American Crime: Be Fun Recap (Season 2 Premiere)

In the Season 2 premiere of “American Crime” (ABC, 1/6/2016), the drama is set at Leyland, a prep school in Indiana. Even before we begin watching, we know from a quick preview that it’s going to involve a rape allegation.

Here are the characters we meet in this episode (click on the links for the actors).
Leyland Faculty: Sports coach Dan Sullivan; Headmistress, Leslie Graham
Leyland Students: Basketball players: Eric, Kevin, Wes.
Taylor, the boy allegedly assaulted; Evy, his friend.
Becca, a cheerleader, the coach’s daughter; Val, Kevin’s girlfriend.
Parents so far: Anne Blaine, Taylor’s mother;
Michael and Terri LaCroix, Kevin’s parents;
Steph Sullivan, Coach Dan’s wife and Becca’s mother

The episode opens with Taylor’s counselor talking to him about making serious plans. He’s going to be a senior next year. He mentions his lack of resources and less than stellar grades. Then we’re at a basketball game with Eric having a tough time, while Kevin is playing well. Coach Dan Sullivan keeps giving Eric pep talks. Taylor watches from the bleachers when all of a sudden, he is sent some photos on his phone that show him sprawled on the floor somewhere in his underwear, totally out of it. Later, Taylor does laundry with his mother, Anne, while she paints a rosy picture of how much good going to Leyland will be for his future. Taylor begins to unravel and tells his mother he never should have gone to that school to begin with. “I don’t want to go back to that place,” he blurts out and tries to cover that up by going for the rest of the stuff in the dryer.

Back at Leyland, Coach Dan is witnessing disturbing behavior himself. While wrapping up his day, his team players, notably Eric, are joking around. Eric shows Kevin a picture of a girl and says he so wants “to rape that.” He is going to send it to Kevin but Kevin declines. Eric asks him if he’s racist and doesn’t like Asians. “What are you talking about?” Kevin asks, “Nikki’s not Asian.” Dan notices a pretty blonde cheerleader shaking her groove thing in Wes’s face on his way out and videotapes it with his phone. It’s turns out to be his daughter Becca who is pissed off that daddy is spying on her. Most fathers would have marched right up there and put a stop to that but not Coach Dan. He sent the video to his wife, Steph. She showed it to Becca. So now we know that Coach Dan isn’t the confrontational type. Worse, he defends the boy his daughter was performing for to his wife: “Wes is a good kid,” he says, “it’s not about him.”

Meantime, Kevin has gone home, bringing his girlfriend Val with him “to do homework.” His mother, Terri, doesn’t like Val. She is sure that Kevin could do better and mentions “Nikki.” Kevin’s father, Michael, gives us some insight into Terri’s hard-to-please personality. Terri basically wants to handpick Kevin’s girlfriend from her idea of a good family. Upstairs, Kevin just wants to get in Val’s pants. “Be fun,” he tells her. Val bounces.

At school, Taylor is sent to the principal’s office. Anne is already there and here’s the bomb that gets dropped: Taylor is being suspended for 3-weeks for violating the school’s code of conduct with some photos that were put online. He was given the opportunity to explain the pictures but would not and they won’t even show her the pictures. It’s kinda like, your son did something so gross we can’t even show you so just get him out of here. Anne is upset, but doesn’t even know who to be upset with. She starts with her kid, demanding answers but Taylor won’t get in the car.

Leyland’s Headmistress, Leslie Graham, is introduced at an event celebrating the basketball team’s success with a state championship, honoring Coach Dan and fundraising. She informs everyone that the school is $18 million short of its fundraising goals and they need to get their checkbooks out and help big-time.

Anne does get shown the pictures by Evy, who also has parents, but she seems to be taking care of them rather than the other way around. Her mother is a bedridden invalid. She meets Anne and tells her that she thinks Kevin invited Taylor to the party. He was hanging with the boys and left her with some “bitches” who didn’t even try to hide their contempt for her lack of status. Evy later found Taylor “really messed up”, surrounded by students taking pictures and “busting on him.” He didn’t want her to say anything. Still angry, Anne confronts Taylor but he can’t give her an explanation. He doesn’t know what happened and was too ashamed to tell her. Admitting to drinking a couple of beers, he recalls how the boys kept telling him to “Just be fun.” After he drank the beer, he felt sick and couldn’t stand up. The boys were grabbing at him and laughing. Heartbreakingly, he confesses that he thinks they did “something” to him. Anne offers comfort to her victimized boy. It doesn’t seem like either of them are going to be getting a lot of that from anywhere else though.

With the sketchy information she has, Anne meets with Leslie Graham, whose attitude and careful language shows the viewer that her main priority is to protect the school. She assures Anne they will look seriously into the matter but we’re sure she won’t. And we’re right! Graham goes to Coach Dan, tasking him with going to the team and finding out what these “allegations” amount to and don’t even bother her if it’s nothing. Dan gathers the team together but we don’t get to listen to that. Instead, we hear him complain about even having to do it to his wife. Steph wants him to talk to their girl too but he doesn’t want to do that either.

Anne returns to talk with Leslie Graham to find out what progress has been made and is thrown for another loop when Graham acts like the whole matter is over. There will be some discipline to some players who can’t be named. Graham’s attitude changes to almost threatening after Anne blurts out “My son was raped.” She warns Anne to be very careful with her choice of words. Realizing she is in enemy camp, Anne calls 911. Her hands are shaking badly and she has a hard time but she gets these words out: “I want to report a rape.”

There was one other scene with a basketball game with Kevin’s parents in attendance. Kevin got the ball right when they needed the last shot to win. But instead of taking the shot himself, he passes the ball to Eric and let’s him get it. His mother, Terri, berated him all the way home. If this was a Law & Order show, the interactions between Kevin and Eric would have the detectives saying: those two look good for it. We’re not as sure about Wes being a good kid as Coach Dan is either.