Yep, and I'm glad the show can keep both thoughts in its head at once. Cochran having a checkered private life doesn't erase the years he spent fighting for victims of police brutality; Clark's uphill battle against egregious sexism doesn't make her one iota more perceptive about how badly Mark Furhman will come…

I think in her mind, she thought "yeah, i haven't had much of an opportunity to pay attention to my appearance, let me trim up and show up looking good" but got crucified *again* because everyone expected her to show up looking super different, not just a little more polished.

For the purposes of the show, I'm glad they're painting Clark as oblivious (even though she claims she also didn't like Furhman). The scene a few weeks ago where Darden explains that Furhman *thinks* he's concealing his racism but is actually making it obvious rang very true to me.

It's pretty impossible to not call the cop who found almost all of the physical evidence to the stand. IMO, what they should have done is anticipate how the defense would use Furhman's racism to plant doubt and beg him to answer the defense's questions honestly, and, in their questioning, try to prove that despite his…

Well, obviously the major problem is that he perjured himself. I don't think the racism matters nearly as much as the perjury (though only a flagrant racist would lie about that and think they could get away with it).

I think IRL Clark said the perm started to grow out and she just went back to her natural hair by blow drying it

Haha that is the most delightfully 90s sarcastic response.

WHAT??? How did this escape me?? Ok then lets gooo AS2

I can see how the argument is made, because men = privileged group while women = less privileged group, similarly to how white Americans = privileged while black Americans = underprivileged. And I can't argue with any personal experience someone's had that made them feel belittled/mocked. But I can't see how it holds…

Still patiently waiting for Connie Britton to reappear as (the morally corrupt) Faye Resnick, human embodiment of this trope.

It's interesting how (besides Fuhrman) the show isn't really painting any white people as overt racists, but instead pointing out how lazily and stupidly they ignore racial issues or play into stereotypes.

It is a fictional television program. Come on. Supposedly the kids really did spend Father's Day with their dad, but you really think we're supposed to believe Ross literally gave a poorly written speech that foreshadowed the next 20 years of their lives?

Insightful and agreed! I still think the Kbabies work thematically, but even making their dad that much of a drip can't excuse the badly written speech.

Ahh, Coven… so much potential… so many witch hunter subplots

The show is really pushing the reality TV connection, so that jumped out at me immediately, but you're right — the whole tenor and tone of the 24-hour news cycle owes a TON to this case as well.

Even though I think the LAPD was (and in many ways still is) a largely corrupt, slimy institution, I too appreciate the more evenhanded portrayal of the cops so far (interested to see how they deal with Furhman in future episodes). It allows the show to still posit institutional critique through the mouths of black…

It's an interesting thought experiment, since that's pretty much the only way I can see this case working out worse for the LAPD.

Since it sticks out for so many people, it probably is a weak spot, but I do think it's a little more than just a wink, wink, nudge nudge kind of thing since the show is clearly painting this trial as the beginning of the national obsession with reality TV.

Paulson is so flawlessly synthesizing the public personification of Clark as shrewish and bitter with Clark's own perception of herself as simply driven and ambitious into one performance that unless some serious Ryan Murphery happens in the next 10 episodes, this could be her career performance. I also think that's…

Yep, especially since Gooding is actually doing a pretty good approximation of Simpson's athlete-gone-to-seed hunched over posture at the time, but it just serves to make him look shorter.