In the fourth episode of FX’s The People v. O.J. Simpson, the big fictional speech comes from Johnnie Cochran. Visiting a needy, distraught O.J. Simpson in jail, Cochran basically tells him to snap out of it. “Have you forgotten who you are? These walls around you don’t change that. You know what you mean to people? O.K. Then let me remind you what you were once to me.”

Cochran goes on to recount a low point in his life, personally and professionally struggling, going through a divorce and leaving private practice to return to the D.A.’s office to be the “first black assistant attorney in the office.” (Jeffrey Toobin’s source book for the series, The Run of His Life, is a bit more cynical in describing Cochran’s background during that time: the breakdown of his first marriage was a result of Cochran having a decades-long affair and second family, and the move from lucrative private practice to a county position was so that he was able to claim a smaller income during the divorce settlement.)

What gave him the hope to go on? Watching O.J. Simpson play. “What I saw you do on that field that day, as I was watching, it became as if you were running for me. Driving up that field, crowded with adversity and obstacles. Getting knocked on your ass and then popping right back up again. That’s what I wanted to do out there on those streets back home with my troubles there but couldn’t. But you. You willed what you needed to do into being with nothing but grace.”

It’s hard to overstate the importance of this scene. At the beginning of the episode, we are reminded of Simpson’s celebrity: dancing with Robert Kardashian in a slick, glittering nightclub, all champagne, chandelier, and lines of cocaine on heaving cleavage. But this scene was put here to either remind us or introduce us to O.J. Simpson the Symbol. When Cochran makes this link for us, we get what O.J. was to him, and to the black community—a promise of better things, the American dream: “A black man as the face for one of the world’s biggest corporations.”

Cuba Gooding Jr. gives O.J. appropriate childlike pride when he recalls scoring a touchdown for that particular 1978 game. For him, these are the mundane statistics and moves of his profession, touchdown, yards, wins, losses. As a truly gifted athlete, what is miraculous to witness is just another day for him. What was just another touchdown that day for him was so much more for people watching. This is the gap between O.J. the man and O.J. the myth.

Last week, we heard O.J.’s famous, and actual, declaration, “I’m not black, I’m O.J.” and this week, the writers build up on that so smartly for us to carry this link forward: “You are not O.J., you are an inspiration.” Simpson was so much more than a celebrity, so much more than a football player, more than a black man who made it: his story was the American Dream, and if the man fell, what would that do for the hope that stood on his shoulders? We start to see Simpson’s symbolic power transferred to Cochran. As the closing song, Above the Law’s “Black Superman,” plays, the symbolic power of Simpson has been transferred onto Cochran.

And now for a look back through the episode’s other highlights, most of which—as with everything else on this astonishing but true-to-life story—are completely true.

Faye Resnick was told by a psychic that Nicole Brown Simpson wanted her to write a book.