'The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story' Recap: All You Need Is Glove
Warning: This recap for the “Conspiracy Theories” episode of The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story contains spoilers.
All things change, even things born perfect. In fact, the very ephemerality of perfection is why that concept has been obsessed over and sought after since living creatures could perceive: Because perfection is rare, and when you find it you’d better grab on before it disappears forever. As all perfect things eventually will.
This is to say that Marcia Clark no longer has a perm. I think we can all agree that her tight, crispy, possible Jheri curl was so flawless that Plato himself would’ve taken one look then pulled down a pair of sunglasses and buried his head in his arms like, “I can’t even deal.” But it is gone now. Marcia Clark’s perm is gone. That’s that first thing you need to know about “Conspiracy Theories,” this week’s episode of The People v. O.J. Simpson. The second thing you should know about “Conspiracy Theories” was that it was yet another very wonderful hour of television, and it marked the first time that I began to feel actual pangs of longing for this show in anticipation of its run ending. How can this thing only have THREE more episodes? The idea is too much of a bummer to even think about. So let’s talk about this episode instead!
We began at the Los Angeles Courthouse where Robert Shapiro and his eyebrows were frowning daintily at Gil Garcetti. The reason? Because Gil and all cops now despised Robert Shapiro.
This made Robert very sad. He had always viewed himself as aligned with law enforcement and also powerful institutions in general, so suddenly finding himself on a team of anti-authoritarian rabble rousers was not something he felt comfortable with. Life can be so hard for powerful people.
Meanwhile, guess who had a new hairdo! Marcia Clark did, and while it was not the tight n’ wild perm of her glory days, it was definitely a boring mom haircut. Because, again, nothing gold can stay.
Then we cut away to an Alan Dershowitz lecture and much like the hit ABC drama How To Get Away With Murder, his law class was attended only by young hunks and babes. But if we’re being honest, this scene was nowhere near as sexy or frenetically edited or scored with industrial New Wave synth beats, and he was no Viola Davis. No, this was just Alan Dershowitz discussing how to get away with murder. And here was where he laid out the Dream Team’s big strategy (as well as the episode’s biggest theme)… Make sure to razzle-dazzle the jury with a fantastic alternative theory if you want them to ignore the plain boring truth.
And while Dershowitz was saying all this we saw footage of the strategy in action. Specifically, Johnnie Cochran stunned the jury with a detailed demonstration of something called the “Colombian necktie,” which was not only a favored execution tactic of drug cartels, but also a very uncool fashion accessory. Anyway yeah, he was trying to convince the jury that Nicole Simpson had been murdered because she or one of her friends owed money to coke dealers. Cool and plausible theory!
I loved when Marcia Clark sarcastically regaled her entire office with Cochran’s theory as everyone doubled over with laughter. But then Chris Darden stepped up to explain why the jury might actually embrace Cochran’s insane suggestion: Being on a jury is BORING. Which, yeah. He had a point. Also check out the heart-eyes Marcia Clark was shooting at him here. Those two!
Continuing last week’s assertion that the press had started to sniff around Johnnie Cochran’s personal life, this week his ex-wife and former mistress both appeared on A Current Affair to discuss how badly he’d treated them. Johnnie Cochran was obviously not stoked that this happened, but he handled the press the best way he knew how. By shouting at them.
Well, more specifically he shamed everyone for looking into his persona life and reminded them that people were DEAD. And it worked? Johnnie Cochran seemed satisfied, anyway. But his current wife was VERY steamed at him, and also he suspected that perhaps Bob Shapiro had orchestrated the whole thing. In other words, Johnnie Cochran was surrounded by haters and he needed to stay woke.
At one point two of the detectives visited Denise Brown’s garage to go through some of Nicole Brown’s personal belongings. There was an awkward moment when O.J.’s daughter asked the detectives if they could hurry up and find her mother’s real killer already, and they exchanged a knowing glance with Denise. Kids of murderers sure say the darnedest things!
On the upside, the detectives ended up finding a receipt for those infamous gloves O.J. had probably been wearing the night of the murder. It was enough to cause Marcia Clark to Roger Rabbit around her office, but I think in retrospect the celebration was a bit premature and almost entirely misguided. Those gloves were gonna prove to be nothing less than a curse very shortly.
