RECAP: The People v. O.J. Simpson American Crime Story — Jury Revolts & The Prosecution Screws Up [Episode 8]

Last night’s episode of The People v. O.J. Simpson was riveting; a word I haven’t used before to describe this mini-series, but it was both compelling and comedic. Two things made this possible: 1) what happens when jurors feel they are the criminals in jail, and 2) what happens when you’re your best friend realizes you’re a murderer. Here we go.

We begin with upset jurors after the discovery is made that new deputies have been assigned – and they aren’t happy. They’ve been sequestered at the Hotel Intercontinental for half of their 265 day jury-duty assignment. A flashback of more optimistic times is shown, but the mini-vacation that the jurors thought would last for only 2 months, was quickly over. No television in their rooms, approved reading material only, only allowed on their room floor – not in the bar or at the pool – could not go into the other jurors’ rooms and only received weekly visits from their families.

Through the course of the trial, 10 of the 12 alternates are used as juror after juror is kicked off for one reason or another. Call it strategy by the defense or prosecution, but any time a deputy came into the juror room and said a number, you knew they were out of there. The story boards and nick-names used by opposing council made this episode so entertaining. Plus the power play between Marcia Clark and Johnnie Cochran. F. Lee Bailey warns Cochran that if this keeps up, they will run out of jurors and a mistrial will be declared.

So who caused the removal of the deputies? Young juror, Tracy Hampton, who thought the deputies were reading her private letters. And this is where the comedy kicks in. While at breakfast, receiving the cold shoulder from the other jurors as she ate her soupy-eggs, Tracy kicks off her shoes, jumps over a wall and tries to high-tail it out of the hotel. The guards catch her, and as one juror remarked, that’s one way to get out of jury duty. FYI: Tracy fully recovered from her panic and depression and later posed for Playboy. Way to make lemons out of lemonade.

But the remaining jurors decide to show solidarity by wearing black. Except for the lady wearing a bright green dress and the older guy wearing his Bill Cosby sweater. It was profound and Judge Ito gave the jurors the day off to go sit at their hotel and fight over watching Seinfeld or Martin. Also, they don’t show the infamous boat trip to Catalina Islands where all the jurors became seasick. Bummer!

In the meantime, O.J. has the brilliant idea that he’ll take the stand and convince people of his truth that he didn’t murder his ex-wife and her friend. Bob Shapiro thinks this is a terrible idea, but Johnnie and F. Lee are open to it. They have O.J. work with a mock-Marcia-Clark and it doesn’t go well.

Onto the boring analysis of DNA for which people knew nothing about 20 years ago unlike today where we are all experts thanks to shows like CSI. Dr. Fung is on the stand and while Marcia questions him, the jury is about to fall asleep. But when Barry Scheck gets up it’s a whole different story. Scheck asks Dr. Fung rapid fire questions beginning with: Isn’t it possible. Afterwards, Dr. Fung is so astonished that he was reduced to nothing, feels the need to shake everyone’s hands on the prosecution and defense. Except Marcia Clark. He is dead to her.

So during this time, Bobby Kardashian is struggling with the fact that the blood found at the scene is O.J.’s and with a 1/170 million chance certainty. This is Bobby’s turning point and he cries to his ex-wife Kris Jenner, promising to never play Skittle-poker again with O.J.

Next week, tune into the return of Mark Fuhrman. If you thought the glove scenario was bad for the prosecution, what comes up about Fuhrman is apocalyptic. Here’s a hint: the “N” word and the “5^th” are likely to be repeated over and over again.

 

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