In this weekly addendum to our People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story reviews, we’ll be keeping track of how many times David Schwimmer — in character as Robert Kardashian — calls O.J. Simpson “Juice,” and charting his progress to see if he can reach 100 total Juices by the end of the season. Yes, this is our job. Yes, we went to college.
After we racked up 40.5 Juices over the first four episodes of American Crime Story, putting us just about dead-on the pace to reach our goal of 100, something truly terrible happened last night. For the first time ever, we went Juiceless. That’s right, people. Despite running an additional 15 minutes, giving us an opportunity for 25 percent more Juices, the most recent episode did not allow a single “Juice” to slip out from David Schwimmer’s lips. Zero Juices. I didn’t even know this was possible. I… I don’t know what to do. It’s kind of like if we all woke up tomorrow and the sun refused to rise. No, wait. That’s not quite a fair analogy.
It is exactly like if we all woke up tomorrow and the sun refused to rise. There. Better.
But this news is not just devastating to me and my fellow Juice Questers — working title, sorry — on a personal level. It is also devastating to the quest itself. Here are our new updated stats.
Juices in this episode: 0
Total Juice count: 40.5
Current rate of Juices per episode: 8.1
Current projected Juice total: 81
Total Juices needed to reach 100: 59.5
Rate of Juices per remaining episode needed to reach 100: 11.9
This new figure of Juices per remaining episode needed to reach 100, 11.9, represents a two Juices per episode leap from where we were last week. It’s basically 12 Juices per episode, which is a troubling figure because his high so far for a single episode is 13, and that was during the Bronco chase. He was a Juice machine in that one. This is bad. This is very bad.
Unless…
What if there’s a way he can boost his stats? What if the producers take some creative liberties and write in — and just hear me out here — a scene where O.J. Simpson escapes from prison and Robert Kardashian goes to look for him? At night. In the woods.
“Juice? Juice? Juice, we just want you to be safe. Juice? Juice? Wait, what was that? Juice? Is that you, Juice? Juice, answer me, buddy. Getting pretty scary out here. Juice? Juice?”
And it goes on like that. Not too long, nothing gratuitous. Just, like, 20-25 minutes. Maybe 30. However long it takes him rip off 50 Juices. You know, so he has a little buffer for the last few episodes, in case the plot takes us in a Juiceless direction again. They can do it picture-in-picture if they want. Whatever it takes. I need this. It’s all I have.
