another Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis ("Sons of Anarchy's" Kim Coates). They're teased here too but never fully fleshed out, and easy to see why — that'd turn "Plumbers" into something else, and Hunt too. Mostly, they'd curdle the comedy.

So don't come for a fresh perspective or revisionist history or faithful recounting. Do come for the laughs. "Plumbers" probably gets that part right anyway. . 

 BOTTOM LINE Amusing, inconsequential