american crime vs American crime story- Page 2

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 2/17/16 at 11:01pm

 

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Tyler kills one of the guys who attacked him from last weeks episode.

This was the episode I think everyone was waiting for. It was bound to happen at some point. 

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 2/18/16 at 12:26am

Hands down, one of the most devastating hours of TV, ever. This ones going to take me a while to fully process. 

[SmoothLover]

Posted: 2/18/16 at 1:29am

Tonight was hard to watch. I kept wanting the best for everyone; but the writers are being true to the themes of the series. I was a little confused with the car scene in the park as to exactly what had happened and why.

[HorseTears]

Posted: 2/18/16 at 4:42am

Holy mother of pearl.  That certainly raised my blood pressure.  I can't remember the last time a tv show had me that on edge for the better part of an hour.   Smoother Lover, I posted a response to you in the spoiler below.  


 

 

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[kadu335]

Posted: 2/18/16 at 7:31am

Damn... This show is so draining but also so fascinating! I can't even imagine how it must feel to binge watch a season like this. This past episode had me in silence for a good 5 minutes after it finished just so i could take that all in. Strong, raw and real... what a great step further for network television!

[BobbyBubbi]

Posted: 2/18/16 at 4:19pm

I'm intrigued to see the interviews next week from real people. 

The reservations I had at the beginning of the show's run are gone. 

Truly riveting stuff, I kind of can't believe ABC is airing it. Gutsy for them, but I think this show has the power to do a lot of good. 

Also, kudos to the editors. I kind of hated all the extreme close ups at the beginning of the show, but now I get it. I loved the subtle pan-in on Lily Taylor's hand clutching to her son as the cops were looming. Brilliant.  

 

[SmoothLover]

Posted: 2/18/16 at 5:41pm

I could not access the spoiler. I do not know why the car scene was unclear to me. Did the married man react from internal homophobia, or were his sexual impulses physically brutal or did he know who the kid was and wanted to beat him up for what he had done? My guess is the first?????

[HorseTears]

Posted: 2/18/16 at 7:17pm

SmoothLover, that's odd.  When I edit my post I can see the text of my spoilers, but when I post it they vanish.  I'll just post what I wrote below without the spoiler tags.  

Re: the driver in the car.  I highly doubt he knew who Eric was.  But, this is not a show with easy answers and simple explanations.  That man's motives may be a messy combination of everything you described.  I think you have to learn to live with the ambiguity.  To me, that's part of what makes the show so interesting.  

 

 

That 1-2 punch of the minivan scene where I thought Eric was going to die and then, later, the single gunshot of Taylor's in the woods suggesting he'd taken his life before we heard the second gunshot. I couldn't breathe.  

 

And how brilliantly was Eric's minivan scene directed?  Pulling away from the van just as Eric was getting pummelled made me believe this was his final scene. And then, when he escaped, his weak fawn like legs not only added to the tension, but kinda broke my heart. For all his bravado and tough guy talk, Eric is still just a kid.

 

 

Taylor's oxycontin flashbacks do seem to suggest Kevin was involved in whatever happened that night at the party. Or, at least that Taylor holds him partly responsible.

 

I don't want to play armchair psychologist here, but do we think Taylor may be dealing with some form of mental illness? Or is it all just PTSD?

 

Oh, and Lili Taylor in the closing scene in the diner? From mild concern about Taylor to realizing that he was the shooter, to hanging up on the police, to thinking he was about to off himself to finally finding the strength to turn him in, but clutching him fiercely. I'm in awe of what she did in that scene.

 

BTW, worth noting that this was the first episode John Ridley directed since episode 1. He was on his A-game here.

Updated On: 2/18/16 at 07:17 PM

[SmoothLover]

Posted: 2/21/16 at 2:57am

I think you are right. If I simplify the scene in my head I think the guy driving the car just went into a rage because the kid was going on about his problems and the guy had enough problems of his own and was escaping them by hooking up.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 2/22/16 at 8:26pm

Yeah, I think that was basically the way it went down.  What I found interesting was what Eric said in the car--from his perspective he sees the rape allegations almost as a betrayal it seems--like here he came out to another guy at school and then the guy later told everyone it was a rape...

I was kinda hoping they wouldn't go for a school shooting scenario--but the way they handled it I think was very well done.  I also found some smaller moments heartbreaking--like when the school secretary spoke to Taylor.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 2/24/16 at 11:53pm

Each week I can't believe a network owned by Disney would air something so powerful and real, but this week was one of the more important episodes of a television series to air in a very long time. Really outstanding television. 

[ljay889]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 12:37am

Lili Taylor deserves every award imaginable. Simply the finest acting I've seen in a long time on television. 

Such an unbelievably powerful series. 

[HorseTears]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 6:12am

I suppose every show has transitional episodes, but after last week's blockbuster - one of the best hours of tv I've seen in awhile - this one (ep 8, Feb 24) was quite disappointing. It was very disjointed and episodic. The events - to me at least - didn't feel as interconnected as they did on last week's episode. It was the first time I watched this show and thought that the execution didn't match the ambition. 

