American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez has a lot of ideas about why the titular athlete’s life went the way it did, but that expansiveness is the root of the new series’ problem. The fourth iteration of FX and executive producer Ryan Murphy’s American Stories anthologies, it lacks the verve of early American Horror Story, and, more unfortunately, it’s missing the cultural specificity and societal interrogation of The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story. Instead, the show plays out a bit like a Wikipedia page put on camera, with a few poignant moments and clever creative decisions to make it at least worthwhile along the way.
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Hernandez’s story is a difficult one, and it’s brought to life by actor Josh Rivera (his first major role after notable supporting turns in West Side Story and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes). Raised in Bristol, Connecticut by an abusive father and a self-absorbed mother, Hernandez was an early athletic standout, and that talent was his ticket out of a life that others saw as destined for poverty and criminal activity. He joined the University of Florida under coach Urban Meyer (Tony Yazbeck), where he fell deeper into drug use and aggressive behavior, building a less-than-stellar reputation ahead........