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Sarah Paulson as Marcia Clark and Sterling K. Brown as Christopher Darden in The People v. O.J. Simpson
Ray Mickshaw/FX
Marcia Clark is in a different courtroom. Lest we forget, while prosecuting O.J. Simpson for a double murder, she’s also in the midst of a custody battle with her ex-husband for her two children, who her husband says spend all their time with babysitters. Clark is also “very late” for work. Yikes!
Today’s witness? Denise Brown, Nicole Brown Simpson’s sister, who recounts a time when O.J. grabbed her sister’s crotch and said, “This is where babies come from and this belongs to me.” Denise says that O.J. wasn’t angry; “that’s just the kind of person he was.” He sounds like a douche.
After work, Clark pulls up to her house and stops outside for a smoke. She overhears a TV segment where she’s described as “frump incarnate … this is not a look; this is a cry for help.”
Somewhere in a network office, executives are debating whether to pre-empt their daytime lineup for the O.J. trial. “This is a better daytime soap than anything we’ve got,” an exec notes. They decide to clear the slate.
Clark arrives at work and says she hardly slept, but she’s over-prepared for court and “ready for anything,” which in TV world means that something unexpected is about to happen.
She calls Det. Mark Fuhrman to the stand, and the defense team quickly interject that they have “a situation.” The situation is Rosa Lopez, the housekeeper for O.J.’s neighbor, who says she saw O.J.’s Bronco parked outside his house at the time the prosecution says it would have been at Nicole’s house while O.J. was killing his ex-wife and Ron Goldman. The witness is leaving the country and needs to testify immediately. Clark says that the defense is just trying to destroy her momentum, which is probably accurate.
Judge Lance Ito dismisses the jury to hash out the witness issue and says the court will be going late tonight. Clark says she can’t do it. She has to get home to take care of her kids. She looks so defeated. Ito dismisses the court until the morning.
Back at the office, District Attorney Gil Garcetti is none too happy about Clark and her child care issues. “It looks like you’re losing control,” Garcetti says to Clark. He guilts her into staying at the office to work. Oh, and he’s appalled about the way that Clark’s appearance is being dragged in the media. But, um, in case she’s interested, he’s happy to introduce her to some media consultants for a makeover. Ouch. Clark calls her ex, the one who’s already complaining that she’s never with the kids, to ask if he can watch them. Again.
In court the following day, Lopez takes the stand. Johnnie Cochran says that her testimony can be done in a day if Clark can manage her child care. Clark says that Cochran’s remarks were “unconscionable and totally out of line.” They were.
The housekeeper is a kook. She says she’s leaving the country but she has no plane ticket, according to the airline. And she doesn’t remember now what time she saw the Bronco. Womp, womp.
Outside the courtroom, the lawyers are besieged by fans and the media. A reporter asks Cochran about his own history of domestic abuse. I’m sorry, what? In the office later, Cochran calls his ex-wife, Barbara, all but bribing her to keep her mouth shut.
The media also catch up with Clark’s ex, or maybe he catches up with them. Either way, he’s on TV saying that Clark was lying about needing to get home from court because he had the kids. “I am sick of her using our kids as pawns,” he says. Their custody battle is officially ugly.
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