Stream It Or Skip It: ‘American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez’ On FX, A Scripted Series About The Patriots Star, His Murder Conviction, And Mental Health Struggles

Ryan Murphy continues to create franchises for FX and Netflix, making fictionalized versions of explosive true crime stories. His latest franchise is American Sports Story , which examines sports-related stories that were so explosive they transcended into pop culture. The first season of this franchise takes a look at the rise and very precipitous fall of Super Bowl-winning tight end Aaron Hernandez.

‘American Sports Story’ Star Josh Rivera’s Exquisite Performance Will Force You to Rethink Aaron Hernandez

Opening Shot: Topless women dance at a strip club. “2013. BELLE GLADE, FL.”

The ‘American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez’ Cast Knows Fans Are Going To Call The Show “ASS”

The Gist: Aaron Hernandez (Josh Rivera) sits at the club with Alexander Sherrod (Roland Buck III), smoking and staring at anyone but the women who are dancing. Even though he’s in Florida, he thinks the Boston police are there to watch him. Sherrod tells him that he’s just being paranoid, but Hernandez insists they leave. That’s when he takes a sleeping Sherrod to a remote industrial location, shoots him, and drags him out of his SUV.

We then see Hernandez honored with a Pop Warner award, and he gets a call from Sherrod, which is a surprise to him, given that he thought he shot the guy in the head.

CLICK HERE TO GET EMAILS FROM DECIDER

We go back to Hernandez’s childhood in Bristol, CT. His father Dennis (Alex Meraz) pushes Aaron and his older brother D.J. (Ean Castellanos) hard, and he knows both have football talent. And while D.J. ends up starting at quarterback at UConn, where Dennis went to college before dropping out, he knows that Aaron is so talented that he’ll be in the NFL. Still, he insists that Aaron go to UConn, as well. One of the many fights between Dennis and Aaron’s mother Terri (Tammy Blanchard) ensues, culminating in a thrown plate.

Aaron has other things that weigh on his mind, like the fact that, as his dad tells him, he has to be “twice as good” because he’s a Latino in a mostly-white town. He has feelings for his buddy, the team’s quarterback, but doesn’t want to be perceived as an “f-word”. And he gets a severe concussion during a game, but ends up playing the next week against doctor’s orders.

When tragedy strikes, Aaron makes a decision about his future that goes against what his father would have wanted, but he follows his mother’s advice to set his own path.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez is a cross between one of Ryan Murphy’s other franchises, American Crime Story , and fellow FX sports-themed series Clipped . (There have also been a handful of Aaron Hernandez documentaries that have been released over the last few years, including Peacock’s Aaron Hernandez Uncovered , Netflix’s Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez , and one episode of Apple TV+’s The Dynasty: New England Patriots .)

Our Take: Stuart Zicherman created American Crime Story: Aaron Hernandez , which is the first chapter of a Murphy anthology franchise that will examine explosive sports-related stories.

The story of Hernandez, who committed suicide in prison in 2017 after being convicted of murder and sentenced to life without parole, is certainly explosive. It feels like Zicherman, and Carl Franklin, who directed the first episode, practice some restraint with Hernandez’s story, taking pains to examine different factors that could have contributed to what led Hernandez to his sad fate.

Zicherman and his writers don’t try to blame any one factor or person, but try to pain the entire picture. Hernandez grew up in a difficult household with a demanding father; he expended a lot of effort to keep himself deep in the closet; he suffered concussions that led to a posthumous CTE diagnosis; and his father’s sudden death left him unmoored. What the first episode tries to explain is how many things can go into a person’s fate, and the show tries hard not to exploit any particular factor to score dramatic points.

American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez (we won’t acronymize the franchise name, for obvious reasons) is relatively restrained for a Murphy production, and we bet it’s because of how tragic Hernandez’s life turned out to be. It’s hard to make a fictionalized version of a tragic life, and the desire to be respectful of the factors that went into Hernandez’s demise, including his own poor choices, is evident here.

Rivera strikes the right tone as Hernandez, a man whose demons got the better of him but who could never be his true self because of various influences on his life. And the first episode only hints at the influences Hernandez will have going forward, from his college coach Urban Meyer (Tony Yazbeck), his cousin Tanya (Lindsay Mendez) and Florida quarterback Tim Tebow (Patrick Schwarzenegger). His Patriots years will also be examined, of course, with coach Bill Belichick (Norbert Leo Butz) being a major player in this part of the story.

Might we see some overly-dramatic, semi-exploitative scenes as the series goes on? Maybe. But we’re appreciating the fact that the show’s producers are going against that impulse, at least at the start.

Sex and Skin: Aside from the aforementioned first scene in the strip club, there’s no nudity. Hernandez comes close to sexual contact with his teammate but cuts it short.

Parting Shot: As Hernandez rides in a cab to an early arrival at Florida, he imagines his father is driving, prompting him with what he used to say all the time: “If it’s to be, it’s up to me.”

Sleeper Star: Tammy Blanchard does a good job as Terri Hernandez, showing how tough being with Dennis Hernandez was and how she really wanted her sons to be their own men and not just newer versions of their dad.

Most Pilot-y Line: Did Tanya really confront Terri about sleeping with her husband during one of Hernandez’s basketball games? That feels like an obvious “dramatic license” scene.

Our Call: STREAM IT. We appreciate the fact that American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez treats its story with respect and not as a tabloidy story ripe for outrageous dramatic scenes. That and the generally good performances make the first season of this new franchise worth watching.

Joel Keller ( @joelkeller ) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com , VanityFair.com , Fast Company and elsewhere.

For more entertainment news and streaming recommendations, visit decider.com