American Crime: What Exactly Did Taylor Lie About?

That is only one of the questions that we were left with by the end of Episode 6 of American Crime’s Season 2 (2/10/16). Taylor Blaine said he “messed up” by lying when he paid an unexpected visit to Nate, but he didn’t specify what exactly he lied about. Well, it may just be what we already know — that he went willingly to the party where he told his mother he was drugged and assaulted, which was already bad enough. Nate just assumed that more or less and tried to assure him that no one who loved him cared about his sexual orientation but Taylor reminded Nate about the Colts’ games that they used to go to and how he suddenly stopped going. It was because Nate mocked the Colts when they were losing to the Packers, telling them to “stop playing like queers” Taylor explained that he brought this up now because his counselor told him to confront things and he left.

Eric, in the meantime, was going through his own bad time. His brother Peter can’t stand him anymore. His mom doesn’t want anything to do with him either and even told Eric’s father it would have been better if he died from the suicide attempt. Eric was welcomed back at school with open arms at the direction of Headmaster Leslie Graham. She expected him to be a voice for tolerance on behalf of Leyland Academy as an “openly gay athlete.” Eric was just not comfortable with that assignment. Leslie set him up with a reporter and gave him a pep talk. But Eric pissed off the reporter by blurting out that he was gay, but he wasn’t “a faggot.” Leslie had to double down on her efforts to keep things in check by persuading the reporter to leave that “unfortunate comment” out. Later, at a basketball game, Leslie watched the Leyland basketball team ignore Eric on the court and watched the crowd jeer “Gayland Academy.”

After snubbing Eric when he wanted to join the team for a bite to eat, Kevin angrily told Wes, Sean and two other team members that his mother told him all about bitches. They always try to play you. The boys thought he was talking about Eric, but he clarified that he meant Taylor. Kevin said that back in the day, Taylor would be quickly handled, indicating a butt whupping. Nowadays you can’t do that, he added, except that because Taylor is a dude, “there’s no reason that he can’t get handled.” Then he left. Wes and Sean exchanged a meaningful look.

In the very next scene, Taylor got a call on his cell phone from Eric who told him that they needed to talk about what happened. “I know what happened,” Taylor responded. Huh? We thought it was all hazy. Eric tells him to come by the rec center. When Eric hangs up, we see he is with four basketball team members. One says, “It’s all good. It’s for the team,” and the four boys leave. After Taylor crosses into the parking lot far enough, the four boys get out of a car. Then Taylor knows what’s up. He starts running.

We really don’t want to get too much into the parents in this post, although Kevin’s mom was already going off the rails over Anne’s lawsuit. Kevin’s father enlisted the help of a policeman to give a strong message to Anne that she “messed with the wrong family.” We are still trying to gauge Kevin’s culpability in this whole mess. If he was totally innocent, why was he so worried about doing 6 years and what is the team keeping their mouths shut about. And we’re not even going to talk about the Thurgood Marshall drama until it makes some sense. Right now it feels like it’s thrown in there for even less reason than Taylor’s new boyfriend who told him that what happened at that party was just a hookup gone wrong before trying to see if Taylor wanted to get choked.

The one thing we are hoping is that by the end of this season, we are not left without answers to what actually happened at that party and what Kevin Lecroix’s role in it was.

At any rate, it doesn’t look like we are going to get those answers in the next episode. The New York Post has an article about it and Connor Jessup (who plays Taylor Blaine) says it’s so intense, that even he is afraid to watch it… and he knows what happens!