1x10 The Verdict

7.1/10. One of the biggest things I’ve learned as a freelance critic over the years is to look at a movie or T.V. show and ask “what is this about?” not just “was this good or bad?” My write-ups here on Trakt tend to be much more informal (and typo-ridden for that matter), and to that end, they also tend to be more likely to fall into an easy “I liked this/I didn’t like this” taxonomy of pros and cons. But my goal as a reviewer isn’t just to chat about what works and what doesn’t, but to try to encapsulate what a show means, what it’s about.

And I’m not sure what The People vs. O.J. Simpson is about. At a “here’s the blurb in your TV Guide” level that question is easy to answer – it’s about the people and personalities surrounding this landmark event in recent American cultural history. It’s also usually a question that’s easy to answer on an episode-to-episode basis. “This is the episode on racism. This is the episode on sexism. This is the episode on the jury’s figurative and occasionally literal claustrophobia.” But for the show as a whole, and for the finale that strains to tie so many of the story threads its introduced together, the answer is much murkier.

But the answer, or at least my answer, came to me in the midst of the sequence of closing arguments in “The Verdict.” Marcia Clark, Chris Darden, and Johnny Cochran each give their summations to the jury, and what they choose to say encapsulates who they are and why they’re involved.

Clark talks about the concrete evidence, the DNA and hair samples and footprints and other forensic material that, independent of the wider issues with Simpson, with the LAPD, with the racial divide in Los Angeles, says this is the man who did it. It’s the kind of cold hard facts, the almost myopic focus on the nuts and bolts, that epitomizes Clark in this show. She is always moving forward, always with her nose to the ground, not cold but focused and diligent on the essential things, occasionally neglecting the less essential things that move others.

Darden talks about Nicole, about the spousal abuse and the circumstances that suggest this was the culmination of a series of terrible harms she suffered. He is poetic, impassioned, sincere, perhaps even inflammatory as he describes the events of that night and implores the jury to bring the perpetrator to justice. Darden is, to some degree, a true believer, who knows the merits of a good story, and feels the importance of this, the emotional connection to the community and to the victims. He is the beating heart of this case and this show.

Cochran, talks about prejudice, about racism, about longstanding problems between the police and the black community. He is a crusader – bombastic and theatrical and crafty, but also true to his cause, turning this trial into a referendum on the LAPD’s treatment of African Americans, in that courtroom and across the nation. Johnny got into this case, not because of O.J., but because of what O.J. represents. He wants to win, but more than that, he wants to expose the indignities that he and so many like him have suffered to the world.

It's in these moments that it becomes clear what The People vs. O.J. Simpson is about. It’s about its characters, the major personalities – Clark, Darden, Cochran, Kardashian, Shapiro, and Simpson – what brought them here, what changes for them in the course of this harrowing event, and who they are at the end of it. That’s a somewhat trite conclusion, I’ll admit, but more than any individual theme of racial divide or media frenzy or communal morality, American Crime Story cares about the trials and tribulations of the people at the center of it, and how the “Trial of the Century” lures them in and changes them.

The problem, then, with both The People vs. O.J. and “The Verdict,” is that at many points they try to be about everything, whether it’s Faye Resnick or reelection campaigns or god help us, the Kardashian kids. In trying to encapsulate everything in this wide-ranging, multifaceted cultural event, the series and its finale often feels scattershot, unfocused, and messy in a way that speaks more to narrative choices than the trial itself. It’s not this show’s only problem – the dialogue is still frequently clunky and corny, the show still communicates in a consistently clumsy fashion, and everything from the acting to the direction can be incredibly spotty from episode-to-episode. But when ACS focuses on its characters and their journeys, Clark, Darden, and Cochran in particular, there’s a force to it that makes the show work, even when it can’t quite soar.

So we close with final scenes for each of these characters. Clark, in a scene whose placement feels like something out of a dollar-bin 90s drama, delivers a weakly-written speech about being motivated by her own experiences as a rape survivor. Darden breaks down when confronted with what he failed to accomplish in the company of the people he meant to deliver justice for. Cochran, in a “Do you get it?!?!” moment declares that it wasn’t about the trial, it was about getting people to talk about these issues when he sees Clinton speaking about them. Shapiro is lonely and ostracized. Kardashian, in a bit of ham-fisted symbolism, pointedly leaves a bible at O.J.’s house. And Simpson himself realizes that, despite wriggling out of the grasp of the justice system, he cannot simply return to his old life, and has been expelled from the rarified air he once enjoyed.

Little of this is subtle, but then, subtlety is not what People vs. O.J. is, or has ever been about. At its worst, the show is a motley collection of “remember when” moments, poorly delivered exposition, and “this is the point we’re trying to make, audience” hand-holding. But in its finer moments, those when it focuses on the people who delivered those closing arguments, it is an exploration of the different individuals who were drawn to this trial, who experienced the highs and lows of it, and came away from it emboldened or demoralized. Some of them walk away feeling invigorated by the justice system. Others leaves saddened and disillusioned by it. But all of them walk away different, and American Crime Story is at its best when it comes to those changes, and the people affected by them, with conviction.