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‘The Comey Rule: Night Two’: Brendan Gleeson's eerily accurate portrayal of Trump has fans ‘freaked out’

Brendan Gleeson brings something eerie and chilling to his portrayal of Donald Trump. The accent, the tone, the voice, the inhalations, the demeanor -- Gleeson’s attempt to recreate Trump is a work of art

Spoilers for ‘The Comey Rule: Night Two’

Part two of ‘The Comey Rule’, the Showtime limited series created by Billy Ray, based on the book 'A Higher Loyalty' by former FBI director James Comey, sees the victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. elections. In the episode, we see Comey, played by Jeff Daniels, become “the man who got Donald Trump elected” in the eyes of the public. It sees the man interacting with Trump, and also sees Trump behave in an erratic fashion. 

We see Trump trying to get through to Comey. And when that fails, we see him blatantly lying about their interactions and then unleashing his vendetta upon the man by firing him and humiliating him. We see Trump being self-obsessed, egotistical, and lacking coherence of thought. The episode and the series end with the firing of Comey. But not just that. We see the FBI -- Comey’s core team -- planning to investigate Russian intrusion further. We also see how much of that team was either fired by the Trump administration or resigned in protest. More than the story, however, the episode focuses on portraying Trump. 

Brendan Gleeson brings something eerie and chilling to his portrayal of Trump. While the show’s makeup team deserves applause for how well it transformed Gleeson into one of the United States' most controversial presidents, Gleeson managed to adapt the tiniest of Trump mannerisms and body language into his performance, making it -- very often -- easy to forget that this is a dramatization of Trump and not the real deal. 

The accent, the tone, the voice, the inhalations, the demeanor, Gleeson’s attempt to recreate Trump is a work of art. And that alone makes ‘Night Two’ much more disturbing. That is what the fans of the show, too, have felt. 

“Watched both episodes back to back, compelling. Jeff Daniels was excellent. Brendan Gleeson as Trump freaked me out. He really captured Trump's tics, that sniffling, plugged-up snot nose thing he does,” wrote a fan of the limited series. Another fan said, “Brendan Gleeson did an outstanding job portraying trump in 'The Comey Rule' along with Jeff Daniels. He was able to show the real trump and how ruthless and dishonest he really is. Hat's off to you Brendan Gleeson.” Another fan said, “There's a real lean and mean version of #TheComeyRule if it were made movie-length. Anything to center it more around Brendan Gleeson's masterful channeling of Trump. A tightrope performance eluding caricature. Using quirks as emotional cues rather than window dressing.”

Fans could not simply get over the portrayal. One fan wrote, “The most disturbing part of The Comey Rule so far is watching Brendan Gleeson eat ice cream as Trump.” Filmmaker Richard Shepard said, “THE COMEY RULE by @BillyRay5229 is great, urgent television. The 4 hours fly by. The cast lead by Jeff Daniels is uniformly great, but Brendan Gleeson perf as Trump is a ferocious tour de force. It's not an impression, it's as if Gleeson channelled the man's soul-If he had a soul.” One, fan, referring to Gleeson’s performance in the ‘Harry Potter’ films, wrote, “The Comey Rule was excellent. You want to talk range? Brendan Gleeson was polyjuiced to his gills in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, but he also owns a frighteningly accurate portrayal of Trump.”

‘The Comey Rule’ is available for viewing on Showtime.