Photo: FX Networks/Courtesy of Everett Collection

How do you begin to tell the story of Aaron Hernandez? For many fans of the late New England Patriots tight end, there’s an easy answer: You don’t. After all, it’s been less than a decade since April 19, 2017, the day that 27-year-old Hernandez was found dead in his cell at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Lancaster, Massachusetts. Since then, countless media outlets have offered insight into the troubled life that led to the first-degree murder charge that landed him there, including a Boston Globe Spotlight Team research that grew into the acclaimed podcast Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez and Football Inc.In 2020, Netflix released its own documentary entitled Killer Inside: The Ghost of Aaron Hernandez. Hernandez’s story even became grist to the comedy mill during the roast of Hernandez’s old teammate, Tom Brady, earlier this year.

Casting famous Broadway actors and dramatizing the events on screen, however, feels bigger and riskier, especially over the course of ten one-hour episodes that follow Hernandez from childhood to his death. special with Ryan Murphy on board as executive producer. When this first season of American sports story was announced, the reaction on social media was understandably mixed; for starters, people wondered what makes Hernandez’s life an “American sports story” and the O.J. Simpson trial an “American crime story”? (The difference, perhaps, is that Hernandez was still playing when it all happened.) Putting that ontological question aside for a moment, does this particular story really call for a dramatization?

After one episode, that remains an open question. Regardless of Murphy’s actual level of involvement, Aaron Hernandez already feels very much like a Ryan Murphy take on this material, for better or worse. Which means we shouldn’t come to this show with any expectations of taste or restraint. Hernandez’s crimes didn’t begin with the murder of Odin Lloyd, and the temptation to scour the past for red flags is simply too great, especially with the hidden plot. Showrunner Stuart Zicherman clearly intends to capitalize on the grim appeal of this story — and repurpose it as an exploration of some important, weighty themes.

But let’s start at the beginning. The series opens with a specific episode in Hernandez’s past, four months before Lloyd’s murder: the 2013 shooting of his friend Alexander S. Bradley, credited here as Alexander Sherrod (Roland Buck III). During a trip to Belle Glade, Florida, the two are partying at a strip club when Aaron (Josh Andrés Rivera) notices a couple of men nearby who might be watching them. He fears they are plainclothes cops who have followed him to Florida while investigating something that happened in Boston. (Spoiler alert for real life: It was a double homicide.)

When Sherrod later reminds him that he Also Knowing all of Aaron’s secrets only exacerbates his paranoia, and suddenly Aaron’s friend wakes up from a nap with a gun pointed between his eyes. The shot doesn’t kill him, however. During a ceremony where Aaron is accepting an Inspiration to the Youth award and celebrating his new $40 million contract, he gets a call from a ghost, Sherrod, who says he’s coming to get him.

After that stranger-than-fiction setup, “If It’s to Be” travels back in time to deliver the typical teen-age episode you’d expect for a biopic series premiere. We’re quickly given some basic facts: Aaron grew up in Bristol, Connecticut, with a chaotic Italian mother named Terri (Tammy Blanchard), a strict Puerto Rican father named Dennis (Vincent Laresca), and a competitive older brother named DJ (Ean Castellanos). Already his high school football star, Aaron seems to have a bright future ahead of him. From a young age, Dennis instilled in his sons a fierce drive to succeed in school and sports — but most importantly, he wants them all to Be a manan expression that could possibly become a drinking game after a few episodes.

It’s clear that Dennis is often mean and violent toward his sons and wife, though we don’t see the worst of the man’s alleged abuses in real life. He reportedly wants to keep DJ and Aaron off the streets and away from illegal dealings, but he doesn’t understand how much his intense pressure is affecting them. And he has an inordinate amount of control over Aaron’s life in particular, repeatedly turning down recruiters and insisting that Aaron play football at the University of Connecticut, where he played and where DJ currently plays. After all, Aaron is a guaranteed four-year starter at Connecticut. It’s the smart choice.

