1x04 100% Not Guilty

5.9/10. So after how much I’ve been ragging on the show through its first three execrable episodes, let’s focus on what was good about this one, because, despite the low bar set by that opening triad, this is the best that People vs. O.J. has been.
The first thing to praise is the opening scene. The acting has been really spotty all around in his show, but Courtney B. Vance absolutely killed that scene as Johnny Cochran. The emotion in his voice, the story the scene and his performance of convincing a man who’s close to giving up that he should keep fighting, were all superb. It even works as an excellent little vignette, apart from the larger narrative.

The other thing to praise are the scenes between Marcia Clark and Chris Darden. As I talked about in the last episode, there is a more down-to-earth quality between the two of them that helps this otherwise ludicrously bombastic show. Their camaraderie and sense of understanding one another really comes through.

It also tells a great unified story in the episode, something the series has been having trouble with. In brief, Marcia is some combination of naïve and overconfident. She believes that race won’t be a major factor in the case, trusting in her own abilities as an attorney and also in the good judgment of the people of Los Angeles who make up the jury pool. There’s dramatic irony there for the people who know how this trial went, and that lends some pathos to Clark here. The scene where she’s watching the focus group discuss her performance, they start insulting her, and her expression falls is wonderful at conveying that point, and her dogged determination and confidence despite that reveals a certain stubbornness that’s important to the larger story being told.

But the counterpoint to that is Chris Darden who feels like he’s been passed over and is missing important shots at what he wanted to do. Marcia asking him to join the team is a triumph, both because it gives Darden the opportunity he needs and arguably deserves, because it’s a salvo from the prosecution to the defense on the race issue, and because it’s the culmination of the friendship between the two characters. It is, again, legitimately good stuff, which has thus far been a rarity on this show.

(And, as an aside, as corny as it was, the music playing over Cochran and the defense team walking into the courtroom in badass fashion, seeing Darden at the table, and then seeing Marcia's cocky but subtle smirk was a pretty well-crafted scene.)

The problem is that it’s mirrored with a power struggle on the defense team. It’s a perfectly fine theme for a story – that with a “Dream Team” you’re going to have people jockeying for power, but outside of that opening scene with Johnny and to some degree the tension of the end where OJ taps Johnny to give the opening, it leans heavily on a lot of cheesy, soapy beats. Nathan Lane is still good, but the sense of him as the sly fox playing Shapiro after realizing he wouldn’t get paid is depicted in a pretty blunt fashion.

It also leans a lot on Travolta’s performance which is, to say the least, weird. He’s making some interesting if peculiar choices as an actor, and they succeed in making you see someone other than John Travolta out there, but he can’t quite make the character work. That means when the episode hinges on his control freak tendencies and slipping sense of leadership, the episode suffers. At least there’s some good writing in the sense that Johnny’s opening declaration that OJ should keep fighting contrasts nicely with Shapiro’s out-of-the-loop suggestion that they cut a deal, to show the difference between the two men and their philosophies.

But then, Connie Britton is wasted as Faye Resnik wandering around an office and blathering about salacious things that get released in a book. It’s one of those meandering parts of the story that would be better served to be just condensed down to a single scene if the folks behind the show were that desperate to include it. There's also some really odd camera work, with several overheard shots thrown in for no discernible reason. Like much of the show, it feels like flash with no substance to it.

Still, once again, despite being fairly tepid overall, this is an improvement from where the last three episodes were, so I’m encouraged if nothing else.