INQUISITR.COM / Entertainment

Inside ‘American Crime Story’ Season 2: Here’s What We Know

By Niki Cruz
Published on: 10:49 PST, Apr 7, 2016

American Crime Story is saying goodbye to Brentwood and hello to Hurricane Katrina for the second season of the anthology series.

According to E!, although American Crime Story: The People v O.J. Simpson kept everyone on the edge of their seat, despite it being a reenactment of an event that went down 20 years ago, the second season won’t return to another high-profiled court case.

Instead, Ryan Murphy has decided to broaden the term “American Crime” and will focus on the events of Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath of the people that lived in the wake of its destruction in Louisiana.

That said, it’s not yet known how they’re going to tackle the subject of Hurricane Katrina since they just got in the writers’ room. Executive producer Nina Jacobson told E!, “We just started the writers’ room to really explore Katrina as a crime and the crimes within it.”

It’s said the seasons will be similar in that each season will focus on a set of characters that the audience will care for. Jacobson said, “Obviously that is our job on Katrina..to take an event that people think that they know and to give them fresh eyes to see it from the perspective of character.”

Unlike The People v O.J. Simpson, this won’t have any “true” stories that played out in the media, but will depict the stories of many people that went through the horrific ordeal. Executive producer Brad Simpson said, “Katrina will be very different in that you won’t know the outcome. Who lives, who dies, it’s all going to be true stories.”

Anthony Hemingway, the producing director, gave more of a perspective on how broad the “crime story” of it all will be in the second season.

“I think American Crime Story will really focus on the beginning of that and the awful crime and tragedy that happened when it first started. I think it will have as much of an impact and be as effective as (The People Vs O.J. Simpson), but untraditionally [sic]. There are so many crimes that are committed that aren’t in the courtroom.”

As for returning cast members, it looks like John Travolta is game for some more. In fact, as the Inquisitr reported, Travolta, who played Robert Shapiro from Simpson’s Dream Team, already pitched a story to the writers.

Travolta described one scene he would like to be brought to life,

“These men had lost their families and lost their homes, and yet they were still looking for (other) survivors because no one had arrived at the scene yet. Then this big brute of a guy looked at me and started sobbing. He held me and I held him, and I didn’t even know him. It was because I was a familiar face, and in this chaos it was the first sign of help. If I had arrived there, it meant that help was on its way. So I love that moment.”

Travolta told producers of American Crime Story that Hurricane Katrina hits close to home and that he wanted to be involved.

“I don’t think they expected that I would say that, but because (Katrina) comes close to home, I felt that way… I have a personal feeling about that. It touches me deeply,” said Travolta.

As for other returning cast members, the only other actor that we’re sure of is Courtney B. Vance, who played Johnnie Cochran in the first season. The actor told E! that he will be back but he doesn’t exactly know who his character will be. The word is out on Sarah Paulson, David Schwimmer, and Sterling K. Brown.

[Photo by FX]

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