Months ago,
I could not stop raving about a show nobody seemed to be familiar with (because
it wasn’t on cable), American Crime, specifically season 2. (American Crime is
a show with a partially recurring, or “repertory”, cast, but playing different
characters in a new storyline each season.) I tried to get everyone to watch it,
and basically said it was the best thing I’d ever seen. As far as I know, no
one has taken my advice so far. But now that both seasons are on Netflix, not
only do YOU have a chance to watch the show, but I also was given a chance to
catch season 1, which I had not seen. Obviously, the big question on my mind
was, could season 1 be just as amazing and brilliant as season 2 was? Well, I’ll
save you the suspense. The short answer is no.
It’s kind of
the opposite of how things usually go. People blow their best load on their
first effort, and then go into what’s commonly referred to as the “sophomore slump”.
In my view, the paradigm that fits this situation is that season 1 was a
practice run for the real test of greatness that was season 2.
The biggest
problem I had with season 1 is that if you’re not a petty criminal, violent
thug, drug dealer, addict, racist bigot, or juvenile delinquent, there were not
very many characters to identify with, and though there were multiple
interlaced stories throughout, it was hard to care about the outcomes because
the people were so inaccessible. As a writing student (perpetually, it would
seem), I’m told that I must love my characters because the audience must love
them. Series creator John Ridley seemed to have gotten the memo for season 2,
but not for season 1. There were exactly two characters in the whole series
that I had consistent and genuine compassion for. One was a grieving father,
played by Timothy Hutton, whose son had been murdered, and who is trying to reconnect
with a family that refuses to forgive him for his shortcomings nearly 20 years
earlier. The other is also a father, a Hispanic auto shop owner (Benito
Martinez) whose son has fallen in with a bad crowd and who is desperate to save
his family.
Everyone
else is so consumed with one obsession or another--passions and prejudices,
vices and vendettas--that it’s impossible to root for them. At one point, a
young woman overdosed on drugs, and I was actually happy that she was dead
because her character was so annoying. (To my disappointment, she actually
survived the overdose.)
Not that the
actors aren’t doing their jobs, and remarkably well. Regina King got an Emmy as
a Muslim woman on a crusade to rescue her brother from both a murder rap and a
really horrible girlfriend (see last paragraph). Felicity Huffman is in danger
of being typecast in the same series because while her characters in each
season are quite different, they are both cold and rather unsympathetic. One
hopes she will get a warmer character in season 3. Hutton is wonderful and
heartbreaking.
This show
tends to run the gamut of nearly every social issue you can think of. It’s like
writing down all of society’s ills on pieces of paper, putting them into a hat,
and mixing them up. Then showrunner Ridley pulls out 10 pieces of paper from
the hat, and blends them all into a volatile tapestry that is the story for a
season. Season 1 deals with racism against blacks, Hispanics, and whites (yes,
I said whites too). It deals with different religions (in this case, Islam and
Christianity), and how people of different faiths may approach things differently,
but also the same. It deals with drug addiction, immigration issues, gang
violence, and even touches briefly on military impropriety.
And yet, one of the
things that makes this show successful is that it manages to highlight these
issues without being preachy. The way they do this is to focus on the
characters and their stories, which are very believable, even if you don’t get
invested in the people because they’re assholes.
[Pseudo-spoiler
alert:]
Part of my
problem with not liking most of the characters had to do with my own Christian
faith, as much as any kind of open-mindedness required of me as a creative, and
storyteller. It was disturbing to realize that I rather liked the idea of some
of these characters’ suffering. While lamenting how tragic it was that one
character (Hutton’s) could not be forgiven no matter how hard he tried to make
amends, I found myself not very forgiving of much of the behavior that I saw
played out in front of me. “They will deserve what they get,” I found myself saying.
But of course, my heart softened as each situation was brought to its
resolution, and one character--a young fiancé of Hutton’s surviving son--expresses
what I believe to be the heart of the story, a call for love and compassion.
But it comes too late for some. And that just pisses me off.
