--- title: "White House Plumbers" year: 2023 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/white-house-plumbers" fi1m_score: 58 critics_score: 59 critics_reviews: 12 published: "2026-09-17T13:32:30.012053+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T13:32:54.593420+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # White House Plumbers (2023) Created by Alex Gregory, Peter Huyck · MPA TV-MA · Drama **Fi1m score: 58** · Critics 59 from 12 reviews *In a sentence:* Two men who cannot burgle a psychiatrist’s office decide to burgle the Democratic Party > Justin Theroux’s Liddy is the best comic turn in a series full of them, and Lena Headey is quietly heartbreaking at the kitchen table. But five episodes is a long time to watch two men fail at the same job. ## Synopsis Washington, 1971. After the Pentagon Papers leak, the Nixon White House sets up a small unit to plug leaks, and its members call themselves the Plumbers. E. Howard Hunt (Woody Harrelson), a former CIA officer who writes spy paperbacks, and G. Gordon Liddy (Justin Theroux), a former FBI agent with a moustache and a taste for Hitler speeches on the record player, are put together and told to discredit Daniel Ellsberg. They recruit a crew of Cuban exiles from Miami, including Bernard ‘Macho’ Barker (Yul Vazquez), and fly to Beverly Hills to break into the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. At home, Dorothy Hunt (Lena Headey) watches her husband’s new job with unease, while John Dean (Domhnall Gleeson) counts the cost from the White House. ## Review The Watergate story has usually been told from the newsroom end, with reporters in car parks. Peter Huyck and Alex Gregory, who created and wrote this five-part series, and David Mandel, who directs, go round to the other side of the door and stay with the men who broke in. E. Howard Hunt (Woody Harrelson), formerly of the CIA, and G. Gordon Liddy (Justin Theroux), formerly of the FBI, are hired by the Nixon White House to stop leaks and end up trying to burgle the Democratic National Committee. That is a good pitch for about two episodes. Stretched to five it becomes a long sketch, then a sad and rather good final hour the earlier ones have not prepared us for. Theroux is the reason to watch. His Liddy speaks as if addressing a parade ground, treats every setback as a test of character he is passing, and puts Hitler speeches on the record player to set the mood. At a dinner party he holds his palm over a candle to prove a point nobody has asked him to prove, and we laughed out loud, at the gesture and at Theroux’s face, which registers the pain and refuses to admit it. Harrelson’s Hunt is the other kind of fool, the wounded professional who is sure he is the competent one, and Harrelson plays him a notch louder than the joke needs. Together they are funny. Apart, the series sags. It looks right. Steven Meizler shoots Washington in tobacco browns and mustards, the offices panelled in dark wood and the suburbs lit like a colour supplement, and Anastasia White fills the Hunt house with the wallpaper and lamps of people who bought them once and stopped looking. Leah Katznelson dresses Liddy like a man who irons his socks and Hunt like a man who has stopped noticing his clothes. Jeff Cardoni’s score keeps up a jaunty caper pulse under the planning scenes, telling us to enjoy the bungling. Five editors are credited across five episodes, and the rhythm changes with them; some hours move and some sit. The trouble is repetition. Farce needs escalation, and what this has is recurrence: a plan, a botch, a regrouping in a hotel room, another plan. The Beverly Hills job goes wrong in the first episode, and the famous one, when it arrives, goes wrong in the same ways for the same reasons. In the third hour we were bored, and then cross about it, because the real events are ridiculous enough without the series nudging us in the ribs every time somebody drops a torch. The better material is at home. Headey’s Dorothy is the only adult in the story, a woman who can see the whole board and has married a man who cannot see the next square, and she does it with a stillness that shames the shouting around her. A scene at a kitchen table in the fourth episode moved us more than anything in the previous three, and we will not describe it. Judy Greer’s Fran Liddy is given less and makes it count. Domhnall Gleeson’s John Dean is under-used. Tony Plana and Yul Vazquez, as the Cuban veterans who keep being asked to risk their necks for other men’s grudges, carry a quiet anger the writing