‘American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson’ 103 The Dreamy Team

robert kardashian oj simpson ep 103

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American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson 103 The Dream Team Recap

Airing its third episode this week, FX’s American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson has been dominating ratings and viewership for the past two weeks. It has also been garnering lots of praise from critics, earning itself an impressive score of 97% currently on Rotten Tomatoes and the #1 spot amongst 2016 TV series on Metacritic. With this week’s episode “The Dream Team” airing, the show hopes to once again captivate its audience with furthering it’s retelling of O.J. Simpson’s now infamous trial.  The story continues as O.J.’s main lawyer Robert Shapiro begins recruiting members to join the defense team. Meanwhile, Marcia Clark leads the team of prosecutors, who are trying to piece together sufficient evidence to ensure O.J. is found guilty of the charges they have now laid out.

The episode kicks off with another Kardashian-filled scene. Evidently show creator Ryan Murphy knows the power of the Kardashian name and has ensured to incorporate Robert Kardashian and his now famous family into the show as much as possible (even if its stretching the true reality of what happened). Robert is seen taking his kids to an in-demand restaurant, where he is shortly after recognized for being part of the O.J. trial and given one of the limited open tables. Not surprisingly Robert’s kids are overjoyed by the attention and special treatment that their father is receiving. However, Robert adamantly tells them, “Being a good person and a loyal friend is more important than being famous.” In this scene, the actress portraying young Kim Kardashian also states that O.J. Simpson is her godfather, which is something that the real O.J. has claimed to be true.

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Young Kim Kardashian

Shortly after, lead prosecutor Marcia Clark is seen holding a press conference stating that O.J. has been charged with the murder of both Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson.

Meanwhile, Robert Shapiro is clearly flustered as he sits in his office surrounded by countless tabloids that have O.J.’s face sprawled across them. Robert calls up reputable attorney F. Lee Bailey for some help, as he is frustrated with how negatively the press coverage is affecting his client’s case. Under Bailey’s advisement Robert opts to reach out to well-known lawyer Alan Dershowitz so that he can join the defendant’s team. The underlying reason for this is so that Shapiro could stop Alan from appearing on TV talk shows and interfering with the defendant’s team’s progress (and trashing Shapiro while he is at it).

robert kardashian oj simpson ep 103Alan flies out and brings DNA specialist Barry Scheck. While Alan and Robert Shapiro right away bump heads (and egos), Barry offers his DNA analyzing services, which were just on the cusp of becoming a big part of criminal law. Barry tells the team, “I’m not going to contest the DNA matches…I’m going to keep them out of the court entirely.” By developing doubt over the collection of physical evidence, the police collected, Barry explains that they will be able to “disrupt their presentation of physically evident at every turn.”

Later on, Robert Shapiro gets some insight on Mark Fuhrman, the detective who found much of the evidence that is stacked up against O.J. He is practically in tears (of joy) when he finds out that Mark has a history of being racist and even sued the city saying that his job as a police officer has caused for him to have violent fantasies of beating up black people. Evidently, it is then that Robert realizes exactly how he was going tackle the case. Immediately he takes action and sets up an interview with a journalist at The New Yorker. Here, he explains that the LAPD elaborately set up his client, and this is merely another example of the LAPD’s racism. This prompts Shapiro to convince the rest of his team, including O.J., to hire Johnnie Cochran. Cochran had already been a part of numerous racially charged cases and Shapiro is confident that he can help capitalize on the new revelations about Fuhrman.

Over at the prosecutor’s office, Marcia is receiving a wake-up call from fellow prosecutor (not working on the case (at the time)) Christopher Darden. Chris tells her that most of the black community truly believes that O.J. is not guilty, which shocks Marcia. Things get even worse when the audiotapes from Nicole calling 911 in the past to escape from O.J.’s physical abuse are released to the media, which subsequently means that the prosecutors will be unable to use it as concrete evidence during the trial. In addition, The New Yorker releases Shapiro’s claim that his client was framed by the LAPD – which prompts Marcia to state, “we have to stop treating this case as a slam dunk.”

The episode ends with Johnnie Cochran visiting O.J., as he feels he needs to look into his eyes and “believe him” before he can commit to defending him in court. Here, O.J. swears there is “no way he could have killed [Nicole].” After O.J. breaks down into tears, Johnnie decides he is going to take on the high-profile case.

You can catch more of American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson next Tuesday, February 23 on FX.

Next Week on American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson

Johnnie helps lay the racial groundwork that the defense team believes is needed to win the case. Meanwhile, the jury selection gets underway, and both the defense and the prosecution look to external experts to help them figure out who are the most favorable jurors for their side of the case.