Created by: Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski

Premieres: 2/2/16 on FX

Six episodes watched for review

“I ain’t trying to be respectful — I’m trying to win.”

Since his trial through 1994 and acquittal in 1995, it has become a given assumption among many that O.J. Simpson is guilty of the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and Brown’s friend Ronald Goldman. Almost all of the evidence suggested Simpson’s guilt, and after the acquittal, Simpson was found guilty in a civil trial, eventually ending up in prison in 2008 for robbery and kidnapping charges in Las Vegas. But at the time of the media circus that was the Simpson Murder Trial, there existed a stark divide between how black and white people viewed the proceedings. A CNN poll conducted after the verdict revealed that 62% of white American believed the former football player was guilty, while 66% of black Americans believed he was innocent. The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story takes audiences back to those wild, startling days of Simpson’s murder trial and attempts to answer the question: if Simpson truly was guilty, how did such a evenly split divide between whites and blacks form in perceiving these events, and how did Simpson get to walk away a free man when it was all over?

When The People v O.J. Simpson was announced in connection to Ryan Murphy, even appropriating Murphy’s American Horror Story title syntax for its subtitle, one could have been forgiven for thinking the show was going to turn out to be a lurid, over-the-top, inappropriate mess. After all, American Horror Story isn’t known for its subtlety or pathos. Yet while Murphy serves as a producer of American Crime Story, and directs two episodes, this is very far removed from his American Horror Story. Much of the show’s success comes from series creators and writers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who also penned films such as Ed Wood and The People vs. Larry Flynt. Alexander and Karaszewski’s clever, engrossing writing draws the viewer in and holds them there.

The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story begins on the night of the murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. Anyone who obsessively witnessed the trial and became familiar with the details of the case might break out in goosebumps as the details — a barking dog, a bloody path, a crime scene of almost unspeakable carnage — unfold in vivid color. From here the series moves through the events so closely followed by the media: the Bronco chase, the arrest of Simpson, the media frenzy, and the televised trial. We meet the key players and the actors playing their roles: Cuba Gooding, Jr., as Simpson, Sarah Paulson as Marcia Clark, Courtney B. Vance as “Dream Team” lawyer Johnnie Cochran, John Travolta as Robert Shapiro, David Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian and Sterling K. Brown as co-prosecutor Christopher Darden, just to name a few. It’s a large cast to keep track of, but one of the smartest decisions American Crime Story makes is to give each of them an episode, similar in a fashion to how hit series Lost balanced its ensemble of players. By using this technique, American Crime Story succeeds in doing something all the news coverage and tabloid headlines of the era could never do: it humanizes everyone.

After the verdict, former Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi — the man who successfully prosecuted Charles Manson — raked prosecutors Clark and Darden over the coals for losing the case. Bugliosi penned a book titled Outrage: The Five Reasons O.J. Simpson Got Away with Murder, which paints Clark and Darden as woefully incompetent and shows no sympathy whatsoever for the two prosecutors. Jeffrey Toobin’s The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson, the basis for The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, also states that the trial was botched by Clark and her team, just not with as much vitriol as Bugliosi’s book. Yet The People v. O.J. Simpson is careful to paint Clark and Darden as perhaps two of the most sympathetic characters in its rogues gallery. Paulson plays Clark as a hard-nosed, chain-smoking prosecutor who loves what she does. It’s revealed that she had moved up to a supervisor position but was willing to take a demotion just to get back in a courtroom.

At the series’ start, Clark is fully prepared to take on the Simpson case despite going through a messy divorce. What she’s not prepared for is the close media scrutiny that erupts once the trial begins. “I’m not a public person,” she weeps at one point, after a tabloid media frenzy has gone so far as to publish nude photographs of her leaked by one of her ex-husbands. Clark also appears to be the first member of the prosecution team to realize that the case will not be open and shut, despite a mountain of physical evidence. “We need to stop treating this as a sure thing,” she warns her fellow lawyers. Despite this realization, however, Clark still comes across as being in over her head. She fails to see how damaging putting supposedly racist cop Mark Furhman on the stand will be, and she grossly underestimates how her overall attitude might affect a jury. In one darkly comedic scene, Clark stands stunned behind a two-way mirror as she watches a focus group pick her apart and call her a “bitch.” Paulson delivers an incredibly strong performance that conveys both a resilient toughness and a fragile emotional state on the verge of cracking.