does not do enough with. Mandel, Huyck and Gregory all worked on [*Veep*](https://film.one/tv/veep), and it shows in the insults, which are good, and in the shape, which is not. *Veep* was cruel in half-hour bursts and left before the joke tired. Here the hours are long, the buffoonery has to be sustained across them, and when the fifth episode turns serious it does so as if the previous four had been someone else’s show. Most critics have landed in the same uneasy middle, and for once we think they are right. If you already know the story, the pleasure is in the details and the two performances it gets exactly right. If you do not, this is a strange place to learn it. Either way, watch the first and last episodes with care, and forgive yourself for wandering off during the ones in between. *Fi1m score 58, published 17 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics agree on where the pleasure lies: Woody Harrelson and Justin Theroux as Hunt and Liddy, whose odd-couple chemistry nearly every review praises even when little else lands. The warmer notices take the series as a Veep-style Watergate farce that romps along, with the period production, the wider ensemble and Lena Headey as the exasperated wife drawing approval. Several also credit it with dragging out the stranger true details that the famous break-in tends to obscure. The reservations cluster on tone. Many find the buffoonery wearing over five episodes and the late turn to seriousness abrupt, and more than one asks whether another Watergate retelling needed making at all. The spread is wide: The Telegraph and IndieWire are close to enthusiastic, while The Guardian finds a meandering farce with no clear identity and The Times thinks it loses its shape by the end. /Film suspects the material would have sat better in a single film. ### Reviews we read (12) - **IndieWire**, Ben Travers (80/100, inferred): The HBO limited series succeeds as another account of the Nixon scandal thanks to its stellar cast, meticulous construction, and dark-comic spirit. Harrelson and Theroux stand out as fine stooges in this Watergate farce. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/shows/white-house-plumbers-review-woody-harrelson-justin-theroux-1234832401/) - **The Telegraph** (80/100, inferred): White House Plumbers is a rollicking Veep-style Watergate farce that revels in political incompetence and feels painfully familiar to modern politics. It has a heist-movie aura with broad performances highlighting bungling schemes and contemporary echoes. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/the-white-house-plumbers-sky-atlantic-hbo-review/) - **Evening Standard**, Vicky Jessop (75/100, inferred): The series is giddy fun that romps along with pitch-perfect chemistry between Harrelson and Theroux as the odd-couple bunglers, but it is also a cautionary tale about incompetence and the real political consequences of zealotry. It is television dynamite that does justice to the true story. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/tvfilm/white-house-plumbers-on-hbo-review-woody-harrelson-justin-theroux-b1077025.html) - **The i Paper**, Neil Armstrong (75/100, inferred): The critic praises the drily funny tone and real chemistry between Harrelson and Theroux as the incompetent Laurel and Hardy of political espionage, with their growing bond almost touching; Lena Headey stands out as the exasperated wife throwing their stupidity into relief. [Read](https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/white-house-plumbers-sky-atlantic-review-woody-harrelson-justin-theroux-watergate-2373862) - **Variety**, Alison Herman (60/100, inferred): The series works better as a dual character study of the bromance between Hunt and Liddy than as a lecture on history; it delivers tongue-in-cheek reenactments but struggles to justify another Watergate retelling overall. [Read](https://variety.com/2023/tv/tv-reviews/white-house-plumbers-review-justin-theroux-woody-harrelson-1235599825/) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Daniel Fienberg (40/100, inferred): The manic hijinks-heavy comedy struggles with tonal traction and insufficient management of chaos across five episodes, exhausting viewers with buffoonery before an abrupt shift to seriousness; strong ensemble performances are undercut by the format. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/white-house-plumbers-review-woody-harrelson-justin-theroux-hbo-1235405745/) - **The Guardian** (30/100, inferred): The series is a meandering political farce with a star-packed cast that rapidly loses interest unless one is an aficionado of 1970s US political scandals. It lacks a clear identity, with off chemistry and parts that do not fit together despite slick production values. