Marcia Marcia Marcia
Poor Marcia. She is having a rough time. One of her ex-husbands has taken her to court to get primary custody of the their kids, and then later gives a PRESS CONFERENCE to tell the entire world that she lied about taking care of them (when, in fact, she did have to take care of them, but got scolded by Gil over some Shit That Came Up At Work, so asked The Ex to cover). The other sells a topless photo of her, privately taken! On a vacation! To a tabloid! (I read in Vanity Fair that, in reality, it was her former-mother-in-law who sold the pics, which is almost shittier. But not quite.) She also can't stop attempting to litigate her own custody battle.
Denise Brown
I just want to note here how much Jordana Brewster looks like Denise Brown, Nicole's sister. In a piece about Denise, Bustle has a news shot of this actual testimony, and the resemblance is startling. (It's also desperately sad.) I also thought this scene was interesting, because the prosecution thought Denise's tearful testimony was a slam dunk, and the defense at least claimed to OJ that they thought it seemed "over the the top." Some of that was, I think, a ploy to make OJ feel like the case was in better control than it actually was, perhaps? Regardless, the dialogue here was actual testimony and it was, to me, totally chilling.
Smoking Is Wrong!
When Marcia gets home from a rather good day in court, her babysitter is watching a TV program in which a fashion expert is weighing in on Marcia's admittedly terrible suits...which HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH HER JOB. If I were Marcia, I think I'd ask my babysitter to please not watch programs that mention me around the kids, but she's got enough happening in terms of childcare and probably doesn't want to rock the boat. Next, her little boy comes out and asks her if she needs a hug, and he's SO cute. Yes, sweetie, she REALLY does. You have NO IDEA. (He also informs her that smoking is gross; she's like, "I know." We're just worried about your health, Marcia!)
Hair
Marcia is, however, starting to wonder if maybe she needs to do something about her hair. Marcia, sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. I know the lady on TV just called you "frump incarnate," but still. Don't make any sudden moves.
Did You Say....Simi Valley?
This was an amazing scene. Johnnie and Det Lange are shooting the breeze -- laughing! Having a GREAT TIME! -- and Johnnie manages to get out of Lange that he lives in Simi Valley. The instant he said the words "Simi Valley," I gasped -- Simi Valley was where the Rodney King trial was, and...well, let me quote Toobin's book: "The place—even just the words “Simi Valley”—was anathema to black (and many white) Angelenos because it was the site of the notorious acquittal, on state charges, of the police officers who beat Rodney King. Overwhelmingly white, highly conservative, and not coincidentally the home of many Los Angeles police officers, Simi Valley had a reputation as the paradigmatic racist Southern California community. Cochran wanted the jury to know that Lange lived there." (I got that quote from this week's Vanity Fair fact-checking piece, which contradicts Marcia's version of things. We need a fact-checker for the fact-checkers.) The INSTANT Lange says "it's quieter" out there, and Johnnie's demeanor totally changes, Lange KNOWS he should have kept his mouth shut. Also amazing is the fact that Lange JUST TOOK EVIDENCE HOME WITH HIM OMG WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? (It turns out that the massive bungling of the chain of evidence in this case literally led to a huge overhaul of the way the LAPD investigates anything. And rightly. Because just think about that. It's totally absurd.)
I LOVE YOU CHRIS
SIGH. These two! ARE SO GREAT TOGETHER. It is a weird, weird thing to be totally invested in a relationship between two real people who I watched try a famous murder case on TV when I was 19 but...hey, the heart wants what it wants. And this Chris Darden is just so GREAT. Him and Marcia dancing in her office is just...the best. Sterling K Brown and Sarah Paulson have amazing, natural, believable chemistry together. They are, as a team, incredibly appealing. (Also, he's very hot, Marcia. Marcia, look at him.)
HELLO
WHAT WAS I JUST SAYING? HELLO.
