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"Episode Seven" is the seventh episode of season two of the ABC television series American Crime. It was written by John Ridley and directed by John Ridley.

Plot
The episode opens with Peter Tanner (Ty Doran) spray painting the side of Thurgood Marshall High School with "God Hates Fags." Headmaster Leslie Graham (Felicity Huffman) offers Evy Dominguez's (Angelique Rivera) father (Oswaldo Fernandez) a settlement on tuition and living costs if the family doesn't testify against the school in Taylor Blaine's (Connor Jessup) rape case. Anne Blaine's (Lili Taylor) medical records were posted online illegally, it is revealed that she suffered from depressive psychosis and Taylor was out of her care temporarily. Coach Dan Sullivan (Timothy Hutton) attacks Anne about her past medical history and her lies about Taylor's rape. Taylor is seen with a bruised face and a busted lip after a few of the boys on the Leyland basketball team beat Taylor up in the previous episode. Taylor is staying with his new boyfriend, Luke (Taylor John Smith) to not face his mom Anne with his injuries. Terri LaCroix (Regina King) is asked to take off time or reduce visibility at work in wake of the allegations against her family. The student protests continue at Thurgood Marshall High School. Taylor contacts Becca Sullivan (Sky Azure Van Vliet), Coach Dan's daughter, for drugs to help relieve his headaches from being attacked. He begs for the drugs even though he cannot afford them, Becca settles for $68 for Oxycontin and marijuana. Sebastian (Richard Cabral) reaches out to Anne and offers to help her with Taylor's case. She turns him down, tells him to never call him again. Eric (Joey Pollari) is picked up by a man in a van who he intends to hook up with. It is assumed by the viewer that the man tries to engage in an unwanted sexual interaction with Eric. Eric physically defends himself and escapes the scene. Taylor is at a family friend's house. They took care of him while his mom was unable. He steals a gun out of one of their dresser drawers. He leaves with it out into the woods and shoots at a tree. He takes the drugs that Becca sold to him and writes a kill list. Taylor goes with the concealed gun to Leyland. He asks the receptionist for Leslie, she is out but he says he will wait for her. He sits in the waiting room. The receptionist sympathized about his unfair treatment at Leyland. He leaves his kill list behind and walks out of the school, potentially rethinking his actions. He is confronted by Wes (Michael Seitz), one of the basketball players who assaulted him. Wes gets in his face, threatening to kill him if he tells anyone about what happened the night of the physical assault, and Taylor shoots him in stomach. Taylor goes to Anne at her diner. Anne locks the gun in the cabinet. The police call Anne and ask where Taylor is, she lies and says she doesn't know. After talking to Taylor, Anne calls the police and says he is at the diner.

Homophobia
Peter Tanner spray paints “God Hates Fags” on the wall of Thurgood Marshall High School. He is a basketball player for their team, while Eric, his brother, is a player for the Leyland team. “Trash talking on high school basketball courts and insult talk among teammates off the field have common traits: They establish hierarchies, they involve personal insults or put-downs, often as calls to defend masculinity and honor, and they often degrade objects defined as feminine." Homophobia is an issue throughout this whole series and in this episode. Homophobic talk and attitudes among the teammates on Peter’s basketball team, and what he has learned from his family and environment has driven him to write this homophobic slur on the wall of his high school. He brother was outed as gay when Taylor was sexually assaulted by Eric. Peter is feeling uncomfortable, he has been taught that being gay is negative. What he has been laughing about with his teammates he has enacted in his life outside the court.

“Boys take in misogyny with their breakfast cereal…. No boy wants to be told he throws like a girl or to go home to mama. When his teachers and his buddies tell him that girls are not only physically weaker but lack all the important virtues, including courage, strength, and rationality, why would he respect girls?” Eric must seek out attention from strangers such as the man in the van. He has to go away from his school, his life, his family to seek out what he wants. He needs to hide his identity. Eric doesn’t want to be called a girl, he doesn’t want to call him weak, he doesn’t want to be treated differently from his teammates so he stayed closeted until he was outed from Taylor’s rape. Even after he was outed he still seeks attention from strange men because his school and everyone in his life is treating him differently because of his sexual orientation. Being gay is like being a girl to his teammates, and since they don’t respect girls they won’t respect him.

"In American life, It sometimes seems as though we expect sexual aggression from athletes." It is never outrightly said, but sports aggression and hypermasculinity is so prevalent in this season of American Crime (Season 2) as well as this episode. Wes is seen as the good guy that got shot when he is the one who antagonized Taylor and was also one of the individuals who jumped Taylor earlier on. The hypermasculinity, sexual aggression, and homophobia is shown in each and every episode by the sports players from Leland school. They feel a need to show this to “fit in” and to mask any sign of femininity they may have because that is a weakness to them. Taylor was tired of being the good guy and avoiding the players as much as he can, he needed to fight back which in essence is good but on top of the drugs, the trauma, the assault, and probably anger he lost control and shot Wes.

