ABC’s The Fix – Marcia Clark’s Revenge
Marcia Clark, the face of the prosecution during the O.J. Simpson 1995 trial, suffered a devastating blow when he was found not guilty. She resigned from the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office and rehashed events in the bestseller Without a Doubt. Interest in the O.J. case remains high, as witnessed by the stellar reviews showered upon the 2016 television series, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story. Sarah Paulson, who portrayed Clark, won both Golden Globe and Emmy Awards.
Clark has succeeded in reinventing herself. She has penned numerous crime novels featuring the fictional Rachel Knight a prosecutor, and Samantha Brinkman, a defense attorney. Now, along with Liz Craft and Sarah Fain, she is producing ABCs The Fix, a legal drama that bears more than a passing resemblance to the Simpson case. This series may finally be Clark’s revenge against a justice system that failed.
Adam Rayner, Robin Tunney, Merrin Dungey
An L.A. district attorney, Maya Travis (Robin Tunney), fails to win a conviction after prosecuting a high profile film star, Sevvy Johnson (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) for a double murder, one of the victims his girlfriend. She suffers a breakdown and, not even telling C.J. (Merrin Dungey), her best friend in the D.A.’s office, retreats to Washington state to live with her boyfriend, Riv (Marc Blucas) and ride horses. Eight years after the trial that ended her career, Maya finally seems to have found peace.
Enter Andre (Adam Rayner), who worked on the Sevvy case with Maya and needs her help. Sevvy is under suspicion for the murder of another girlfriend. Although Maya is reluctant to return to L.A., she tells Andre she will come back for a few days to walk him through the previous trial. But once she’s close to the action, she can’t resist the opportunity to finally nail Sevvy for murder.
Robin Tunney and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
Things get off to a rocky start. Even though Maya has been out of the public eye for years, her detractors have not forgotten how the first trial involving Sevvy ended. Particularly incensed are family members for the deceased who believe Maya is incompetent. Her co-workers are less than welcoming, particularly Loni Cho (Mouzam Makkar), who is pushed aside as lead attorney once Maya agrees to come on board. Loni’s anger leads her to leak information to Sevvy’s attorney, Ezra Wolf (Scott Cohen), compromising a search of the actor’s home.
Tunney, who played Teresa Lisbon, the head of the California Bureau of Investigation in the CBS crime drama The Mentalist, makes a smooth transition into the role of a prosecutor on a mission. Like Teresa, Maya is driven, yet constantly struggling to find a balance between a work life and a personal life. (When Rev shows up, hoping to convince her to return to his ranch, Maya never wavers in her decision to see the trial through.) Tunney has one of the most expressive faces on the small screen, revealing a lot, but not everything when the camera zooms in. Small in stature, she’s nonetheless not intimidated when threatened, even when that person looms over her.
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
Akinnuoye-Agbaje has an impressive resume as an actor and director. One of his last TV roles was playing a police detective opposite Kyra Sedgwick in ABC’s Ten Days in the Valley. (Read our review.) He’s convincing as Sevvy, a successful and brooding actor who believes he’s above the law and relishes, once again, fighting the system represented by Maya.
The two episodes screened for press did not include any courtroom scenes, where we anticipate many future episodes will take place. Did Sevvy commit this murder? Will Maya finally nail him? Will Clark finally have her revenge? Or will there be a final plot twist, like those in many of her murder mysteries? Stay tuned.
The Fix can be seen on ABC at 10 p.m. on Sunday.
Top: Robin Tunney
Photos courtesy of ABC/Eric McCandless