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/may/30/white-house-plumbers-review-youll-give-up-on-woody-harrelsons-watergate-drama-after-one-episode) - **The Times**, James Jackson (★★☆☆☆): Fifty years on, the Watergate scandal is played for laughs as bungling farce rather than outrage, though it feels a bit all over the place by the end. Justin Theroux channels a malevolent Ron Burgundy as Liddy in this comedy that turns serious. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/tv-radio/article/white-house-plumbers-review-fifty-years-on-watergate-is-played-for-laughs-z0x8cz09z) - **Consequence** (B-): The tonally messy miniseries explores surprising true-life facts and fictions around the Watergate conspirators, treating the bumbling masterminds as comedic figures with some human dimensions emerging later. Praises the shocking real events highlighted and the impressive cast while noting the broad, cartoonish performances. [Read](https://consequence.net/2023/04/white-house-plumbers-review-hbo-watergate/) - **Collider**, Taylor Gates (C+): The miniseries has the makings of a great show but settles for being merely adequate; it's not sharp enough as satire or resonant enough as drama, with disjointed pacing and flattened characters. Praises the stylish aesthetic and the leads' chemistry while criticizing the writing, underutilized supporting cast, and lack of substance. [Read](https://collider.com/white-house-plumbers-review/) - **/Film**, Chris Evangelista (60/100, inferred): The critic finds it a sporadically funny series about not-very-bright guys letting things get out of hand, but notes the comedic approach doesn't fully gel with the material and it might have worked better as a movie. Praises the leads' chemistry while criticizing the broad performances and lack of depth or momentum. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/1267579/white-house-plumbers-woody-harrelson-justin-theroux-watergate/) - **Paste**, Whitney Friedlander (7.9): The series is a cartoonish rehash that wants viewers to know the plumbers did many other stupid things besides the famous break-in; the ham-handed acting distracts, but it ties in intriguing real details. Praises the focus on compelling peripheral figures like the wives while criticizing the central portrayals as buffoonish. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/tv/hbo/white-house-plumbers-review) ## Details - **Created by:** Alex Gregory, Peter Huyck - **Creator:** Alex Gregory, Peter Huyck - **Director:** David Mandel - **Writer:** Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory - **Cinematography:** Steven Meizler - **Editor:** Roger Nygard, Grady Cooper, Jon Merchen, Steve Rasch, Erick Fefferman - **Music:** Jeff Cardoni - **Production design:** Anastasia White - **Costume design:** Leah Katznelson - **Producer:** Kiegan Downs, Jeffrey T. Bernstein - **Cast:** Woody Harrelson as E. Howard Hunt; Justin Theroux as G. Gordon Liddy; Lena Headey as Dorothy Hunt; Domhnall Gleeson as John Dean; Judy Greer as Fran Liddy; Kim Coates as Frank Sturgis; Toby Huss as James W. McCord; Liam James as Saint John Hunt - **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA - **Release (the US):** 1 May 2023 - **Genres:** Drama - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8w30K9FwtY ## Where to watch in the US - HBO Max: streaming, uhd - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Hulu: add-on, hd - Apple TV: buy, hd *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IS, IT, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, TH, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *All the President's Men* (1976), Fi1m 90: The same scandal from the newsroom, told with patience and no jokes at all. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/all-the-presidents-men.md) - *Dick* (1999): Watergate as teen comedy, ninety minutes long and sharper for it. - *Gaslit* (2022): Julia Roberts as Martha Mitchell, the woman who saw it coming and said so. - *Burn After Reading* (2008): The Coens on Washington idiots with secrets they do not understand. - *The Death of Stalin* (2017), Fi1m 83: Armando Iannucci proves political farce can be funny and frightening in one breath. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-death-of-stalin.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/white-house-plumbers