An elite private school in the Midwest is shaken to its core when a member of the school’s basketball team is implicated in a male-on-male sexual assault in the second season of “American Crime.”
Making matters worse: the victim is a student on financial aid whose mother is bold enough — and angry enough — to take on a legal and educational system that doesn’t take her seriously.
“American Crime” is a dramatic anthology series created by John Ridley, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of “12 Years a Slave.” It unexpectedly found a home on ABC and won an Emmy in September for star Regina King.
“This real estate is really, really valuable,” Ridley says. “I was afforded a real opportunity to not screw it up. We pitched the season early. We had the majority of our scripts done when we were picked up.”
As in Season 1, Ridley explores racial and socio-economic issues through the prism of a police investigation — this time adding themes of sexuality and education.
“My mother is a teacher. My wife is on the board at our kids’ school. There’s a system in place,” says Ridley, who was educated at private and public schools. “Whatever we believe about education, it’s one thing to have a philosophy, it’s another to see it work in a situation.”
Ridley has brought back several members of the Season 1 cast in completely different roles, significantly changing the actors’ appearances. Most formidable are the women in the story, the two ferocious parents on opposite sides of the crime, Anne Blaine (Lili Taylor), the mother of the assaulted boy, and Terri LaCroix (King), the mother of the captain of the basketball team. But they are debutantes compared to Felicity Huffman’s Leslie Graham, a hard-nosed headmistress willing to protect the school’s reputation — at any price.
“None of these characters are innocent bystanders, emotionally or morally.” Ridley says. “They have to reconcile for what they did or didn’t do or should have done.”
Season 2 of “American Crime” premieres at 10 p.m. Wednesday on ABC.