'The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story' Recap: Mark of the Devil
Warning: This recap for the “Manna From Heaven” episode of The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story contains spoilers.
Assuming for a moment that you probably aren’t a despicable racist, could you ever imagine sitting down and listening to 13 whole cassette tapes of Mark Fuhrman casually using the n-word several thousand times while bragging about beating up innocent black people? That feels like a tall order for anybody, let alone people with consciences. One assumes that these tapes miiight’ve included less horrible topics — Mark Fuhrman’s preferred food item at Wendy’s or his favorite Seinfeld episodes perhaps? — but the worst and most disgusting parts of those tapes certainly overshadow everything else. Go ahead and label those tapes “Bad Times” and use a Sharpie.
Depending on whether you sided with the defense or the prosecution in the O.J. Simpson trial, those tapes may have just been “Manna From Heaven.” In fact, that’s what this week’s episode was titled! It’s worth pointing out that in the Old Testament’s version of events, the manna from Heaven did not involve so many uses of the n-word, at least not in any Bible I’m familiar with. Yet here was Johnnie Cochran, praising the Lord for 13 cassette tapes’ worth of abject hate-speech. See, these weren’t just recordings of a bad cop saying bad things, they were a confirmation of the darkest fears anyone’s ever harbored toward law enforcement. So, uh, thanks, Mark Fuhrman? Like, jump in a grave, but also thanks in a way?
Guys, this was a very upsetting episode of TV! But sometimes necessary things are upsetting, and “Manna From Heaven” felt necessary and essential. Let’s talk about it!
In a show ABOUT iconic moments of the ‘90s, we began with perhaps the most iconic of icons: THE A CURRENT AFFAIR LOGO. You know that spinning pyramid and synth whiplash sound-effect, it is seared into your memory. And on this particular segment, courtroom O.J. was pretending to be too arthritic to be a double murderer even though he’d filmed an aerobics video two weeks prior:
Man, journalism has never been the same since A Current Affair went off the air. Bring it back!
Anyway, this TV was owned by the woman who’d made the infamous Mark Fuhrman tapes. She was played by the girl from Wet Hot American Summer and she’d been a failed screenwriter who’d once interviewed Fuhrman for 13 hours about what it’s like to be a total piece of s–t (plus also cop stuff). Even though we didn’t see her much after her initial outreach to the Simpson tip hotline, I have to call into question ANYBODY who would willingly hang out with Mark Fuhrman after even the FIRST time he dropped the n-word. What was this lady’s problem? The episode didn’t really get into it.
Just to set the tone for what had been going on in the courtroom at the time the tapes were brought to light, a witness who’d once claimed to have heard the raised voice of a black man arguing with another man shortly before the murders ended up getting almost completely overshadowed when Chris Darden and Johnnie Cochran began shouting at each other about whether or not such a claim was racist. Like, obviously it was kind of racist, sure, but this WAS first-person testimony and all the biases that implies. The scene ended up being very illustrative of the two sides’ opposing objectives: The prosecution wanted to keep things limited and factual while the defense wanted to turn the whole thing into a larger referendum about systemic racism in the criminal justice system. In other words, it was all just A LOT.
So this was why the Defense seemed particularly, uh, stoked that the tapes existed. Because racism in the LAPD just seemed A LOT more verifiable now.
But obtaining these tapes would not be easy! Johnnie Cochran and F. Lee Bailey would have to travel to North Carolina and convince the local legal system that the tapes were important to their case. But as you might guess from a state that litters its courtyards with statues of Confederate soldiers and plasters its courtrooms with murals of Confederate flags, Johnnie Cochran’s flair didn’t quite go over so well.
Honestly I’m not sure if I bought this scene. For someone so savvy about racial politics in the courtroom, how did Johnnie Cochran honestly believe that he’d be better at arguing a case in the South than F. Lee Bailey, who resembles Colonel Sanders’ drunk uncle? Get real.
Fortunately F. Lee Bailey was especially good at laying it on thick, like when he spent about 10 minutes quoting scripture and using dog whistle phrases that amounted to basically “the South will rise again.” And so, before we knew it, the lawyers were granted full access to 13 tapes of Mark Fuhrman talking about planting evidence and occasionally beating innocent minorities nearly to death! Let the good times roll.
If this episode was any indication, the full contents of the tapes were truly stomach churning. There’s been some speculation and even suggestion by Fuhrman himself that he was talking ‘in character’ to some extent, or at least exaggerating his claims and using racist language in order to embody a worst-case-scenario cop. But uh, no thank you to that excuse. There was no excuse for this, and the quick montage of everybody listening to it looking like they wanted to vom was a pretty big sign that Fuhrman was actual human garbage. Worse, he seemed to validate every assumption people have ever held about police corruption, and this was an especially bad time for that.
But putting aside all the hateful, racist claims in these tapes (if such a thing were truly possible), probably the wildest moment in the recordings was when Mark Fuhrman began actively slagging Judge Ito’s WIFE, a female police officer (and superior) about whom he had particularly nasty things to say. Insane!