So, Darden is SHIRTLESS -- and rightly. Look at Sterling K Brown! Thank you, Ryan Murphy, I take back all the things I've ever said about you that were even slightly uncomplimentary -- getting ready for work, and the DJ on morning radio asks if Marcia is "a bitch or a babe" and he CALLS IN and says, "I vote babe." I love you, Chris. I love you so much. You are the best person.
"No Recuerdo"
If you didn't watch this particular part of the trial -- I did, because, as we saw earlier (in a scene I thought was fascinating), many many channels actually pulled their soap operas to air OJ ,and also I would have probably watched OJ anyway (depending on what Erica Kane was up to) -- Rosa Lopez WAS this recalcitrant and difficult a witness (I thought Marcia was going to treat her as a hostile witness; she may have done in real life). It was so noteworthy that my own family still talks about it on occasion. She was REALLY not happy to be there.
Marcia Mania!
1994 was a dark time for fashion. I cannot stress this enough.
Johnnie
This was the scene where Johnnie is calling his ex and essentially bribing her not to talk to the Times about any abuse in their past relationship. I think it's very interesting that this is the first time that we've seen Johnnie in the dark -- literally, sitting in darkness -- and it's when he's doing something definitely, well, shady. His blocking here is literally removing him from the light.
A Misguided Makeover
MARCIA DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS HAIRDRESSER. HE IS ONLY GOING TO MAKE THINGS WORSE. This scene is so heart-rending. Marcia looks so excited about her make-over, and it GOES SO WRONG.
Courtroom Discussions
This was interesting. Chris Darden's daughter has a blog, and she talked a lot last week about her father's desire to speak to the black press, which was denied by Gil Garcetti. Here, we see this basically play out as he talks to Dennis Schatzman, who wrote for the black weekly The Los Angeles Sentinel, and who sadly died not long after the trial, about the fact that he thinks the black press in Los Angeles is ignoring him -- and he repeats again that he feels that OJ has done nothing for the black community. They're in deep discussion -- which Nick Dunne is finding VERY interesting -- when Marcia walks in with her new TERRIBLE hair and Dunne literally says, "OH LORD," when he sees her. Not in a good way. Poor Marcia. ("God damn! Who turned her into Rick James?" is Dennis's take.)
Love Notes
In fact, EVERYONE makes little snide comments and remarks about her new look, including Judge Ito -- who is really highly unprofessional sometimes. (Shapiro gives her a very mean but also kind of funny thumbs up.) Everyone but Chris, who writes her this note, because he is THE BEST. ILU CHRIS. I want to put this note on my bathroom mirror.
When Tabloids Attack
Ugh. Poor Marcia. There is a part in The Royal We where Bex has to deal with seeing her break-up all over the front of all the tabloids, and I've ALWAYS thought it would SUCK to be a celebrity and have to go out for tampons and be faced with your new boyfriend canoodling someone on the cover of People -- but this is so much worse, because Marcia did not ask for notoriety. The woman is just doing her job. This is also a mark of how many papers the OJ story was moving. Like, around this time, Prince Charles had admitted to having cheated on Diana! Surely SOMEONE was secretly dying! Michael Jackson was probably doing something weird. I assume Liz Taylor was involved? And yet THIS was the cover.
That said, in the interest of full disclosure, when Marcia came into the courtroom that day with the new hair, I was ironing -- the TV room in my parents' house is both where the A/C unit lives and the iron, so I must have felt like being useful while it was like 105 degrees out -- and I remember YELLING for my mother, "MOM! MARCIA CUT HER HAIR! IT'S TERRIBLE!" I'm sorry, Marcia. I meant it as a friend. I'm also totally sure I read the Enquirer piece on this AND the one in The Star, because my great-grandmother, who lived right around the corner, subscribed to both and I used to go over there and bring her groceries and then we'd watch TV and I'd read her tabloids under her A/C unit. (Wow, I am OBSESSED with window air conditioning, aren't I? I'm learning about myself here.) Then I'd go buy us pastrami sandwiches from The Hat because she was banned from The Hat for life. It's a long story.
