The People v. O.J. Simpson Recap: Episode 9 - Manna From Heaven (RECAP)

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• published: 01 Apr 2016
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The People v. O.J. Simpson Recap: Episode 9 - Manna From Heaven (RECAP) With the Fuhrman tapes, it seems as if both sides were handed “manna from heaven,” as Courtney B. Vance practically sings to his team. But even after the defense procures them from a begrudging Southern judge, the prosecution is basically handed grounds for a mistrial . . . which they choose not to pursue even though they know the case has already been lost. This is the first episode where we start to see our characters looking forward to life after the trial. Clark is granted primary custody of her kids in the final scene; she, like the audience, seems to have forgotten that she was in the middle of a bitter divorce. The Simpson trial was the last case that the “trial junkie” ever took on; she left trial law to write a book and spend time with her kids. It’s not enough to be handed “manna from heaven”; you have to know how to use it. As for the rest of the episode, as has become par for the course on this series, most of what happened was just as incredible in real life—and in some cases even more so. O.J. Simpson’s “Minimum Fitness for Men” video was shot a few weeks before the murders. Did Chris Darden really lose it at Johnnie Cochran over accusations that he himself was racist in quoting from a witness? Wait, how did this screenwriter named Laura Hart McKinny even meet Mark Fuhrman? McKinny was working as a screenplay-writing instructor, while never having sold a screenplay. Johnnie Cochran said of the Fuhrman tapes: “This is manna from heaven.” The defense lawyers bickered over who would go to North Carolina. Bailey and Cochran lost their first request to have the Fuhrman tapes brought from North Carolina to California. Margaret, a.k.a. Peggy, York, one of the highest-ranking women on the L.A.P.D. at the time and Judge Ito’s wife, was once Mark Fuhrman’s supervisor. Judge Ito’s speech about his wife and how tough it is for women in the workplace. True, astoundingly. This is taken nearly word for word from his actual speech, and we see the subtle outrage flash across Sarah Paulson’s face as Ito praises his wife and all women for enduring hardships in male-dominated professions. From her memoir Without a Doubt: Did Chris Darden really lose it during a cross-examination and refuse to apologize to the judge? Yes, this is true and far worse a transgression than portrayed on-screen. The disagreement between Cochran and Darden was actually over cross-examination of Detective Lange. Ito did instruct Darden to calm down and take “three breaths,” but he still refused to apologize to Ito. A lawyer present to cover for CNBC (O.J.’s original choice for trial attorney, Wyoming cowboy Gerry Spence) became so incredulous that he screamed out, “Jesus Christ!” Clark did offer to remove her jewelry and go to jail with Darden (a move that he writes briefly about with obvious affection and admiration); in the end, he offered a weak apology to avoid jail. Mark Fuhrman pled the Fifth to every question during cross-examination. True. He was eventually charged with perjury, after the tapes proved he had used racial slurs within the last decade—after he had testified that he had not. The tapes are as bad or worse than intimated on-screen. The man “hated by both sides,” as Nathan Lane’s character notes, pled “no contest” to felony perjury in October 1996; he was fined $200 and sentenced to three years’ probation. Music: crystalline_city-freesoundtrackmusic Yours truly, CelebrityTV The People vs. O.J. Simpson, People v. O.J., FX series, television, O.J. Simpson trial, Mark Fuhrman, Nicole Simpson, Ronald Goldman, Marcia Clark, Chris Darden, Johnnie Cochran, Ron Shapiro, F. Lee Bailey, Cuba Gooding Jr., John Travolta, Courtney B. Vance, Manna From Heaven, episode 9, RECAP, CelebrityTV