Race, sex and class are as tangled up in the second season of John Ridley’s “American Crime” as they were in the first. The story has been changed and some of the same actors play different roles but the stain of dread and loss lingers.
Ridley, of course, is the Mequon native and Oscar winning “12 Years A Slave” screenwriter, author and director whose film “Jimi: All Is By My Side,” played the 2014 Milwaukee Film Festival.
The first season of “American Crime” was a timely, racially charged murder story.
The second season, Wednesday on ABC affiliate WISN-TV (Channel 12), is a potent tale of sexual violence and privilege.
Like the first season it asks:
“Do you know who your children are?”
Felicity Huffman plays the headmaster and chief fundraiser at an affluent Chicago area academy; Timothy Hutton is the basketball coach and father figure whose daughter is a cheerleader; Regina King, is the exacting mother of one of the team’s star players; and Lili Taylor is the fiercely protective working class mother who accuses team members of drugging and sexually assaulting her son.
Needless the administration circles the wagons as it prepares to crush Taylor and her son.
But the episode begins and ends with the same scene: Taylor’s voice calling 911 to report a rape.
Last season, Huffman and Hutton played the divorced parents of a murdered adult son, Taylor a grief counselor and King the sister of one of the accused. This season they are joined by Andre Benjamin, as Taylor’s husband, and Hope Davis as Hutton’s wife. The students, including members of the team, are unexamined at this point except for the Connor Jessup, late of “Falling Skies,” as the abused student.
His tearful description of the assault to a trembling Taylor is shattering.
With season two Ridley continues to exploit the creative opportunities afforded by producing a limited run series, anthology in nature and with an ensemble cast. In episode one the class divide theme plays a bit broad, but things went asymmetrical pretty quickly last season and will probably do the same again.
Tags: American Crime, Felicity Huffman, John Ridley, Lili Taylor, Regina King, Timothy Hutton Posted by