Review: The People Vs. O.J. Simpson - American Crime Story Series

Viewers of The People Vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story likely already know O.J. Simpson’s verdict, and have no doubt made up their minds as to its validity. The series has no new evidence to shake those convictions, but is itself fresh proof that we are living in a golden age of television, and that as a medium for discussing the cultural currents that define our lives television is without question the most visceral, subtle, and compelling. Guys, The People Vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story (hereafter named as TPVOJ) is genuinely great. As true crime, as cultural dissection of a complex intersection of American values, and as high drama.

The premiere opened with a barrage of footage from the Rodney King riots, then flashed-forward two years, emphasizing the climate of racial tension in both L.A. and the country at large. Of all the filters through which the Simpson case was viewed, the most charged notes it struck were those of race, and Murphy made the right call putting that dynamic front and center. Our first introduction to Cuba Gooding Jr.'s O.J. was through the eyes of a starstruck limo driver, and it was a necessary moment alone with Gooding, who despite an utter lack of physical resemblance to Simpson, conjures up the fallen athlete’s voice and mannerisms through some truly stunning and subtle character work. 

It was a trend that would continue through the hour, as familiar faces tried on equally-known ones, and yet managed to convey a person rather than an impression. David Schwimmer’s Robert Kardashian somehow achieved Shakespearean levels of conflict while repeatedly saying the name "Juice."

Sarah Paulson’s Marcia Clark’s edgy, stressed prosecutor transcended her unfortunate (and accurate) wig:

 John Travolta turned in one of his best performances as the cagey Robert Shapiro, maybe because he is himself one of the surreally manicured Hollywood elites Shapiro typifies.

But honestly, in an hour of stellar performances, Courtney B. Vance ran away with the show as Johnnie Cochran.

To move so effortlessly between speeches seething with outrage and candid, naturalistic vignettes behind the scenes required the virtuosity of a master, and I’m thirsting for the screentime Vance is going to get as the real hero (or antihero, as you like) of the series. Cochran’s thesis statement for the premiere—"I wouldn’t take this case, this case is a loser"—certainly marked the start of the most dramatic arc for the lawyer we know will ultimately win this national showdown.  

These three are set up in the pilot as representative of the four major factions that onlookers of the trial fell into, and the deep-seated issues this case forced Americans to prioritize. Marcia, who called out the eight times police were summoned to the Simpson household on domestic disturbances, saw a case about a woman whose abuse was ignored because her husband was powerful and famous. We watched Marcia hurry to feed her sons breakfast before work, struggle with a newly-filed divorce, and wave off planning a baby shower. Clearly, her take on this case was finding justice for a woman powerless against her stronger, more influential husband.

Shapiro, who we met for the first time at a swanky restaurant, casually bragging about how he got Marlon Brando’s son five years on a manslaughter charge for murder, represented the class struggle that characterized the trial for so many observers, men and women who saw O.J.’s parade of high-profile lawyers as confirmation that the rich in America were above the law and one could get away with murder if one could buy the right defense. Travolta’s Shapiro had a glib disdain for the police summons and seemed dubious of O.J.’s claims of innocence. The humor of the series was largely in his little dubious glances after almost all of O.J.’s statements (and every moment Kato Kaelin was onscreen.)

Cochran, with his electric speech about the war between the LAPD and the black people of L.A., and how everyone must pick a side, was clearly our lens for the racial vulnerability of O.J., and the well-founded perception that a black man accused of hurting a white woman was essentially being served up for judicial murder.

Schwimmer’s Kardashian was the personal view of O.J., who, up until the murder case, was about as close as a man could get to being America’s sweetheart. Faced with a flunked polygraph, Kardashian only repeated again and again that the Juice couldn’t have done it. He just couldn’t have. To someone who loved the Juice like he did, it was simply unthinkable, no matter what kind of evidence was against him.

Grounding all of this was creator Ryan Murphy’s eye for detail. A master satirist, Murphy has heightened comedy in a matter of both perception and specificity, and Murphy has intensified details to build the sparkly, edgy, hyper-color worlds of Glee and American Horror Story and Scream Queens. But TPVOJ showed just how strong of a platform that same sensitivity could build for drama. Every nuance of the world seemed considered and authentic, from the pillar candles filling Brown’s '90s living room to Shapiro’s gaudy silk ties and the carefully injected '90s communication technology (the chunky phones, the hand-marked cassette tapes, the ancient color computer displays). 

The immersion into 1994 was complete and fascinating, as glamorous and escapist a landscape as Dynasty, but stripped of all camp and shot through with heartbreak. (The Simpsons' daughter, leaving a message on the voicemail begging her mom to pick up, was a poignant and necessary reminder that this entertainment was built on the unimaginable suffering of the Simpson children and the Brown and Goldman families.)

That's not to say that Murphy’s dark humor was entirely absent. O.J.’s dramatic almost-suicide went down against the backdrop of a little girl’s bedroom, plastered with Tiger Beat posters. A distraught Kardashian begged O.J. not to kill himself in his daughter’s room, in "Kimmy’s bedroom" (Khloe and Kourtney were also called out by name at the funeral). It was a reminder of both how deeply we are still connected, as a national consciousness, to the world we are watching, and how absolutely ludicrously surreal this Greek tragedy of pop culture really is.

Perhaps the most brilliant thing about the show so far was its refusal to tilt its hand as to its own opinion of O.J.’s guilt, a guilt established by these many years in the court of public opinion, helped in no small part by his loss in a civil trial and his outrageous manuscript If I Did It which, in a rare fit of moral rectitude, publisher Robert Murdoch demanded pulped. (The manuscript was seized and later released by the Goldman family and the proceeds went to benefit a foundation created in Ron’s name. Below are the covers designed by O.J.'s team on the left and Goldman's family on the right.)

The show, however, offered no condemnation, trusting the audience to draw its own conclusions from Gooding’s masterful, sympathetic portrayal, which could be read as guilt or panic. His flight at the end of the episode, which we know will lead to one of the most infamous car chases of all time, could be interpreted by those around him either way. 

The most damning evidence we saw onscreen was framed as testimony, the actual action of which unfolded on camera only as it has been confirmed by witnesses: a trail of evidence, a fallen glove, a verbatim quote from O.J. over the phone. It’s not that the show is being coy, it’s simply that none of the suspense here is driven by the verdict or the question of O.J.’s innocence, but why both things became so incredibly, personally important to millions and millions of people. And the way it is turning the answer to that question into compelling drama, drama incredibly relevant to the social fractures of 2016, is a complete and total success.

- TV