The People V. . . . Episode Two

The writers of the series for "American Crime Story" showed several important elements about the trial of OJ Simpson.  At the beginning of this episode, they showed how OJ thought he transcended race.  He was not Black or White.  He was OJ!  That was not just arrogance on his part.  Other athletes like Labron James seem to have achieved non-racial status.  But suddenly, knowing he was on the verge of being arrested, having been in the sites of snipers as he arrived home from Chicago, OJ knew he was just another Black man, subject to the unwritten rules of the LAPD.

The second episode included reference to police officers being his guests to use his pool and tennis court for exercise.  OJ had made it a point to have great relations with the precinct nearest Rockingham.  Other sources add that he was also generous with the things his sponsors gave him.  Slacks, shoes and socks, shirts, underwear, gloves, jackets, whatever, all were sent by the dozen to him by sponsors and there was no way he could use them all.  Many found their way to police guests, not as direct bribes, but as gifts to anyone who happened to be around.  Other guests received the same treatment whenever OJ wanted to pass along all the extras.

With the murders, OJ’s world collapsed.  This episode showed just how upsetting that was.  Cuba Gooding Jr. has observed that OJ may have been showing symptoms of head trauma from football, something he had not considered while making the series.  Either way, the OJ portrayed was what I saw in the combined readings about him as he left with his friend Al Cowling before his lawyers could turn him in.

The letters he wrote to his family and friends before he slipped away from his lawyers with Cowling sought forgiveness for what he had done.  The episode left it up to us to decide if he was referring to the murders or if he was sure before he got into the white Bronco, that he would kill himself rather than be gunned down by the SWAT team.

And why would he be quoted as saying he felt like an abused husband?  Is there a possibility that one of Nicole’s qualities that he really loved was that she had the strength of mind and body to compete with him?  Was she really terrified of him, as the Faye Reznick character says at the funeral?  Was there something else Nicole may have been worried about, such as having OJ stop alimony because of her friendship with Reznick who had a major drug problem?

I liked the second episode very much.  It was accurate as far as it went and showed vividly the way things were that day, snipers, police cars, fans cheering him on, the embarrassment for both prosecution and defense lawyers, the pain of his friend Al Cowling trying to keep OJ alive as long as possible considering how fragile OJ’s state of mind was.  

Watchers might have understood that the sincerity of OJ’s apology, as he arrived at home to be arrested, was for causing the officers all this trouble, officers who he thought of as friends that had been to his house and received gifts because of his sponsors’ over-enthusiastic generosity.