Bay Bay, I was all in for the premiere episode of this 10-part series like I didn’t know the outcome!  I just wish I coulda had snacks but alas, all this diet plan would let me eat was pickles, radishes and tic tacs.  Yeah, don’t ask.

Anyway, the premiere episode did not disappoint.  FX did an awesome job of casting….they got pretty much everybody right except OJ.  Now I done loved me some Cuba Gooding Jr since Boyz In Da Hood when he left his mama to live with his daddy, Furious Styles and even when he got out the car when Doughboy nem was about to avenge Rickey’s death.  Lawd Rickey.  Made enough on his tests to get into college, but had to go to the sto’!  And they shot him in his tennis shoe, but this ain’t about Rickey or how they threw him in the back of that car, took him home, and laid him on his mama’s plastic-covered couch.

So back to the movie.  I don’t think Cuba as OJ would look so strange if the other actors and actresses cast weren’t so spot on.  I mean they even got Kris Kardashian Jenner right, and she is sort of a bit player.  Marcia Clark looked like the real Marcia Clark even down to the high-strungness (is that a word) and frizzy perm.  Courtney Vance looked just like that smooth arse Johnny Cochran. I used to want to get into some kinda trouble so I could have him defend me (pro-bono of course).  And John Travolta BECAME Shapiro.  I don’t know if it’s the make-up or his ol’ arse bloated skin, but he looked just like that man.

Since everyone knows the storyline, I don’t really have to get into it other than this was the CRIME of the CENTURY, which was then followed by the TRIAL of the CENTURY.  It was as much about the attorneys involved and race, as it was about a well-loved popular former athlete who was an alleged abuser believed by many (mostly white people) to have nearly decapitated his ex-wife and a waiter (believed to be her love interest) in a well-to-do neighborhood (Brentwood) of L.A. in the wee hours of the morning.  Even though there appeared to be a mountain of evidence against O.J., he was acquitted.  Black people thought it was payback for what had happened with Rodney King and the L.A. cops (found not guilty in his savage videotaped beating) two years earlier.  Interestingly enough, OJ, at the time, hadn’t been “Black” for years.  But there’s nothing like a murder case against you to turn your arse right on back.  Or a child molestation case.

I’m here for the remaining 9 episodes of this series since the acting was so solid and the story is still one that grips you 20 years later.  I do feel for the Brown and Goldman families if they are watching it because I’m sure it brings back many sad memories and emotions from that tragic time.  I also wondered if OJ is watching…and then I remember that thane in a prison cell (sentenced to 33 years for robbery – yep…one of the harshest sentences for a robber to date – them people was bound to get him one way or the other) and they probably ain’t got nobody’s cable or FX channels in the penitentiary.  Whether you think he was innocent or got away with murder, this series is must-see t.v.

Follow me on Twitter @staylorclark cuz I asked nicely.