 

To me, the character with the most interesting experience in this episode was the coach. He went from his somewhat holier than thou attitude of chiding Felicity Huffman for being cold and calculating and for protecting herself from damage to doing the exact same thing at home with his daughter - immediately destroying potential evidence without even thinking, claiming he was doing it solely to protect his daughter, but undoubtedly also doing so because he's going to make political maneuvers to take over the school. THAT was very well done.

 

Not to be insensitive to the obviously traumatic events the interview subjects experienced, but I think the interview clips were a total misfire. I mean, just reverse it.  Imagine watching a 10 part documentary series - like Making a Murderer - and in the 8th episode they suddenly inserted fictional dramatic reenactments of other crimes to help the audience understand the possible motives of those involved in the Teresa Halbach trial.   I have to really wonder if these interviews were truly an artistic choice by Ridley or if they were a "suggestion" from ABC execs. It felt emotionally manipulative and kind of insulting to the audience to assume that we couldn't continue to navigate this complex and nuanced story without some explicit guidance from actual gun violence and bullying victims.  They should have kept them as web extras.  

 

 

[SmoothLover]

Posted: 2/26/16 at 12:49am

I had the same thoughts about the interview clips. It felt disjointed and as a result they were not very powerful. They would have worked better in a documentary where all of the facts were laid out. I think I thought the episode would center more on the gay lead who shot the student and his mother. I also hoped that the town would find out that he had been beaten due to the captain of the basket ball team's order. Having the girl admit to selling the drugs was in keeping with the theme of the show. I also liked the idea of how parents want to teach their children the difference between right and wrong but when they engage in that behavior the parent's initial reaction is to cover it up and protect them. AKA the basketball coach and the father of the rapist.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 2/26/16 at 7:07pm

After each episode I tend to spend several hours commenting in the thread for each review on AVClub and then when I come here have nothing to say (I'm--prob not surprisingly, Eric Henwood-Greer on there.  I seem to be the only idiot on AVclub who uses my real name--but the discussions there, at least for this show, are always very intelligent and I recommend it).

I do somewhat agree with Horsey.  The interviews aside, I think to be fair this was very much a transitional/setup episode for the final two (uh, only two left?) 

I thought the stuff with Eric, and his confrontation with Kevin (who seems to really live in this horrible privilege world that his parents worked hard to create--not knowing that had created someone lacking in empathy) was very good.  And I agree about Dan and his reaction (whoever plays his daughter is the ONE bad actor on this show--it might not be fair to say--her previous roles have all been as cheerleaders and dancers whereas the rest of the talented young cast, while not well known, have had significant screen work).

I'd give it a solid B, but I was disappointed as well (ironically the critic at AVClub who has always praised the show but given it weird letter grades, gave this an A for the first time.  I can't help thinking because of the "real" bits).

I think those interviews would have worked better as a talk back 30 minute episode afterwards, but ABC, who are amazing for even airing this, would probably never do this (or maybe a web companion).  Using the survivors of Columbine bugged me just because this shooting was so different (there have been other school shootings that are more similar to what happened on the show, but they prob wouldn't have the impact that simply writing at the bottom of the screen "Columbine" would have).  But I did find the stories all very moving, and I appreciated that they *tried* to integrate them.  It didn't work for me, but...They did it better when they had the real slam poet talking about how it felt to be raped in one of the cold openings before. 

[HorseTears]

Posted: 3/6/16 at 7:19am

Thanks for the tip on A/V Club, Eric.  Lots of really thoughtful discussions happening there.  I've read plenty of reviews there, but never bothered scrolling down into the comments section because so many of them are usually total ****shows.  

 

I'm not sure what to make of episode 9 (spoilers ahead). I found episodes 1-7 absolutely gripping and endlessly fascinating. For me, the quality has started to slip in the past two episodes. There's still so much good work happening - so many great individual moments - but are the parts greater than the sum at this point? I think, at the end of the day, Ridley & co spread themselves too thin. It's as though episodes 1-7 were made for a 13 part series and then in the middle of production they got a call that they had to wrap everything up in 10 episodes instead. 

I greatly admire the ambition, but I think there are just too many storylines, too many secondary characters for this to end satisfactorily in just one more 42-minute episode. And I say that as a huge fan of ambiguous endings. Sometimes I think the writing serves "theme" to the detriment of character development. 

A few observations:
 

 

- Can we talk about how expressive Joey Pollari's (Eric) eyes are? When he realized his mom needed his compassion? His eyes suddenly softened and he leaned in to embrace her and she recoiled away from him? Ugh. My heart broke a little.

 

- While I still think the writing for most of the public school plot has been an underdeveloped afterthought that has largely distracted from the main plot, I did enjoy the way in which this episode parallelled the hard fought triumph of Leyland's Principal Leslie with the downfall of the public school's Principal Chris. It nicely showcased how much we value optics over intentions. I even see some parallels to the current Democratic race for the White House. (Not that Bernie's done just yet)

 

- Are we really starting a debate on the morality of hacktivism with only one episode to go? What's next? A debate on the ethics of the prison industrial complex between the night guards at Taylor's prison?

