The People vs. O.J. Simpson recap: Marcia, Marcia, Marcia

This week's The People vs. O.J. Simpson episode begins in a familiar setting: a Los Angeles courtroom, with prosecutor Marcia Clark sitting in front of a judge. But as the camera pulls out, it becomes clear that we're in a very different kind of proceeding than the insanely high-profile trial at the center of the show's narrative. This courtroom is quiet, almost empty, and Marcia is sitting silently while her lawyer negotiates the terms of an exceedingly messy divorce. "Your honor, Miss Clark cannot object," complains her husband's lawyer when Marcia finally pipes up in frustration. "Miss Clark, please remember your place," admonishes the judge.

So begins The People vs. O.J.'s remarkable, revisionist take on Marcia Clark — one of the most widely criticized figures of the O.J. Simpson trial. "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia" offers an in-depth portrait of a woman at the center of a media firestorm, under constant scrutiny from enemies and allies alike, and told — both implicitly and explicitly — that she has no right to object to any of it.

Such a radical and deeply affecting reimagining of Marcia Clark all but requires Ryan Murphy's sledgehammer-subtle approach. The real-life Marcia Clark's public image wasn't just shaped by the months of courtroom footage available to the public; they were shaped by the tabloids, and hacky late-night jokes like Jay Leno's Dancing Itos, and the hundreds of articles dissecting her myriad failures as a prosecutor after O.J. Simpson was declared not guilty. Over the years, the idea that Marcia Clark was an incompetent bungler who botched a can't-lose case has shifted from commonly held opinion to acknowledged fact. Last year, Tina Fey played Marcia Clark as an incompetent ditz in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. When later told that The People vs. O.J. would portray Clark sympathetically, Fey "seemed to have trouble understanding how this could be possible."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

How does "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia" pull off the trick of rehabilitating the image of such a widely reviled figure? By caring enough to challenge that conventional narrative, and taking us into Marcia Clark's world, which is filled with such relentless antagonism and indignity that even the music she hears on the radio seems uniquely tailored to her situation. As Marcia arrives home after a long and frustrating day of work, Otis Redding's "Chained and Bound" plays. Later, Marcia grimly looks at a rack of tabloid covers mocking her appearance to the sound of Portishead's "Sour Times." And as the episode begins to explore the full complexity of Marcia as both a lawyer and a human being, Marcia relaxes to the strains of "Who's That Lady?"

So who is that lady, anyway? "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia" gives us plenty of people attempting to define her. "Frump incarnate! Guilty as charged. This is not a look, this is a cry for help," says a snotty, self-proclaimed style expert on a talk show. "Is Marcia Clark a bitch or a babe?" asks a shock-jock conducting an informal call-in poll. As she buys tampons, a fratty clerk makes a smug crack about the upcoming week being a different one for the prosecution. Marcia's boss, Gil Garcetti, can't resist trying to pin her down; after telling Marcia he finds the widespread criticism over her appearance "awful, inappropriate, sexist, and horrifying," he awkwardly suggests that she speak with a media consultant who might help to soften her image.

But what we really see in this episode is Marcia herself: passionate, overburdened, lonely, and sorrowful. As played by Sarah Paulson — who will surely submit this episode for Emmy consideration, and will probably win — Marcia is a tragic hero, struggling to keep her head above water in her quest to secure justice for Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. And in keeping within the boundaries of classical tragedy, we know that Marcia's quest is doomed before she begins.

The bravura centerpiece of the episode is set to a song that practically defines the weird, gauzy pop of the mid-1990s: Seal's "Kiss From a Rose," best known for its inclusion on the Batman Forever soundtrack. In an effort to stem the criticism of her appearance, Marcia puts her trust in a hairdresser. "What do you really want, Marcia? I'll do anything for you," he says — one of the only people to extend her any kind of compassion in the episode. (The other, Chris Darden, is overtly flirtatious; for now, The People vs. O.J. doesn't take a side on whether or not there's any truth behind the long-rumored, full-blown love affair between the two prosecutors.)

The result of Marcia's faith in her hairdresser is her infamous close-cropped perm. Ryan Murphy shoots the scene from Marcia's perspective as she enters the courtroom with her bold new look. She struts in with confidence — apparently feigned, since her smug smile drops the moment she's alone. But things only get worse when she enters the courtroom proper. The defense smirks at her, and Bob Shapiro gives her a sarcastic thumbs up. Even Judge Ito makes a crack at her expense. She tears up, but she doesn't have the time to do anything but push the pain down. There is, after all, a trial to lose.

And the worst betrayals are still to come. By the episode's end, both her ex-husband and her soon-to-be-ex husband have attacked Marcia in a public venue that's already clamoring for more ammunition to snipe at her. While her second accuses her of lying about their children at a press conference, her first — in a staggering and heartbreaking act of betrayal — sells nude photos of her to the National Enquirer, leaving her sobbing on the floor of her office. "I'm not a public personality," she says, face smeared with tears, to Chris Darden. "This isn't what I do. I don't know how to do this."

Like any fictionalized telling of a real-life story, The People vs. O.J. comes with its own inherent perspectives and biases, and some will no doubt argue that the series is being too generous to Marcia Clark. But given the vitriol thrown at Clark over the past 20-odd years, I'm inclined to prefer a more charitable take on a woman who was always more complicated than the narrative gave her credit for.

Like many involved with the real-life O.J. Simpson trial, Marcia Clark — long retired from law, and working as an author and occasional media personality — was terrified when she learned that FX was turning Jeffrey Toobin's nonfiction account of the trial into a miniseries. "I was so apprehensive," said Clark in an interview with New York. "I can't tell you the PTSD that came over me. It was physical, so painful."

I hope, after all this time, that the real Marcia Clark finds some measure of comfort in The People vs. O.J., which offers the compassion that was so widely withheld all those years ago.

Read more The People vs. O.J. Simpson recaps:

• The People vs. O.J. Simpson: The race card
• Don't forget the dark truths at the heart of The People vs. O.J. Simpson
• The People vs. O.J. Simpson has a Kardashian problem
• The People vs. O.J. Simpson recap: The run of his life
• The internet's next true-crime obsession will be American Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpson