American Sports Story

American Sports Story What’s Left Behind Season 1 Episode 9 Editor’s Rating 4 stars * * * * « Previous Next « Previous Episode Next Episode » Photo: Eric Liebowitz/FX
Last week, I pointed out that Aaron Hernandez was starting to shift its focus: While those first seven episodes were told almost entirely from Aaron Hernandez’s point of view, “Odin” split its time between the killer and the young man whose life he famously cut short. But the balance is even more skewed in this penultimate installment: Aaron himself appears only in a handful of key scenes, and even when he does, the camera lingers more on the faces of the people whose lives he changed forever.
“What’s Left Behind” begins with Hernandez’s arrest on June 26, 2013, a moment captured by swarms of ravenous paparazzi. From there, we’re firmly in aftermath mode, peering in on some of the conversations that undoubtedly happened in real life. Robert Kraft and Bill Belichick do damage control: releasing Aaron from the team, setting up a jersey exchange for fans, and holding an emergency press conference. Belichick’s mood is grim — more somber and uncomfortable than angry, though he’s insistent that Aaron not be mentioned again. His speech about moving forward and feeling proud of his players sounds about right, a PR attempt designed to paper over the past and create space for a new Hernandez-less Patriots.
Everyone with a close connection to Aaron is facing intense scrutiny now, to the point that his mom and brother are both forced into leaves of absence from their jobs. But the real main character of the episode is Shayanna, who’s still in denial that her fiancé could do something like this. It’d be easier to work through her feelings if she at least had the assurance that she and their daughter, Avielle, would be okay, but Aaron’s terminated contract means cash flow could become a problem before long. Most important, though, is her internal conflict. Is it possible to be loyal to both your sister and the man who almost certainly murdered her life partner? Shay and Shaneah’s conversations in this episode crackle with tension, especially as Nay makes it clear that she knows Shay has been protecting Aaron.
From here, the episode smartly boils down Shay’s struggle to one impossibly difficult choice: Will she cooperate with the district attorney’s office and testify, or will she risk five years in prison for obstruction of justice? Security tapes show Shay disposing of some large box shortly after a phone call from Aaron, leading to the obvious conclusion that, intentionally or not, she helped him dispose of the murder weapon — and lied by failing to report the removal of anything from their home. She’s not in a position to refuse any offer from prosecutor William McCauley (the always good Kelly AuCoin), who suggests Aaron is getting life in prison either way.
She’s under a lot of pressure, obviously, and it only gets worse from here. Tanya has been arrested after repeatedly failing to respond to a grand-jury subpoena, and the cops found a hidden car in the garage — a car tied to the double murder in Boston. Odin Lloyd is no longer the only murder for which Aaron is being charged.
“What’s Left Behind” benefits from keeping Aaron offscreen for several long stretches; after the arrest, we don’t see him again until Terri visits around 20 minutes in. We’re immersed in the perspectives of his family, all trying their best to be there for him in some capacity. That’s especially difficult for Shay, who can’t stomach the sight of this man she knows is a murderer deep down. When she does actually show up, she’s clinging to some hope that Aaron is innocent and desperate for a reason to believe him. But he’s upset because she didn’t bring Avielle and she’s been talking to the DA’s office. Shay is pretty clearheaded in explaining her divided loyalties — for obvious reasons, she’s torn between him and her family — but Aaron hits exactly the right pressure points when he replies, “I’m your family, Shay.” From that moment, Shay knows where she’ll be sitting during the trial: next to Terri on the defendant’s side of the courtroom, not next to the sister who needs her so badly now.
McCauley’s opening statement speaks to the ways fandom allows celebrities like Aaron to get away with all sorts of stuff; money insulates them from consequences, and adoration blinds people from seeing the truth. It’s a nice encapsulation of one of the key themes of the show. These scenes remind me a bit of the excellent courtroom scenes from the O.J. Simpson–centered first season of American Crime Story, a story focused less on Simpson’s psychology than the fraught sociopolitical debates raised by the trial and media spectacle. Aaron Hernandez, by contrast, feels more reminiscent of Ryan Murphy’s Dahmer, which suffered by waiting until the later, postarrest episodes to delve into those ideas. (This show is better than Dahmer, though.)
