• Home
  • Releases
  • Blog
  • Design
  • Posters
  • Submission Guidelines
  • About
  • Privacy Policy

Loser City

Multimedia Collective

  • Home
  • Releases
  • Features
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Interviews
  • Art
  • Submissions
You are here: Home / Features / Crime Beat: On American Crime and the Terror of Desire

Crime Beat: On American Crime and the Terror of Desire

March 27, 2017 By Chris Jones Leave a Comment

American Crime ABC

The third episode of the third season of American Crime is the best episode of this show that’s been broadcast to date and by extension one of the greatest episodes of television ever to air. For this installment of the column I’m not going to talk about what it was so much as what it did. Let me begin with a story.

When I was in rehab I shared a floor with a kid my age from Hunter’s Point, the worst neighborhood in San Francisco and one of the most neglected areas of the entire United States. He was as sweet and warm as could be once the drugs were out of his system; he exercised compulsively and would always try to show me new workouts I could do, given my bad back and lack of physical dexterity at the time I was getting clean. He was also a stickup kid who used to make his living robbing the neighborhood dope boys; he never said so explicitly, but I could tell there were bodies to his name in the San Francisco Bay.

One night in the cafeteria he told me about a night he spent in a shooting gallery in East Oakland. The evening began with one junkie overdosing almost immediately; three more would die before the sun came up. With each fiend that punched their ticket, the price of the dope went up by 100%. They called it “d-dope”—shit that was so potent it’d kill you dead—and it was in such high demand that the dealers were concerned about running out. Addicts were not only willingly but enthusiastically paying a premium for material that might kill them, because it might kill them.

It’s difficult to put this story in plainer language, yet reading it over I worry that the reality is not coming across. Read that paragraph as many times as you want; it’s not ever going to make sense. Not without the proper decoder.

When things go down this far it’s tempting to moralize or construct a narrative that makes sense of this darkness. We think that there must be something besides a naked want that makes people behave this way, and that we would never feel a want this fearsome or that we would know how to best it, should it ever deign to look us in the eye and bare its fangs. Sometimes someone wants something, to the point where they think they must have it; and this want intersects with those who share an equal voracity of desire, those who are convinced of the same need; and while not all of them suffer equally, all are squeezed by the rope of the same net. This net is not a comfortable vessel, but it holds one in place. And what does it release one into when it breaks? Terror.

Mark Isham’s score is a beautiful thing that gets less credit than it deserves for making this program what it is. There is a moment of confession when the music creeps in so slowly and quietly that one has to convince themselves it’s playing before one knows for certain that it’s there. This is, in fact, how all things are discovered.


Christopher M. Jones is a comic book writer, pop culture essayist, and recovering addict and alcoholic living in Austin, TX. He currently writes for Loser City as well as Comics Bulletin and has been recognized by the Society of Illustrators for his minicomic Written in the Bones (illustrated by Carey Pietsch). He has also been published in The Establishment. Write to him at chrismichaeljones@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Features Tagged With: American Crime, Mark Isham, Television

About Chris Jones

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

SOCIAL

FacebookInstagramTumblrTwitter

Buy Loser City Apparel

loser city T-shirt

Be a Loser

Sign up for Loser City's mailing list to receive weekly updates about the latest articles, shows, and releases.

TRENDZ

Anatomy of a Page art Austin CBS comedy comics Dark Horse DC DC Comics documentary Fantagraphics Film Fossil Records Games HBO hip-hop horror humor IDW Image Comics Indie indie comics jake muncy manga Marvel Marvel Comics Melissa Benoist Music penny dreadful Pete Toms punk Questionable Comics Review Ryan K Lindsay sci-fi Seattle Showtime Supergirl SXSW Television the CW TV video games Video of the Week ymmv

Top Posts & Pages

  • Below Her Mouth is Yet Another Disappointing Film About Lesbian Experiences
  • Miss Stevens is a Film About Loneliness That Forgets it's About Loneliness
  • Codeine Crazy
  • Visual Domination: Angelina Jolie's Sexual Power in Mr and Mrs. Smith
  • Fluid Exchange: I Roved Out by Rupert Everton
  • Fluid Exchange: Stjepan Sejic's Sunstone
  • All You See: The Fall of Family Guy
  • Bingo Love has Laudable Aims but Its Storytelling Falters
  • Unnatural Transformations: Wolf Moon is a Refreshing New Take on the Werewolf Genre
  • The Scream: Remembering Chester Bennington's Voice and Why It Connected with so Many

Follow Loser City

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
Instagram did not return a 200.

Follow loser_city on the Gram

Loser City is…

Comics, shows, a secret critical network -- we aim to fail big.

Danny Djeljosevic: Co-Founder

Morgan Davis: Co-Founder

Nick Hanover: Glorious Godfrey of LC

David Fairbanks: Creative Writing Editor

Kayleigh Hughes: Film Editor

Julie Muncy: Games Editor

David He: Assisting Consultant*

Contributors: Nate Abernethy, John Bender, AJ Bernardo, CJ Camba, Liam Conlon, Daniel Elkin, David A. French, Rafael Gaitan, Dylan Garsee, Stefanie Gray, Johnson Hagood, Shea Hennum, Zak Kinsella, Austin Lanari, Marissa Louise, Francesca Lyn, Chase Magnett, Justin Martin, Diana Naneva, Claire Napier, Joshua Palmer, James Pound, Mike Prezzato, Lars Russell, David Sackllah, Keith Silva, Nicholas Slayton, Carly Smith, Ray Sonne, Tom Speelman, Mark O. Stack, Dylan Tano, Mason Walker

Art

Why So Angry: Refusing to Forget Stories of Abuse

Poetry: My God, My World

Comic Cinema Club: Sorcerer by Rafael Gaitan and Mike Prezzato

Nonfiction: Progeny in Crisis by Kayleigh Hughes

The Persistence of Synergy: Scenes from the Stock Business Photo Prison Hellscape

More Art

Interviews

Dhani Harrison Plots His Own Path With Solo Debut In///Parallel

Boston Terriers and Desert Vibes: A Conversation with Jay and Sanders Fabares of “The Pale”

Questionable Comics: Becky & Frank and Rachael Stott

More Interviews

Copyright © 2023 · Metro Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in