American Crime

[The first four episodes of Season 2 available for review are] riveting from the first minute, with stellar, resonant performances driving a story with a high fiber content.

The desire to examine issues that commercial television generally avoids, and the ability to do so in a manner that is intellectually challenging and dramatically satisfying, remains the same. None of this could be achieved without the stellar returning members of this now-anthology’s cast, led by Felicity Huffman, Lili Taylor, Timothy Hutton, Elvis Nolasco and Regina King.... Each turns in a performance that is just as riveting as the first.

American Crime returns with an equally powerful, compelling, and intelligent story.

Like the first season, there’s a “Crash”-like flavor to the storytelling, but it feels more organic this time around.... Excellent, all around.

It carries a stronger sense of artful engagement with the viewer, through both direction and tone.... It’s still not exactly an easy watch, but it’s a far more engrossing one than in season one.

Scene for scene, it feels more attuned to the daily realities of life in 2016 America than any other drama on network TV. And because it’s a self-contained story that bears no relation to season one, you can jump right into it. I urge you to give it a shot if you aren’t already a fan. Just be patient. It’s one of those shows that needs a bit of time to work its peculiar magic.

Working with a repertory cast of excellent actors, American Crime feels like one of network TV’s most essential shows. It is proof that adult drama can still work on the channels that spawned it.

These four episodes are plainly terrific, both as entertainment and wire-crossing social commentary, and bracing proof that Ridley is one of the boldest, brainiest provocateurs working on television right now.

This season of one of network television's best shows, is, like the first, about much more than a single criminal act.... Ridley, who wrote and directed the season premiere, isn't afraid to take his time with these people or their stories. You shouldn't be, either.

There’s something almost revolutionary about the complex and utterly human teenagers that Ridley has conceived here and that his young actors bring to life. This season will get right under the skin of parents who worry too much (or not enough) about their kids.

[John] Ridley, the creator-writer-producer, has delivered a 10-episode series that is provocative not just in terms of clever scriptwriting but in what it asks of the viewer.

It all speaks to a level of ambition that has become increasingly rare in the broadcast spectrum, as if abdicating to cable this level of quality, or at least the willingness to tackle serious issues in such a nuanced manner.... For those with the patience to invest in it, missing out on American Crime would indeed be criminal.

The adults' heated conversations can feel more like textbook debates than natural dialogue. But the acting is phenomenal. [8/15 Jan 2016, p.97]

Crime’s provocation is needlessly excessive, but the show manages to feel vital all the same.

It’s more tightly focused on a case of rape at an Indiana private school in which every player--victim, victim’s mom, alleged perpetrator, school headmistress, bystanders--gets more than one chance to have his or her say. Its status as a work of pure fiction allows race, class and sexuality to shape the narrative in creative ways, and the characters are more than just placeholders for what we’d like to believe about the case.

By the end of the first hour you’re not entirely sure what happened or who is to blame, but you’re left with an unsettling feeling that even when the truth does surface the story won’t be tied up with a neat little bow as it would be in so many other crime dramas on television.

Through four episodes, the new season of American Crime is another tantalizing dip into a dozen intellectual pots and once again, this is both enriching and frustrating, though more of the former than the latter.

Through the limited series’ run, guilt is passed like a basketball. Sexual orientation, economic disparity and other headline-grabbing issues get their turn at attention. Best of all, Ridley works with a repertory company of sorts which gamely assume new roles.

Powerful new season. [4-17 Jan 2015, p.15]

Absorbing in fits and starts, but ultimately so didactic and, especially, humorless that I'm probably comfortable leaving the story--and the series--here.

While these character traits represent the real heart of the story, there are times you feel that Ridley is making an instructional film for a corporate HR department. On paper, it’s good for him to break away from stereotyping, but he does it with such obviousness, he almost undermines the power of his story and of the show’s extraordinary performances.

Ridley should be applauded for creating an involving world from the ground up so quickly without ever relying on stereotype. But American Crime still feels academic and inert at times.

It’s like an extremely well-acted power-point presentation on what to do, and what not to do, when a sexual assault occurs.

Through the four episodes screened for critics, the season bursts with power and purpose but misses a spark of life. It plays like an earnestly acted position paper.