By Christina Murphy

COLUMNIST

When I first saw commercials for ‘American Crime’, which ABC took the liberty of marketing as the show of the century, I saw just another big name, big budget miniseries for basic cable (we all saw those commercials for ‘The Slap’, right?). This show stars Felicity Hoffman and was created by John Ridley, of ‘12 Years a Slave’ screenwriting acclaim.

The show starts with four seemingly disconnected storylines: two sets of parents who have just faced a tragedy, a Latino family lead by a strict Father, a Latino gang member with neck tattoos and a victim’s credit cards, and a drug addled interracial couple who are on a quest for meth and pictures of other interracial couples to that they rip out of magazines and add to a shrine on their wall. Each group’s story develops and we slowly see how they’re all connected.

When I say slowly, I mean it. I wrote ‘S-L-O-W’ letter by letter, in all caps and at a moderate pace in my notes during one scene and by the time I was done, still nothing had happened. Granted this is just the pilot and they’re laying down groundwork but they really made the audience work for it.

The first episode of ‘American Crime’ is largely about the people surrounding this so called crime, but goes into little detail as to what the actual crime was. All we know is that a former Marine with a dark secret has been killed and his wife, Gwen, has been sexually assaulted and is in critical condition. The motive was, presumably, money.

We meet a dizzying array of characters on the fringe of this murder. We see them in ambiguous scenes that take place in the present and are interrupted by short choppy cuts of their memories. Some of their memories were of better times; others were of things they’d rather forget. This was the shows best attempt at breaking up the monotony and provoking intrigue.

Felicity Hoffman plays the callous mother of the deceased victim, Matt. She gives an excellent performance in the first episode. She plays into the typical unlikeable, staunch female archetypes that pop up on so many of these types of dramas. We see her show little emotion, almost to the point of concern, until her final scene in which she cracks.

‘American Crime’ comes off as a very watered down version of a show that’s already been on cable. Think of a papier-mâché mask made up of strips of ‘The Wire’, ‘True Detective’, ‘Breaking Bad’, ‘Sons of Anarchy’ and ‘Fargo’. It’s a fine addition to the cadre of shows that set out to reveal an underbelly of society that we collectively chose to not acknowledge.

What sets this show apart from the rest is that it chooses race and justice, or rather injustice, as its main focus. It has a powerful message, but is by no means a nuanced work. They have a point to make and they’re not being coy about it.

American Crime airs Thursdays on ABC at 10 PM.