To some, like Aaron’s cousin’s friend Tanya Singleton (Lindsay Mendez), Dennis’ helicopter parenting has made his son “soft” — an impression he’s desperate to correct in whatever macho way he can. Aaron’s overcompensation clearly stems from a struggle with his sexuality.

Ryan Murphy loves basing a project on a gay male murderer, and it’s clear from early on that this season will center on Hernandez’s sexuality. First, we see Aaron’s friend and teammate Dennis Sansoucie (Kalama Epstein) (and yes, his name is Dennis) touching his dick in the car, an encounter that later triggers a moment of intense anxiety when he thinks his deeply homophobic father has discovered his secret. That core fear drives this TV version of Aaron Hernandez perhaps more than any other motivator.

Aaron’s father dies shortly afterward during a hernia operation, but he will haunt his son’s mind for years to come, as the opening scene reveals. It is his father’s disgusted voice he hears as he and Dennis S. slip away together; it is his father he imitates when he abruptly breaks off the relationship, telling Dennis that he “can’t be a faggot.”

All of this dialogue is pretty blunt, and I found myself rolling my eyes a few times at both the inspirational sports movie cliches (“The best become heroes. They are remembered forever.”) and the over-the-top foreshadowing of the dark path Aaron will eventually take. And every character seems determined to tell Aaron about the man he can become and the man he must become. not That continues when Florida Gators offensive coordinator Steve Addazio (Scot Ruggles) finally convinces Aaron to meet with legendary head coach Urban Meyer (Tony Yazbeck) and give Florida a chance.

Like Aaron, Meyer lost a parent as a young man and sees the team as a family, recruiting players he can truly invest his time and energy in. Perhaps it’s that pitch that sells Aaron to UF, though his dedication comes at the expense of his brother, whose starting QB prospects at Connecticut depend on landing a tight end of Aaron’s caliber. There’s also some more drama surrounding his living situation; Aaron has been living with Tanya ever since he found out his mother was having an affair with her husband, and Terri wants to take care of him after he suffered a mild concussion on the football field his senior year.

The real Hernandez was diagnosed posthumously with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), undoubtedly the result of repeated head injuries from playing football, and many have speculated about the role brain damage might have played in his erratic behavior. Here we see Aaron completely ignoring doctor’s warnings to quit football, drinking and smoking, his worst instincts encouraged by his new friend Ernest “Bo” Wallace (Catfish Jean). It’s presented as one of many tragic turning points when Hernandez’s friends abandoned him — and when he abandoned himself.

Soon, Aaron is gone from Bristol altogether, having been shipped to Gainesville a semester early to attend spring training. Is he ready to graduate, academically or socially? No, not really. However, the principal quells his reservations after Urban Meyer reassures him of the stability they can offer Aaron. Everyone just wants Aaron to reach his potential, and they have no idea that they’re pushing him closer and closer to tragedy.

“If It’s to Be” is far from a disaster; it’s a competent premiere in many ways, I think, and well-directed by Carl Franklin. But I’m also not sure the show has justified its own existence yet. There’s a strong whiff of Lifetime cheesiness in the air, and the discussions of race and sexuality feel shallow and predictable at this point. Aaron Hernandez‘s success will depend on where it decides to spend its time going forward — whether it wants to linger in juicy detail and craft a contrived diagnosis for its subject or offer something deeper and less definitive. Sometimes the best antidote to exploitation is simply better writing.

• This season is actually based on Gladiatorthe podcast about Hernandez, which I highly recommend.

• I’m not 100 percent convinced by Rivera’s performance, although I remember liking him in the new West Side StoryThe man also looks little like Hernandez, but he manages to strike a good balance between Aaron’s cheerful, carefree exterior and the angry, insecure man lurking underneath.

• Sorry, Dennis Hernandez, but Scandal‘s version of “we have to be twice as good to get half as much” hit much harder.

• We only get a brief glimpse of Tim Tebow (Patrick Schwarzenegger), but we do meet Aaron’s love interest and future fiancée Shayanna Jenkins (Jaylen Barron). “Don’t play hard to get.” “I’m hard to get.”

• When Aaron hallucinates about his father, things can quickly become unpleasant.