Man, this scene. So, Chris and Marcia were just hanging out in the entrance to the men’s room creepin’ on yet another Dream Teamer giving a press conference, and at some point Chris just straight-up asked Marcia to get out of his dreams and get into his car. Specifically drive with him to the Bay Area. She did some quick math on her child custody situation but then immediately jumped at the chance. Duh, girl! Get that vacation swerve on. Anyway, this moment would definitely make the Top 100 of the most romantic things to have ever happened in that courthouse men’s room.
In a series of slightly amusing scenes, Robert Kardashian began to have some real doubts about O.J.’s innocence! Obviously his friendship with the man had blinded him to his crimes, but at some point Kardashian decided it was strange that there hadn’t been a single other reasonable suspect either theorized or investigated. Later, Robert Shapiro (perhaps just out of pure manipulation) convinced Kardashian that in carrying O.J.’s garment bag for him he’d possibly been an accessory to murder. This led to Kardashian panicking and deciding he needed to know what was in the bag, which he then opened in front of Malcolm Jamal-Warner.
And it turned out to just be clothes and underwear and porno mags. Which, credit where credit’s due: O.J. was a real class act for carrying his Penthouses in a Louis Vuitton garment bag. You know?
At this point, O.J. had begun to get wind of Robert Shapiro being shady and possibly f—ing with the other lawyers and also wearing a pro-cop badge in court. And do you think O.J. was thrilled about these things? No, he was not. So he screamed at Robert Shapiro a bunch and threatened to fire him. Get it together, dude!
In the episode’s best scene, Marcia Clark went with Chris Darden to his favorite neighborhood bar in Oakland where she met all his friends and did shots with them and basically charmed EVERYONE in the room. When one expressed skepticism toward O.J.’s guilt, she sarcastically walked everyone through the defense’s conspiracy theory of how the LAPD had framed him, and in doing so pointed out how absolutely ludicrous it all was. But the important thing was how vivacious and hilarious Marcia Clark suddenly was, a far cry from the businesslike woman we saw in the courtroom. It was no wonder Chris was making eyes at her the whole time!
Unfortunately when it came time to seal the deal, he walked her to her hotel room but failed to make a move or kiss her or anything. So she immediately looked really hurt and then shut the door.
Ugh. So tough to watch. Obviously we are all rooting for these two to wind up together regardless of the fact that maybe they never even hooked up at all in real life and definitely aren’t together now. But these characters are so great it’s impossible not to ship ‘em. Who knew this show would be so romantically heartwrenching at times?
Marcia was still smarting from her botched weekend romance and the next time they were in court together she was cold and slightly pissed. Aside from not sexin’ her up properly, the main thing Marcia was mad at Chris about was the fact that he really wanted O.J. to try on those gloves in front of the jury, but she didn’t think it was a good idea. Putting aside the fact that those gloves were leather and had presumably stiffened and/or became misshapen in the time since they were last worn, she simply just didn’t want to trust the Defense with properly demonstrating ANYTHING.
But unbeknownst to them, Robert Shapiro had already noticed that the gloves were smaller than he’d thought, and seeing an opportunity to redeem himself in Cochran’s eyes, he urged them to try and manipulate the other side into asking O.J. to put on the gloves. Chris fell for the bait and suddenly O.J. was grimacing and struggling and pretending he barely knew what gloves even were.
The jury’s hubbub indicated they suddenly had rock-solid proof that O.J. was innocent. In other words, Chris had f—ed up BIG TIME, and Marcia Clark was livid.
Meanwhile O.J. and Robert Shapiro were besties again. Aw, isn’t that cute? Not really, but still.
“Conspiracy Theories” was not quite as next-level wrenching and illuminating as last week’s masterful “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia,” but it still excelled at showing us the inner lives (and concerns) of the key players while employing a clever, almost literary framework. Dershowitz’s college lecture pretty elegantly formed a mission statement for this episode: Trust the lie if it’s less boring than the truth. And while it’s easy to believe that much of what’s been presented in The People v. O.J. Simpson has been at least reverential of the truth, the fact is it doesn’t actually matter. Consider me razzle-dazzled.
What did YOU think of “Conspiracy Theories”?
The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on FX