I'll Give You PMS
How great was this scene where some kid is ringing up Marcia's tampons and goes, "Uh-oh, guess the defense is in for one hell of a week, huh??!?!?" and chortles like a total buffoon, and it's all Marcia can do not to commit a murder of her own?
The Prince
If you would have come to me in 1994 and told me how much I'd be hearing Nathan Lane use the n-word, I ALSO would have been stunned. (Here, by the way, when Flee announces his plan to "impale" Furhman with "the most powerful word in the English language" [which Nathan Lane fully says, once here, and then multiple times later in court], the defense team is drinking at The Prince, a bar in Koreatown that you probably recognize as being Nick's bar on New Girl, but which has also been on Mad Men and many other shows.) It is worth noting that (a) Johnnie is okay with this plan, and (b) Lee is definitely drunk here, and it's implied he might also be drunk in court when this plan is carried out.
Fuhrman
I just want to shout-out to Ryan Murphy, who directed this week's episode very ably. He does a lot of swooping, fast movements around the courtroom during F Lee Bailey's barrage of n-words, and it really effectively communicates a sense of...disorientation, and discomfort. Both of which Marcia must have been feeling, because it is here that she realizes -- I think -- that Fuhrman's raging racism is going to torpedo them quite badly. (It also reinforces, I think, the natural distress you experience from hearing that word over and over again -- the camera work literally sets the viewer reeling.) It feels pretty shocking -- and, of course, this is all setting up a moment yet to come in this series, where the defense proves that Fuhrman perjured himself, and of course he HAD used that disgusting word, on tape, in fact, all of which leads to Fuhrman pleading the 5th several times, which...basically helped tank the whole case for the prosecution.
TV Execs are Not Coming Off Great In This
In which the network executives are STUNNED by the amazing drama unfolding in front of them. "Can you say [the n-word] on TV?" one of the white male execs asks, although he ALSO says the word. I dunno the answer to that, asshole, but you probably can't (AND SHOULD NOT) use it in the conference room at NBC, or, in fact, ever. (How did the FCC react? Does anyone know? I know their guidelines are different for news, but they had to have been surprised.)
One of the interesting things about this show, I think, is how well it delineates how quickly the line between news and entertainment was blurred. I basically think it's never been the same since. You really see that here, where the network is just...riveted by this, and the Head Network dude says, "Call up Brokaw. I want a one-hour special. Tonight."
Enough With Your Penis Size Already
I forgot to get a screengrab of something I wanted to talk about, and thus I will just do it here, where Marcia is dealing with the fact that all of America can now pick up a photo of her boobs when they run out for a Slurpee: Namely the shenanigans when F Lee Bailey brings a set of gloves to court -- to accuse Fuhrman of sticking them in his sock, to plant them as evidence, which is quite a theory -- and Marcia totally calls him out on the fact that he's not even theorizing this with the correct brand of glove, or the correct size, as the one in question. She makes a crack about how these gloves must belong to F Lee, because they're so small, and he makes a corresponding defensive crack about his junk, and apparently we're now living in a world that's 24/7 hand-size/dick-size comments in places where one generally wouldn't expect to find them.
Crying at Work Is The Worst
GIRL. I KNOW. Things are really rough. At home, and at work. All around, really. Both your ex-husbands are terrible. Everyone hates your hair and your outfits. Work is going REALLY PRETTY BADLY. At least Chris Darden is there to hold your hand? God, this scene just broke my heart. (I also thought it was interesting that here, Shawn Chapman, the only woman on OJ's defense team, shoots Marcia a very sympathetic look. Fun fact: Shawn was Lindsay Lohan's lawyer during that summer she carjacked those kids, and has since fired her as a client, and has represented a LOT of celebrities since OJ.)
Friends and Coworkers
MAKE OUT! I mean, um, I totally respect the professional bond that's grown between Marcia Clark and Chris Darden. May we all be so blessed in our coworkers.