A series that's gone below the radar: American Crime

American Crime now in season 2 on ABC is definitely the sleeper series of the year, so easy to overlook because it's a commercial broadcast on an old-line network but it far exceeds expectations, as it did in Season 1 as well. This series is similar to Fargo and, I think, True Detective in that each last season was a complete narrative and this "season" is a completely new story done by the same creative team, w/ a # of the same actors, most notably Felicity Huffman, now playing the steely head of an expensive private school in Indianapolis (in Season 1 she was the embittered mother of a murder victim) and Timothy Hutton as the basketball coach in the school (he was the milk-toast father of the victim in AC1). This season is about a scandal that rocks the school and community after the basketball team "captain's party" leads to an accusation of rape - I won't go into any details for fear of spoiler alerts in this on-going narrative. Will note only that, like AC1, AC2 does a great job with a very efficient plot tying many community elements together and in opposition and in reaction to this crime - similar but in my view a lot better than celebrated movies such as Crash. The series has its own visual style as well - many scenes shot in extreme close-up with no reaction shots at all, and with the characters using minimal make-up at best - so we get a sense, literally, of being "in their faces" during moments of high crisis and tension.