'Gutsy' has famous guests but it just can't help being about Hillary and Chelsea Clinton

Hillary and Chelsea Clinton have a new series on Apple TV+ called “Gutsy.”

The first word of the previous sentence is all you have to say for some people to hate it. They don’t even need to know what it’s about before melting down amid rabid shouts of “Benghazi!” and “Lock her up!” Open minds are not a strong suit in this crowd.

For those not of a MAGA mind, “Gutsy” is a worthwhile-if-uneven eight-episode series that premieres on the streaming platform beginning Sept. 9. It’s based on the Clintons’ “The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resistance.”

In the series, the Clintons talk to women who they deem gutsy — artists and activists and such, some of whom are famous (like Kim Kardashian, Megan Thee Stallion, Amy Schumer) and some who are not.

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It is perhaps not surprising that the ones who aren’t famous — former white supremacists who now work to deprogram others, anti-hate activists, a disabled comedian, a wedding officiant who doesn’t shy away from asking Hillary Clinton the tough questions — that make for the most compelling TV.

Some are worthy of entire episodes, but that’s not the format. Instead, the episodes jump back and forth between subjects in each themed episode — “Gutsy Women Step Up,” “Gutsy Women Refuse Hate,” “Gutsy Women Have the Last Laugh” — and it does keep the series from seeming like a generic TV magazine show, but sometimes you wish they’d stick with one subject longer.

A nice exception is the Clintons’ visit with Amber Ruffin, who invites them into the writers’ room for "The Amber Ruffin Show" to see the process of building a skit. Hillary Clinton proves particularly willing to make fun of herself. In fact, though you never know how someone who has been in the public eye for decades really behaves when the camera shuts off, she seems like she would be pretty fun to have a beer with.

But let’s be honest. Even if the words “Hillary” and “Clinton” linked side-by-side in a sentence didn’t trigger a Pavlovian reaction in so many, there are still some things you want to know, even if the Clintons are the ones ostensibly asking the questions.

If Hillary Clinton makes a TV show, it can't help but be about her

So for the record the Big Question — why did you stay with your husband, former President Bill Clinton, after he cheated on you — comes in Episode 4, “Gutsy Women Have Rebel Hearts,” courtesy of the Rev. Whittney Ijanaten. She doesn’t mess around, and just asks Clinton point blank why she didn’t leave her husband.

Clinton isn’t all that specific in her answers, which are mostly of the “everyone has to make their own choices” and “it was difficult” variety. And really, what else is she supposed to say? But she doesn’t out-and-out dodge the question, either.

There’s no telling how many takes it took to make the session look like this. But it’s interesting TV watching her address it.

There’s also an intriguing, if disturbing, moment in the first episode, “Gutsy Women Have the Last Laugh,” in which Chelsea Clinton talks a little about what it was like to be the butt of jokes, most of them cruel and mean-spirited, especially when directed at a child — she was 12 when her father moved into the White House.

What especially hurt, she says, is when “Saturday Night Live” made fun of her. The thought that a writers’ room pitched the jokes and someone approved them was particularly galling.

This gets at the crux of the show, and of any show that anyone who is as much of a cultural lightning rod as the Clintons are faces: As much as it’s about anything else, it’s also always going to be about them. The series opens with the two Clintons sitting on a park bench in Paris trading knock-knock jokes. It’s not much of a start (seriously), but you can at least say this about “Gutsy” — it gets a lot better.

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'Gutsy'

Streaming on Apple TV+ on Friday, Sept. 9.

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk. Subscribe to the weekly movies newsletter.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 'Gutsy' TV review: Hillary and Chelsea Clinton have questions, us too