Let's talk about Eric Tanner and Kevin LaCroix. Up until now, they have been complicated and nuanced. Eric's shame around his sexuality and quest for acceptance resonates with me as a queer person -- I get where he's coming from. I also feel for Kevin. My family isn't wealthy like the LaCroixs, but being black and having gone to a boarding school (where I played basketball no less), endeared Kevin to me.
At least, I started out feeling that way about them. That is no longer the case.
The ambiguity around Taylor Blaine's story had previously allowed room for sympathy and emotional attachment to Eric and Kevin. But "American Crime" is brilliant in slowly peeling back the layers of what you perceive to be true.
What finally ended my sympathy? Eric orchestrated an ambush of Taylor, carried out by his basketball teammates.
But let's talk about what happened before that moment.
Eric sat down with a journalist (played by LGBT activist Wade Davis) to talk about his experience as an openly gay athlete. Eric doesn't want to do this, but to quote Kirk Moore, a writer on the series: "they are parading Eric like a show horse." The conversation between Eric and the writer does not go well and ends with Eric saying "I'm gay, but I'm not a f-g-t."
And I get it, he's dealing with a lot of shame, most of which is inflicted by his mother. The woman actually says that if Eric had died by suicide, "at least they could have buried him as [their] son." It goes back to what show creator, John Ridley, said in our interview. "American Crime" is as much about "the environments we create for our children" as anything else.
This point is further underscored by Kevin's monologue before Eric and the basketball team attacked Taylor. He says, "Eric is Eric, but I'm talking about the other one. He came in [to the party] like some b---h wanting to get turned out. My mom told me that b---hes always try to play you. Always. And that dude is a straight b---h. He outed Eric. Put my name out there. B---hes, man. And the messed up part is that it doesn't matter how crazy they are, you gotta treat them like they're real people."
Both Eric and Kevin see Taylor as the source of their troubles. Even though Kevin doesn't appear to be directly involved in the ambush of Taylor, he helped instigate it by fueling the hate fire. Their actions are so reprehensible that any compassion I had for them has evaporated. I could end up feeling differently about Kevin because he wasn't present when his teammates beat up Taylor, but I doubt it.
The basketball team chose to physically beat up a former classmate out of hate and revenge. Eric set the trap by calling Taylor to tell him to meet at the rec center so they could talk about what happened. Taylor has never wavered from his story, and desperately wants Eric to just admit what happened, so of course he goes to meet him.
However you may feel about the status of Taylor's credibility regarding his assault allegations, he did not ask for this. He doesn't deserve any of it.
Lines That Haunt Me
"[Eric] doesn't hide from what he did, he doesn't have to" -- Taylor Blaine
"He's not going to get better. They don't get better" -- Lilah Tanner
"The decent are the ones who suffer." -- Michael LaCroix
Catch new episodes of "American Crime" on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on ABC.
Katie Barnes is a digital media associate at ESPN. Follow them on Twitter at Katie_Barnes3.