That's a fair point. But American Crime's focus (for good or bad) *is* on the darker elements. For such a tight series that has its own purpose, I don't see how showing several happy gay online hookups to prove that most of the time they don't end in violence would serve its purpose. We're (slowly) reaching a point…

Yep. I thought it actually sounded like from Eric's perspective the whole thing was just another example of a guy claiming he was sexually interested or whatever and then after denying he was even gay by calling it a rape (yes, that's jumping to a conclusion but)

I actually found it very plausible—especially setting the guy up as a married man extremely messed up about his own situation who just snapped. I did think maybe after the assault he was going for rape, but obviously it turned into Eric fighting back before it got that far.

Exactly. And there's been a lot of nuance about things like internalized homophobia, etc, that, while they have been dealt broadly on TV before, frankly I have never seen dealt this well (by that I mean the subtext and moments inside of the more major plot points, which I assume this poster is only aware of).

I swear last week Luke did say that his mom was never home or wouldn't be home.

Yeah, I thought she would have ran after him or immediately called Anne. Still, her character, while obviously caring, has been shown so far to sorta take a very relaxed "I'm hear if you w anna talk but I'll also give you time to figure things out for yourself" view on all these things.

He lives with his mom, right? Luke I mean—wasn't there a comment the other week that she's never home? It did seem a bit weird—then again I had a closeted gay friend in high school (who was kinda out to his parents but not remotely at school and nobody probably would have assumed) whose bedroom to my surprise had…

Also, I never expected Luke to be the voice of reason here (I know it's a TV cliche but I wanted him, and even more so Taylor's mom's friend to run after the kid…)

I agree with lots of your points but I think the following comment is way too simplistic:

TO be fair, that seemed like a gut reaction (no pun intended). I think the show was implying that Taylor wouldn't have gone through with the kills (maybe I just like to think the best) but when Wes physically and suddenly basically attacked him, even threatening to kill him, and had just recently attacked him, and…

Ugh, I didn't even notice that he left his notebook behind

No—he mentioned to his wife last week that they could simply change to a more tolerant church if that was the issue (well not in so many words, but…) Still, he really should be forcing his kid, as much as possible, into therapy at the very least. But yeah, he's in over his head.

Also, he goes to these hook ups when he's emotionally upset and seems to just want some sort of connection. That can be a very different mindframe than meeting someone after days of exchanging pretty violent sexts and assuming that's what the guy wanted.

I think I agree with everything you wrote—well said. And yeah—I didn't think they'd have Taylor at this point go off to the woods and kill himself, but I still was relieved. And I also was glad they gave us that moment with the secretary just because sometimes I feel like this show can shy away from such things, if…

Haven't gone through all the discussion yet, so I'm sure some of this has been covered, but two interesting things the review left out.

I feel a *bit* of that, though I'm still on board because it worked for me how it was done (like Pilot said in the review, it wasn't a big mass shooting or anything). But Wes did seem singled out as canon fodder from the get go (the only other team mate besides Kevin and Eric to really have any lines, albeit of…

I am thinking he's not dead—but of course I imagine he would never want to report it (I guess he could go home and tell his wife he, umm, fell on a piece of glass….)

Well they do that too ;) I oddly never shoplifted (I just say oddly because all of my friends seem to have a story of shoplifting something as a teen, even the "good kids"—but a sibling of mine had a problem with it so maybe that made the issue less appealing to me).

I believe it's meant to depend on the time zone factor (didn't they mute a fuck on Mad Men even?)

Terrifying.