To borrow a phrase from George R.R. Martin, misogyny — like racism or transphobia or another baseless hate — is a sword and not using a hilt. True, it’s a harmful weapon, and also you’re going to harm your targets and damage them unhealthy. However there’s no protected strategy to swing a weapon like that with out doing injury to your self.
No matter else anybody needs to name them, Lyle and Erik Menéndez are males. They need to subsequently be the beneficiaries all our patriarchal society can bestow — energy, respect, the good thing about the doubt. When males communicate, we’re alleged to pay attention.
However the male jurors who refuse to acquit the brothers throughout their first trial, thus inflicting a mistrial and prolonging the entire ordeal, don’t prolong this aegis of patriarchy to their brothers Lyle and Erik. No, the Menéndezes are out of the fraternity of belief for 3 causes. First, they lack the maternal intuition, says one feminine juror; that form of kindness has been drummed out of them. Second, they don’t consider boys might be abused; victimization is de facto female.
However lastly — and most significantly, says the juror who confides in Leslie Abramson about it in any case her friends have departed — the male jurors voted to convict Lyle and Erik not as a result of they hate Lyle and Erik, however as a result of they hate Leslie. Anybody who lived by means of the Nineties or their disastrous 2016 revival try can let you know why. The massive blonde hair, the facility fits, a high-profile and high-paying job ready of authority, a persona that’s not structured round being nice for males to be round: It received’t do.
So as a result of just a few males disliked a girl, two males are nonetheless up for execution for the crime of killing the individuals who tortured all of them their lives. It’s extra essential to the male jurors to punish that girl than defend their fellow males. Actor Ari Graynor appears bodily nauseated as Leslie swallows this shit sandwich complete in seconds with out breaking a smile, as a result of god forbid.
Not that Leslie is above utilizing extra conventional — if, uh, idiosyncratic — variations of femininity to make a degree when and the place it serves her. The start of this episode is a showcase for Leslie Grossman as Judalon Smyth, Dr. Jerome Oziel’s affected person, mistress, and (we study right here) sufferer. By establishing that Oziel isn’t just a prison but in addition form of a pathetic dork, she torches a big a part of the prosecution’s case. However she additionally simply seizes the highlight due to her usually zany demeanor. She’s into crystals and cats and is usually a form of girl that males aren’t going to really feel threatened by. Baffled by, perhaps, however not threatened by.
In a way, the entire episode comes right down to the problem of efficiency. Does Leslie act the best way a girl is meant to — does she carry out gender correctly, to get somewhat jargony about it? What about Judalon? Does her star flip advantage her the duvet of Vainness Honest, as she pitches to Dominick Dunne?
Talking of Dunne, what are his fixed dinner events however somewhat one-man present, the place he can delight his coterie together with his distinctive mix of effete erudition and fire-and-brimstone hang-em-high justice? And he placed on a hell of a efficiency final episode when he apologized to Leslie, both for not believing the brothers or for underestimating her capacity to get them to lie — it certain appeared like he meant the previous to me on the time, but it surely was the latter all alongside. (To carry issues again to misogyny for a second, Dunne — Nick to his mates — mocks the ladies courting the brothers in jail and makes a snide insinuation about Erik’s un-macho homosexuality.)
Then there are the performances of the brothers themselves. Lyle is devastating on the stand, however will get recorded saying he’d rehearsed crying — amongst numerous different statements that make it not possible for him to testify at their second trial. Erik blows his personal testimony due to a malfunctioning mic he can’t cease messing with, like a child in a highschool manufacturing. Earlier than issues go south, Lyle suggests totally different actors who can painting them within the inevitable film to observe (Brian Bosworth, Rob Lowe, Kirk Cameron) and is thrilled that John Malkovich performed him on SNL. Cameras report each inappropriate smile, each unusual look instantly into the lens, or by means of it on the viewers at house.
Which in a approach is the place the episode leaves us: the media, which has turned your complete factor into an ongoing tv sequence. Proper across the time the 1994 earthquakes begin hitting L.A., Erik will get the sense that one thing within the media narrative has shifted in opposition to them. He blames Leslie, and that’s a part of it — she will be a part of Marcia Clark and Monica Lewinsky in Ryan Murphy’s “Historical past Misjudged Us” Justice League — however after all it’s additionally extended publicity to the badly damaged brothers themselves.
However the Menéndez Brother Present is about to lose within the scores to the largest hit of the last decade. Ordered to assist clear the cell block in anticipation of a “VIP,” Erik watches O.J. Simpson’s notorious Bronco chase, and later winds up within the cell proper subsequent to him. (Erik advises the Juice to not belief Robert Shapiro — and to think about a plea cut price.) Quickly Jay Leno will go from spoofing Lyle’s horrendously misguided fundraising efforts to the Dancing Itos. A Los Angeles already torn aside as soon as by racist cops and riots could have a spectacle to observe like none earlier than it, although the brothers set the template.
In the meantime, Erik and Lyle’s cash, their retailer of goodwill, their fan letters, their authorized crew, their luck, and probably their time are all working out. Sorry, fellas. I do know it says “MEN’S CLUB” on the door, but it surely’s members solely.
Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Instances, and anyplace that may have him, actually. He and his household stay on Lengthy Island.