"Homophobic taunting and bullying does not always result in such serious physical violence, but it is common. Homophobia plays a role within male peer groups that I compare to Elmer's glue bonding two pieces of wood." This is immediately a reminder of the gang beating on Taylor in the beginning, and then to wrap up the ending with the man grabbing Taylor and threatening to kill him. It really does prove that homophobic physical violence can be very common. All of this happened within one school. Also, the verbal violence with Eric's brother writing "God hates fags" on the building.

Classism
Anne's personal medical records are put into the public light, it is insinuated that Leslie Graham leaked them. If this is true, Leslie used her class power as Headmaster of Leyland to leak the medical records in order to protect her school. If she could prove that Anne was "crazy" her case against Leyland would be less credible in people's eyes.

Becca sells drugs to Taylor, and she got these drugs from her mother that she keeps in the house. People of a higher class are above the law when it comes to possessing drugs. They can use their class power to obtain good lawyers to fight prison time. They have these privileges that people of lower classes do not have when it comes to possessing drugs. Becca is able to steal the drugs from her mother without her even being aware. Her mom can replenish her drugs easily, it is a readily available resource for her.

Victim Blaming
“Victims of rape and sexual abuse often feel dirty, embarrassed, and guilty. In the face of violation of their bodies, they also carry the stigma in our culture that it was their fault.” Connecting from Transforming Rape Culture, Taylor never wanted to report the assault in the first place. He has always felt like he was violated, even if he had plans to meet up with Eric in the first place, he never got a chance to say yes, leaving him to feel even more devastated and degraded.

“If we listen to the victims, we can learn precisely how they feel about losing their sense of inviolability. They feel devastated, demeaned, humiliated, degraded, despondent, depressed, shocked, defiled, betrayed, powerless, isolated, entrapped.” Taylor feels helpless in this episode and completely powerless. He has been victim blamed repeatedly throughout the season and has to experience the trauma of the rape every day. He feels so vulnerable and hopeless which results in the shooting of Wes. Because of this loss of control and through the effect of the drugs, Taylor shoots Wes. We see the harmful effects in this episode of victim blaming, homophobia, forced outing of sexuality, and trauma. With the combination of all of this, Taylor was pushed to the extreme and the audience is left wondering if it was intentional/on accident and if he had given up on his search for justice and revenge by abandoning his list.

“When we refuse to acknowledge that a victim's testimony is legitimate evidence, perhaps not enough to send someone to prison on its own, but a good reason to suspect a crime has really occurred- we treat victims like criminals” In American Crime, Coach Dan begins to talk about Taylor’s mother, Anne, and how he believes that she made this entire up because she is mentally ill, or how Taylor made it up just because he is embarrassed or confused about his sexuality.

“The path of reflection provides a necessary, deep foundation for action, and mobilizes the thinkers in theology, sociology, psychology, and researchers, teachers, and students in all areas of human endeavor to the fray” In American Crime, there were two parts that showed reflection. One was when the receptionist told Taylor how sorry she was on how Leyland, the media, and the students handled his situation. The second would be when Taylor is sitting in the corner booth and looking up at the TV with the gun in his hand. He started thinking about what really just happened and it hit him. He was scared.

Broadcast and Reception
Pilot Viruet, writer for The A.V. Club talks about the homophobic environment that creates a sense of insecurity for Eric and Taylor. They face potential violence and ostracization from peers but their inability to be who they are and forces them to seek out relationships with harmful people and they are left with no way to deal with it. Viruet writes, "Everything that's happened to both Taylor and Eric feels like the logical end result of the world they both live in."

“This episode wiped me out and will take a minute to process. I'm slow on the uptake, so I thought the content warning forewarned a suicide, not a school shooting. I watched with anxiety and I fell for every twist, from Eric's hookup assault until Anne talked Taylor down in the diner booth. One minor observation: Hands touching shoulders has been a visual motif since Episode 1's opening image. Whose hands touched whose body with what intent was ambiguous initially. Close ups of Eric's hands on Kevin's back and shoulders in that basketball practice; or, the Leyland dancers interacting as examples. Tonight, while Anne and Taylor waited for the police to come, I could not take my eyes off Anne's hand cradling Taylor's shoulder. For all the stress the episode's events generated, the clarity of what this hand-on-shoulder motif represented in this moment was comforting.”

"In a disturbing way, it was almost a relief when we saw Taylor pointing the gun at Wes, the blood spilling out from his tormentor’s abdomen. The episode was so fraught with tension, as it focused primarily on Taylor and his all-consuming pain from every angle. He needed a release, and we needed a release, because neither the drugs he bought from Becca Sullivan, nor the ever-present empty notebook that he was trying so desperately to fill with his feelings, was doing the trick."

A writer from the A.V. Club discusses how common sexual assault is contrary to popular belief. Sexual assault in the LGBTQ+ community, especially young individuals like Taylor and Eric are even more subject to violence and assault. Because of their closeted possible insecurities of their sexuality, searching for secret hookups, they are more vulnerable.