Splash NewsTwo words: Bronco. Chase.
If you were one of the nearly 100 million people who watched it live on July 17, 1994—or not—chances are you will have some difficulty breathing while watching tonight's The People v. O.J. Simpson.
As perhaps the greatest testament to this being incredibly well-done TV, even though you know very well that O.J. Simpson survived that chase, you may find yourself dangling off your couch cushions, gasping and yelling as O.J. holds a gun to his head in the backseat of that White Bronco on the 405 Freeway, and racked with anxiety as you wonder whether he's going to pull the trigger.
Spoiler alert: He doesn't. But the fact that the episode makes your mind question known history is some serious hoodoo voodoo only Ryan Murphy can do.
For Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who plays the Bronco driver and O.J.'s best friend A.C. Cowlings, the whole episode is particularly surreal.
"I was home folding clothes in my room and my mom said, ‘You've got to turn on the TV!" the actor tells E! News. "Who knew that 20 years later, I would be recreating that chase? It was so crazy, driving that car and being in that moment. It's a moment everyone knows and almost everyone shared. I could not believe I was shooting it as we were doing it."
[Sidenote: We are also blown away that in 1995, Jamal-Warner was living at home and folding his own laundry, since that was three years after The Cosby Show ended. That's some good momming, Malcolm's mom!]
In tonight's episode, as O.J. is going off the rails in the slow-speed chase witnessed around the world, there's also a hilarious moment where we see what his lawyer Robert Shapiro [John Travolta] was up to: After giving a press conference in which he basically does nothing but try to save his own ass, Shapiro is seen rolling up to his Westside estate listening to smooth jazz after stopping to get some gas, blissfully unaware O.J. has been found—and being watched by millions of people on live TV.
Travolta himself tells us he was also at a gas station when he first heard about the Bronco chase. "We were living in Carmel Monterey, in northern California, at the time, and we were at a gas station and saw it on television," Travolta tells E! News. "And we got home and my dad was already all over it, watching with bated breath."
One fact you might not have remembered about the Bronco chase: The Bronco was not actually O.J.'s but rather his best friend A.C.'s, who, oddly enough, had the exact same car as O.J. So, um….was he obsessed?
"O.J. and A.C. had been childhood friends," Malcolm-Jamal Warner tells us. "They literally grew up together. A.C. really had O.J.'s back. O.J. had A.C.'s back…to an extent. It's a very common complex relationship with someone who is in the public eye and they have a best friend and sometimes it can be a weird relationship."
Tonight's episode also might mark the first time you may be truly floored by David Schwimmer [Robert Kardashian] as a dramatic actor, as he breaks down at the prospect of having to break the news to O.J.'s family that he is most likely dead.
This comes after the first time Robert Kardashian was ever on TV, and the camera pans to a young Kim, Khloe , Kourtney and Rob cheering on their father and chanting, "Kar-dash-ian!"
Just so many reasons this story continues to be intriguing on so many levels, and why The People v. O.J.: American Crime Story pulled in FX's highest ratings ever for a premiere last week, with more than 12 million viewers.
Funny enough, for Jamal-Warner, who played Theo Huxtable on one of the most successful TV comedies of all time (The Cosby Show from 1984 to 1992), it's his first time being part of a mega-successful launch.
"There wasn't any fanfare when it premiered," he recalls with a laugh. "When the show aired, no one really expected it to do what it did. NBC had only ordered 6 episodes. So it's good to be a part of something that everyone seems to like."
The People v. O.J. Simpson doesn't delve too deeply into the question of whether O.J. committed the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, but rather how the jury reached the verdict it did.
So, worth noting and something to keep in mind as you watch tonight's episode: A passport, a fake mustache, a goatee, $8,000 in cash and a loaded gun were found inside the Bronco. But none of the Bronco chase footage nor any of the items found inside the car were shown to the jury as evidence during the eight-month trial that followed.
Even 20 years later, the story could not be more fascinating. Nor more tragic.