Near the beginning of the final episode in the provocative, brilliantly-executed (if cumbersomely-titled) The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, Johnnie Cochran (Courtney B. Vance) is sitting at his desk. He’s rehearsing. He’s done this before, in the previous nine episodes, like any good performer. He wrestles with his phrases, runs his lines, works out his rhythm.
“If the glove’s too small, easy call,” he tries. No, that won’t do.
“If the gloves don’t fit,” he says, and looks up.
Cochran delivers the iconic line in his closing statements three times for good measure. And when he does, you see the force of it — of its perfect, catchy construction; of how it so concisely and powerfully reminds the jury of Christopher Darden’s (Sterling K. Brown) most humiliating miscalculation — hit Darden and Marcia Clark (Sarah Paulson) like a stun gun.
The popular opinion about the O.J. trial, when this series was still in development, was, as Jeffrey Toobin — author of The Run of His Life, upon which the series is based — put it, “that everybody knows it already and two is that people are sick of it.” But as it turns out, the latter is not dictated by the former. This is a show that spoilers don’t spoil.
Out Of Her Justice League: ‘People v. O.J. Simpson’ Writer On Marcia Clark, Sexism, And The HaircutBefore the scene even begins, “Kiss From a Rose” starts playing. Softly. Just that intro with Seal singing syllables…thinkprogress.orgEvery time you see on screen something you either saw on TV in 1995 or, like a good millennial, you’ve osmotically absorbed in the decades since, you feel not boredom but something close to its opposite. The Bronco chase, the haircut, the Fuhrman tapes, the glove: You get the smack of dopamine just waiting for those moments to come, like waiting for the chorus in your favorite pop song. The anticipation-gratification cycle is on high through all ten episodes of O.J. It’s this adherence to the story we’ve heard before that makes the series so immensely satisfying.
There are so many things to appreciate about the almost-flawless series. (I will not be the first to suggest this, but the otherwise impeccable casting falters with Cuba Gooding, Jr. as Simpson.) Its eerie timeliness, its just-right amount of camp, its dark humor. The way it gives real screen time to the victims’ families, particularly in this last installment. An episode devoted entirely to Clark, and her focus amid the relentless torrent of sexist vitriol spewed at her from all sides, is an especially touching one.
But what’s sticking out to me now is the way that, in an aggressively spoiler-averse culture, a show that is constructed entirely of readily-available information can be as engaging as if it were reliant on the shocking plot twists viewers are accustomed to seeing. O.J. manages to turn a bug into a feature. Enough context is provided for the truly uninitiated, whoever they are. But for everyone else, O.J. blows the whole idea of spoiler alerts to smithereens. Not only does it not matter if you know it already; knowing it already is the best part.