As noteworthy as Paulson is in The People v. O.J. Simpson, the real standout may very well be Sterling K. Brown as Christopher Darden. Darden is seen at the start of the series talking with Courtney B. Vance’s Johnnie Cochran and confessing that he’s considering quitting his hated his job at the DA’s office. Before long, Darden is drawn into the Simpson trial and finds himself facing the unenviable task of being a black man prosecuting a famous black man whom the bulk of other African Americans believe to be innocent and framed by a racist, corrupt police force. Brown’s performance is filled with tense, reflective moments. He so badly wants to believe he’s on the team for his merit rather than being the token black man on the all-white prosecution team. The quieter moments he shared after hours with Clark are some of the best moments of the show, the two of them bonding in a somewhat flirtatious manner, seemingly unaware that their perceived slam-dunk trial is poised for certain doom.

While Clark and Darden’s failings are on display here, The People v. O.J. Simpson underscores the real reason Simpson may have gotten away with murder: the cultural divide between blacks and whites, particularly in Los Angeles. The first episode of the season opens with archival footage of the brutal 1991 beating of Rodney King by L.A. police officers. After the cops in question were acquitted, riots broke out in Los Angeles, sparked by people who were tired of years of countless injustice at the hands of racist cops. It one bleak flashback, we see Johnnie Cochran pulled over in an affluent (white) part of town while his daughters sit in the back seat of the car, stunned. Cochran knows the drill — no sudden moves, no back-talk, don’t give a police officer a reason to shoot (sound familiar?). Yet he loses his cool and ends up slammed onto the hood of his car in handcuffs, before the cop lets him go upon learning that Cochran is an Assistant District Attorney. Even though the evidence against O.J. seems damning, it doesn’t matter — Cochran is effectively able to help steer the trial into becoming an issue of race. To the African Americans watching the trial, O.J. isn’t just a celebrity now — he’s another black man being railroaded by racist cops — cops who are framing him.

The irony, American Crime Story points out, of such universal support from African Americans is that Simpson seemingly turned his back on the black community once he struck it rich. At one point, he tells his lawyers, “You wanna make this a black thing, but I’m not black — I’m O.J.!” Before Cochran brings the jury to Simpson’s house, he’s sure to take down all the various photos of Simpson with white women and replace them with African art. Vance plays Cochran with all the flair and verbal acrobatics that became synonymous with the lawyer at the time of the trial. It’s a scene-stealing performance, and, like everyone in the show, Vance imbues his larger-than-life character with some humanity. He also has no illusions — before he signs on to the trial, he voices his reservations — that the case is “a loser” since it’s clear to everyone that O.J. did it.

As for O.J. himself, Cuba Gooding, Jr. might have the hardest job of the ensemble. Simpson is, after all, at the center of all this, as the most well-known player in the saga. Gooding, Jr., successfully taps into Simpson’s oblivious arrogance, playing the accused murderer as a short-tempered, out-of-touch man who doesn’t seem to understand why he’s being made to go through all this trial nonsense. The counterbalance to the Simpson defense team comes in the form of Simpson’s longtime friend Robert Kardashian, he who sired the brood of reality TV stars. Although David Schwimmer’s casting might seem a bit strange on first glance, he brings a sweet naivety to Kardashian: he’s been friends with O.J. for so long that he just can’t believe the man is guilty, even while all the facts seem to point otherwise. Even when Kardashian’s ex-wife Kris Jenner (Selma Blair), who was close with Nicole, angrily rebukes Kardashian for sticking by O.J.’s side, Kardashian comes across as almost helpless — how can he turn his back on such a close friend, a friend he refers as “Uncle Juice” to his kids? Kardashian is presented in a mostly good-natured light, yet the series can’t help but get in a few digs at the future famous Kardashian children, who are seen here constantly running around causing a scene and yelling at each other in bratty voices (even at Nicole’s funeral).

The only place where The People v. O.J. Simpson goes wrong is with Travolta’s performance. Travolta is listed as one of the producers of the show, and the fact that an actor of his magnitude is trying out TV again after so many years is a bit of a big deal. Yet Travolta plays Robert Shapiro in a weird, almost campy, manner, inflecting an overdramatic voice and furrowing his large eyebrows. Travolta’s performance would be right at home on American Horror Story, but for American Crime Story it’s all wrong — too hammy and pronounced, instead of nuanced and reserved. The actor levels out as the series progresses, but in his first few scenes the awkwardness of the performance is glaring. Travolta’s flawed performance aside, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story is a truly remarkable, compelling work of televised drama. It would’ve been so easy to screw this up, and go down a trashier, more exploitative path. The show seemingly knows this and even winks at it a bit, with Clark’s reaction of disgust when her witnesses start selling their stories to the tabloids at the concept of others “trying to profit off the murder of two innocent people.” But this is about more than the murders, and more than the trial. This is a show that rises above simple tabloid true crime details, expertly capturing the cultural zeitgeist that plagued the trial’s era. Most damning of all, this is a show that reveals not much has changed for the better.

Grade: A

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