“I’m not trying to be respectful; I’m trying to win.”
Full spoilers for The People v. O.J. Simpson continue below.
Goodness but can The People v. O.J. Simpson nail an opening.
“The Race Card” is the best episode of American Crime Story’s first season yet, and like the defense at this point in the O.J. trial, the series isn’t going to pull any punches when it comes to race. From the opening minutes of the episode, which showed Johnnie Cochran’s experience with discrimination from the police in the years leading up to his gig with the Simpson case, this week’s episode became an examination of how and why race was so integral to the trial.
Nathan Lane, Courtney B. Vance, John Travolta, Cuba Gooding, Jr. and David Schwimmer on The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story
That’s something American Crime Story has been doing all season, of course. But in “The Race Card,” the real showdown became between Courtney B. Vance’s Cochran and Sterling K. Brown’s Christopher Darden. After the twist in last week’s episode that the prosecution had added Darden to Marcia Clark’s team, this week’s episode was all about how each side of the courtroom used race to try to get their win as the trial kicked off.
To Cochran, the key to winning the trial was telling a better story than the prosecution, and that’s something he did over and over again as Marcia and her team lost their edge. First it was in the press conference when he threw Darden’s inclusion in the prosecution under the bus. Then it was in his argument about whether the N-word would be used in the trial, when he totally schooled Darden’s case against it. Again, it was in the redecoration of O.J.’s house and stripping of Nicole Brown’s to tell a better story about who the defense wants the jurors to think these people are. (“These ain’t even my kids,” O.J. says.) At the end, it was getting inside Darden’s head about Mark Fuhrman, one of the most significant witnesses who will be called to the stand.
This is the first episode that skewed Sarah Paulson’s Marcia Clark in a somewhat questionable light. She clearly used her good relationship with Darden to her advantage here, and the implication is that she brought him into the team as much for the color of his skin as for his skill as a lawyer. But again and again, we the viewer see she is in over her head with Cochran, and not willing to play the same hard-ball game that he is — all the way down to whether or not to use “the race card.”
We want to hear it.
Of course, telling a better story to misconstrue the facts only goes so far. Cochran can make O.J.’s house look as inoffensive as possible, but he can’t stop his defendant from lashing out at Darden in front of the jury. Darden and Clark can try to vet Fuhrman as much as possible, but they aren’t ready for the fact that he is a racist, as proven by the gut punch of a final shot when he’s seen looking at his Nazi memorabilia.
It’s at this point that The People v. O.J. Simpson makes me want to combust from frustration. Watching the defense redecorate O.J.’s house to look more appealing to jurors to create Cochran’s better story, it’s hard not to be angry by the twisting of the case to make it about more than just the facts. We all know O.J. gets acquitted. We all also know, as Marcia laid out at the beginning of this episode, that the facts pointed to him being guilty. Seeing how the story was so masterfully spun as to make those facts not matter — like when Robert Shapiro petitioned for O.J.’s history of domestic violence to be inadmissible — is hard to stomach in or out of context.
Vance’s performance of Johnnie Cochran is an award-winning turn for him, and one of the best performances of his career. The more time he gets in the spotlight, the more he does with it, and that opening sequence was one of the most powerful of The People v. O.J. Simpson so far. While Paulson is giving her all as Marcia (and next week’s episode is her best of what I’ve seen of the season so far), “The Race Card” offered Brown a chance to come to the forefront for a week, and he also was phenomenal in the screentime he had. His conflict over doing what is best for the case while also being frustrated over being labeled an “Uncle Tom” is palpable. Brown walks this line with his character well, and is delivering one of the show’s most engaging performances.
Sterling K. Brown and Cuba Gooding, Jr. on The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story
Also deserving a shoutout is Cuba Gooding, Jr., who commanded the scene between O.J. and Cochran as he was prepared for the jurors viewing his house. “I ain’t never apologizing for buying a beautiful house in a beautiful neighborhood,” he says as he argues that he earned all the success he received, even if it might not make him as appealing to others of his race — thus showing Cochran his true colors.
Other notable moments: Robert Morse’s fantastic appearance as Vanity Fair reporter Dominick Dunne, who is alternately disdainful when Judge Ito brags about his signed Arsenio Hall photo and then unabashedly gleeful in his gossiping at a dinner party about the goings-on of the O.J. trial. There’s also Bill Hodgman’s collapse, which did happen during the course of the original case. That entire scene is incredibly well-orchestrated, and a great way of showcasing just how unprepared the prosecution was for the curveballs the defense threw at them during the trial.
The People v. O.J. Simpson delivers its best episode yet with “The Race Card,” an insightful and frustrating look into the way the prosecution and defense teams leaned into using race once the O.J. Simpson trial began. Courtney B. Vance and Sterling K. Brown are standouts as Johnnie Cochran and Christopher Darden, and watching them face off as Darden is in so far over his head is a sight to behold.