Odin’s sister, Shaquilla Thibou, takes the stand to discuss the cryptic texts she received from Odin shortly before his death. Then Ortiz and Odin’s mother testify, and court is adjourned for the day. Nay makes one last brutally earnest entreaty: Once Shay testifies next week, will she please just tell the truth? “I can’t lose you, too,” Nay says.
But that comment isn’t enough to shift Shay’s loyalties back. On the stand, she disappoints McCauley as well as her sister by claiming she never looked inside the box Aaron asked her to dispose of, nor did they discuss its contents — in fact, she supposedly doesn’t even remember the location of the dumpster where she tossed it. She even goes so far as to claim she thought the box just contained marijuana.
With that decision, Shay sacrifices her relationship with her sister and officially loses her, possibly forever. You can see how much it hurts Nay, who storms out of the courtroom. But Shay makes some good points in her conversation with her mom in the restroom. From her perspective, her fiancé has been used and discarded by basically everyone in his life, including the NFL. Even Shay’s mom pushed her daughter to ignore Aaron’s issues because of the life he could provide for her and Avielle. Shay’s testimony might be all for naught, but it does the trick of protecting herself from further legal consequences without totally throwing her vulnerable fiancé under the bus.
Again, though, Shay has always known deep down that Aaron killed Odin Lloyd — there’s a reason she doesn’t outright ask Aaron about his guilt until he’s charged for the double murder, an incident about which she knew nothing. If Shay’s mom was happy to look away from his magnificent bouquet of red flags, so was Shay herself. Now she’s torching a meaningful relationship with a blood relative to stick by a man who’s likely doomed either way. Sure enough, McCauley’s warning is proven correct: Aaron is found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center.
After an episode about all the family strife left in Aaron’s wake, the ending of “What’s Left Behind” offers a surprisingly calm, peaceful scene of family bonding, a stark contrast to Shay’s interactions with Aaron earlier in the episode. I don’t have much sympathy for the anti-hero at the center of this story, but it’s hard not to feel something. Today is Avielle’s birthday, and it’s obvious how much Aaron misses her.
There’s no way of knowing if the real Aaron Hernandez said “I’m sorry” to his daughter in a rare private moment, but it’s pretty impactful here, especially because the meaning of his words is left slightly ambiguous. From what I’ve read, there’s little evidence of Hernandez expressing any remorse for the murders themselves, but it’s not unbelievable that he might let a trickle of regret slip through in a quiet moment like this one — if not for killing three innocent men, then at least for getting himself into a position where he can no longer provide for his family.
So many of this man’s actions have been driven by a bone-deep insecurity stemming from his father’s idea of manhood. The irony, of course, is that Aaron’s crimes have far surpassed the type that once prevented Dennis from reaching his full potential. Did Aaron go down this path out of some desire to emulate his dad and conform to his expectations, or was it to avoid becoming like him? Of course, nothing here can be attributed to daddy issues alone; a man like Aaron Hernandez is shaped by a whole range of influences, not just one. It’s a credit to this penultimate episode that it never leaves anything all that clear.
The End Zone
• I don’t have any particular complaints about this episode, really, so maybe five stars would make more sense. But I still feel in my gut that the show hasn’t done anything to deserve totally unqualified praise, so I’m sticking with my standard “quite a good episode of TV” rating.
• While all this is going on, the NFL settles a concussion suit for $765 million after knowingly concealing the dangers of head traumas. Relevant!
• “What does one wear to her son’s murder trial — a pop of color?”
• “Court will be adjourned for the weekend. The Super Bowl is on Sunday, and the Patriots are playing. If they start talking about this case, mute it.”
• There is an interesting scene in which Tanya approves of Shay’s “ride or die” mentality, telling her about witnessing Dennis’s anger when an elementary-school-age Aaron joined a group of his cheerleader cousins during a neighborhood game instead of playing football with his brother and the other guys. I appreciate that the moment isn’t framed as an obvious reference to Aaron’s sexuality, though I did wonder if Shay made that connection at all in that moment.
• Hernandez did actually read the Harry Potter books in prison, though it looks as if that probably happened after his sentencing in real life.
• Josh Rivera does his usual good work here, though his close-ups definitely show a level of emotion I don’t see in actual footage from the trial and sentencing. In the clips included in the Netflix documentary, at least, he looks more aloof and almost indifferent.

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