Episode 5 of Peacock’s mockumentary series “The Paper” marks an important turning point for Sabrina Impacciatore’s Esmerelda Grand. The series follows a group of journalists working under editor-in-chief Ned Sampson, played by Domhnall Gleeson. The Toledo Truth Teller was once a well-respected publication, but now mostly licenses stories from larger news organizations and has only two real journalists on staff.
In the fifth episode, titled “Scam Alert,” Ned chases a story about a local scammer operating through a dating app and realizes he may already have the scoop when he learns Esmerelda was one of the victims. Impacciatore knew the episode would give Esmerelda a chance to finally shine. The “White Lotus” star had one goal: “I wanted her to be lovable somehow. So I made strong choices about her emotional vulnerability and fragility.”
With Esmerelda anchoring the episode, it only seemed fitting that women helped bring it all together, starting with writer Mo Welch. The idea of a catfishing episode was always in the ether; Welch tells Variety that while she has never been catfished, she knows enough women who have been scammed by men. “That’s where I probably helped,” says the scribe.
Director Tazbah Chavez went into helming the episode with Welch’s “strong blueprint” for the story — and the most important factor was creating the right environment.
“With Mo, it’s about making sure we’re consistent with the feeling and the meaning of her script,”
Chavez says. “With Chloe Weaver, the DP, it’s about making sure we’re consistent with the visual language of the show — and then making that happen to give Sabrina as much freedom as possible to do things that we can’t imagine.”
Impacciatore was more than grateful to have Chavez lead the episode.
“Tazbah was the perfect director to do this because it was the first time that Esmerelda was opening up,” she says. “Her objective was to cre ate an environment where I could play. I was feeling so understood, safe, and loved because I went nuts with Esmerelda in this episode.”
And she’s not kidding.
In a post-credits scene, Nicole (Ramona Young) and Mare (Chelsea Frei) invite Esmerelda to a ladies’ night out at the Macaroni Barn. Cut to Esmerelda wearing a vinyl catsuit and busting a move on the dance floor. Impacciatore explains that there was only one line in the script: “It said, ‘Are you girls going to watch me while I’m doing the worm?’ I thought that was the funniest line I have read in years.”
However, Impacciatore admits she didn’t really know what she was getting herself into. She spent a day with a choreographer rehearsing the scene; after, she went home and went down a rabbit hole of online tutorials.
“I didn’t sleep,” she says. “I was doing the worm in bed, and the mattress was very soft, so it was a bit complicated.”
When she arrived on set the next day, she felt a mix of emotions. “I was so scared to do this wrong, and I was so excited to do it that I jumped in the middle of the set, and I started to be a crazy worm,” she adds. “I hurt my knees, and all the blood was coming out.”
Impacciatore laughs, “I was so crazy that I did everything during the rehearsals. That’s why this episode is full of crazy moments that I will never forget because I still have the signs on my knees. I’ve never completely recovered from that.”
Chavez recalls watching Impacciatore in her costume on the dance floor going hard during rehearsals and giving it all. “I would ask, ‘How many more times do you want to do this?’ and she said, ‘One more.’ I’m going to let Sabrina go until Sabrina is happy,” Chavez says. “I had no idea that she had hurt her shins!”
Costume designer Kathleen Felix Hager says the idea also came from Sabrina’s mind.
“She wanted a catsuit. We had several different ones, but then that vinyl catsuit just seemed to be the perfect thing,” she says. Hager’s biggest concern was that it wouldn’t rip when Impacciatore moved. But to the actor’s credit, “you could put her in the most constrictive thing, and she would figure out a way to physically move her body to make it work,” says Hager.
While the episode gives Esmerelda more of an arc, it also highlights how women collectively come together.
“When she cracks, even though she annoys her colleagues, Nicole and Mare still rally around to take care of her,” Hager says. “To see the ladies let loose after work and show up for each other was really just a good moment for the show. It gave us a peek into another aspect of who these people are.”
John P. Fleenor/PEACOCK
Female unity was reflected behind the camera, particularly on this episode. Hager says it added “an extra layer of like, ‘I got you, and I want to support you in this endeavor.’”
Weaver notes that the episode was her favorite to work on. “I had the most dialogue in this episode about how to make it great,” the DP says. “Us women really, really like to discuss things. We like to have it be a conversation, to throw out ideas. This was the most conversation about how to tackle something that I had in all the seven episodes I got to take on.”
Weaver also reflected on the technical aspects and how they collectively navigated those challenges.
“We had episodes where we were in this enormous bullpen, and characters were spread everywhere. We were still figuring out the show and how we cover scenes like that,” says Weaver. “It was through these conversations that the language of the show was really developed. Everyone was so instrumental in this particular episode. How do we tackle scenes that are spread so vastly? How do we tackle scenes that are all held within an office and viewed through blinds? It was all a work in progress, and having the ability to talk it through with these women was essential for me.”
Chavez adds that the episode — and that climactic moment — showed the multidimensionality of the women: “They’re not just the people that you see at work. There’s something about women where, even if you’re not getting along, you’ll still get along to dance.”
It also was about the entire group of characters empowering one another. “After seeing that one is struggling, that moment, to me, was very meaningful, also as a message to give to the audience,” Impacciatore says. “There is so much literature about women going against each other, women not supporting each other. But I think it’s almost a male narrative that is not helping us in society. So I was very proud to communicate something different.”
Chavez concludes, “When we think about how the episode ends — with the women bringing Esmerelda out and dancing — that is the antidote to loneliness: community, camaraderie, women, friendship and love.”
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