Now, this episode didn’t really mess around with this: Judge Ito and his wife were straight-up corrupt in their handling of this situation. She had obviously lied when she signed the affidavit claiming she’d never met Fuhrman, and this was probably because she’d just wanted her husband to attain the fame he was now experiencing via hilarious Jay Leno bits and signed Arsenio Hall headshots. But even when this conflict was discovered, Judge Ito clearly didn’t want to declare a mistrial or remove himself from the bench, so he kinda bent over backward to let other judges give him the go ahead to stay on the case. The whole thing was a mess and nobody looked good. A mistrial was honestly very deserved in this case, but nobody wanted to pull that trigger I guess.
Both sides were feeling tons of turmoil over the tapes themselves, as evidenced by back-to-back scenes in which everyone shouted at each other in elevators. Shapiro was still super steamed that his beloved Los Angeles had become a hotbed of racial animosity, and Chris Darden was just really ticked at Marcia Clark for not having listened to him when he’d advised her that Fuhrman was Bad News.
Fortunately they were able to kinda come together during another very stressful and upsetting scene in which Darden lost his temper toward Judge Ito. Ito had just ruled that the defense should be allowed to present the tapes to the Court (without the jury present) just ‘cuz. So Darden started shouting at everybody until Judge Ito threatened him with jail time. But the best was when Darden requested that his lawyer speak for him, and then Marcia Clark stood up and began yelling at everybody also! They were like Bonnie & Clyde ‘95 up there! And when Ito began threatening HER with jail time she replied, “Should I take off my jewelry?” like a BOSS. Anyway, everything ended up getting sorted out and apologies were exchanged, but the prosecution’s passion definitely shifted our sympathies back toward them. Nobody can deny there’d been a need for America to deal with racism and corruption in the legal system, but in attempting to make that happen during THIS case, Johnnie Cochran had now totally destroyed the chances for a fair outcome.
Like, we all know what that outcome will end up being, but at least from a character standpoint, it was nice to see Chris and Marcia finally make up again. At least there was that.
Ultimately Judge Ito decided that the jury should only hear two snippets of Mark Fuhrman’s racism, pretty much only to prove that he’d committed perjury when he claimed he’d never said the n-word. It was a lose-lose scenario for everyone except Judge Ito, who could now claim he never hid any evidence from the public (who by now had been stoked by Johnnie Cochran into demanding the tapes’ release).
But again, typical of this show, we were then presented with a quietly compelling scene between Johnnie and his wife in which our sympathies again returned to Cochran and his wish to shine a light on police racism and corruption. He may have failed to get the full and brutal truth of the tapes out into the world, but at least everyone knew it was realer than they’d imagined.
Finally the time came for Mark Fuhrman to take the stand again, and he arrived at the courthouse greeted by a hundred angry protesters and also 100% of everyone in the courtroom staring DAGGERS at him. Seriously, a slow-motion montage of everyone mad-dogging him, and that alone was pretty satisfying.
[Hey, quick shout-out to Steven Pasquale for agreeing to play one of the most irredeemably loathsome TV characters in history! Like, just having to record his voice for some of those excerpts must have been a real day-ruiner. Respect, sir.]
Anyway, in this scene Fuhrman got on the stand and repeatedly pled the Fifth for every question. Seeing an opening, Cochran asked Fuhrman whether he’d planted evidence, and because Fuhrman couldn’t budge from his tactic he pled the Fifth again, which we all know is shady as hell and implies “yes.” So that was a smart move on the defense’s part, credit where credit’s due. Now everyone knew that Mark Fuhrman was both a racist and had possibly planted evidence in this case.
THIS GUY was still pretty bummed about everything though. Yet another hard-won victory that threatened to lead to an actual travesty. Robert Kardashian, we feel you.
But this episode wasn’t just shouting and n-words. It ended with a slightly positive thing! Marcia Clark won full custody of her kids. A clerk joked that in getting full custody, she’d gotten “everything.” That was a cute sentiment, but I’m pretty sure Marcia would also liked to have won a Trial of the Century. Just my opinion!
“Manna From Heaven” was an unflinching and sometimes disturbing hour of television, but like the original conversation surrounding this case, it felt essential and even cathartic. Sometimes there’s no right time to broach important topics, and that even includes within the context of a murder trial. Let’s not mess around here, a murderer got away with it. But one hopes that the ripple effect from the Dream Team’s tactics and the renewed awareness of racist cronyism within the ranks of law enforcement had SOME benefit to society. I guess at this point we’d have to think this just to sleep at night. But the beauty of The People v. O.J. Simpson is that there was no correct answer here and it doesn’t claim to offer one. What it does offer is insight and humanity wherever the camera’s pointed. And that’ll always be valuable to us.
What did YOU think of “Manna From Heaven”?
The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on FX.