 

- Principal Chris went to Leyland for a meeting with Principal Leslie and we never saw it? What's with the off-camera action? Is Sophocles on the writing staff?

 

Updated On: 3/6/16 at 07:19 AM

[ArtMan]

Posted: 3/6/16 at 9:30am

In the new TV Guide, they state since there is a new ABC Entertainment President (old one was fired in February) this show, Nashville and some others may not get renewed due to low ratings.  They agree about the quality of these shows, but ABC has had the highest decrease in ratings and that is what is most important to them.   Their solution to the ratings maybe more reality type shows and news programs.

Updated On: 3/6/16 at 09:30 AM

[HorseTears]

Posted: 3/6/16 at 9:48am

Yeah, we talked about that upthread when Disney canned Paul Lee, Arty.  The one potential bright spot is that his replacement is the former head of Drama for ABC, so she would have overseen the development of American Crime.  But, she's also clearly got a mandate to broaden appeal, so unless it's an unusually cheap show to produce, I doubt it will be back for a third season.  At least not on ABC.  Maybe this can be another one for Hulu or Netflix or DirecTV to revive.  

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 3/6/16 at 11:10am

My question is- is AMERICAN CRIME produced by ABC or is ABC simply the distributer? Theshow is obviously edited each week to remove cursing, in a way that almost makes it look like its being edited for American audiences. 

[HorseTears]

Posted: 3/6/16 at 11:23am

It's edited that way because Ridley didn't want to censor his scripts.  I found it jarring at first - and even thought it was an issue with our satellite signal - but got used to it after a couple of eps.  

 

It's co-produced by ABC with Stearns Castle Entertainment, Radio Pictures Corp and International Famous Players.  I believe Stearns Castle is the main producer, though what share of the production costs they're actually footing, I don't know.  The interesting thing here is that Stearns Castle is the production company that Michael McDonald, former head of Drama at ABC, left ABC to found.  And he's continuing to sell shows to ABC, so perhaps there is a small chance it will survive.  

[Tom1071]

Posted: 3/7/16 at 3:00pm

Has anyone purchased a season pass for American Crime from iTunes?  Are the episodes uncensored or are they the same as they air on ABC?

[HorseTears]

Posted: 3/7/16 at 3:07pm

No idea, Tom, but the censoring we're talking about is just these kind of odd "cut-outs" of strong language.  You get used to it.  No actual visual content has been censored.  Before you buy a season pass, you can currently watch eps 5-9 (and, soon, 10) on ABC's site, but they don't keep them up for long, so if you binge eps 1-4 via iTunes you can then catch up with 5-9 on ABC's site.  Yes, I'm cheap.  

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/8/16 at 5:36pm

There does seem to be some real concern with the new head of ABC--who has made no secret that what he likes best are light procedurals of the Castle type.  While not always successful artistically or with audiences, the now departed head at least championed for some genuine diversity and even, for network tv, experimental stuff (which runs the gamut from American Crime to Galavant).

 

Horse, AVCLub is one of the few sites like this that more often than not has worthwhile comments in their comments section I find--I admit that I don't post as much about this great show here as I normally would because I'm usually exhausted from discussing it there.

I am ABSOLUTELY in agreement with you on episode 9.  I don't want it to sound like suddenly I dislike the show or anything--because that is absolutely not true.  But it does make me concerned for the finale (I knew we'd get an ambiguous ending--but as you say, it's a bit late in the game to add MORE elements, particularly the "the hacker is actually doing this for his own selfish reasons" stuff).  Several really really typically great scenes--Eric and his mom, Taylor and Evey, and, I hate to admit, i found Leslie's final scene in its way thrilling as well.  But--well, everything you say.  There's so much going on too that, while I know others had this complaint earlier on, for the first time I started to resent not seeing more of a particular storyline or character.

 

I wondered about the censorship too.  For some *odd* reason in this day and age when everything seems to get a DVD release, season one still hasn't, so there's no way to tell if the DVD would be uncut (I'd hope it would be).  I do still find the blackout technique odd--is it so we can't lip read?  I was watching some series on SyFy channel the other day (I know, I know) and they just muted the f bombs and honestly it played more smoothly, but of course that's basic cable, not network.

 

As mentioned the show is an ABC co-production though it does have their "AN ABC STUDIOS PRODUCTION" or whatever credit that most of their homegrown shows have, so I don't think that would be an issue against it coming back.

[SmoothLover]

Posted: 3/10/16 at 1:06am

Wow that ending was intense and I had to really stop and think about the last minute of it. I think it had something to do with decisions and destiny. Anyone else care to comment?

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 3/10/16 at 12:43pm

What an incredible final minute to this season. It has to do with being in one of those few moments we all have at some point, where we know the next step or the next word we say will define us for the rest of our lives. 

 

Bravo to to them for another remarkable season.