Entertainment
'Lost' Fans Will Love Seeing Mr. Eko Take On A Whole New Role In ABC's New Legal Drama
Viewers are pretty used to "ripped from the headlines" television, but Marcia Clark's new show The Fix takes it all to a whole new level. According to Deadline, The Fix is "part legal thriller, part confessional," and it tells the tale of former prosecutor Maya Travis (Robin Tunney) being called back into the big leagues to tackle a killer that eluded her the first time around. The man she eyes for the crime is a big-time actor named Sevvy Johnson, and Travis is convinced that Sevvy is way less innocent than he claims to be. Perhaps this sort of plot sounds familiar to you, especially when you think about how Marcia Clark became famous after prosecuting O.J. Simpson? Yeah, thought so. So is Sevvy Johnson based on a real person? The Fix claims that it's all a work of fiction, but there are some elements that feel familiar.
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, also known as "Mr. Eko" from Lost stars as Sevvy. From the trailers, it certainly seems like these two are going to spar in every hour of this ten-part special series. Sevvy is a high-profile man who is shockingly acquitted of a double-murder, much to the surprise of his female prosecutor, so let's just address the elephant in the article — Sevvy sounds a whole lot like O.J. Simpson, who was acquitted of his own double-homicide charge in 1995.
Clark famously worked on that case and in many ways made her career, for better or for worse. Still, she maintains that The Fix is not a retelling of the Simpson trial. "In the very beginning, in the first couple minutes of the show, that, of course, does speak to my experience with the Simpson case. But after that point, everything diverges,” she told Us Weekly. “After that point, all of it is fiction.”
Sevvy Johnson is not O.J. Simpson, you guys, and Maya Travis is not — I repeat not — Marcia Clark. That's because Marcia Clark says so, as she shared in an interview with TV Insider.
“Though Maya Travis and I share an ‘origin story’ and a devotion to justice, she really isn’t me. I’m sorry, but you won’t learn anything new about me personally. The Fix is a totally fictional imagining of what might happen if the killer who got away with murder the first time winds up charged with murder again — and the prosecutor who lost the first trial comes back to try and bring him to justice this time.”
Clark saying that her new show that sounds a lot like the thing that made her famous is a "sure, Jan" moment if I've ever heard one, but legalities and truths aside, it's the story that she's sticking to. Still, the other stars of The Fix can't help but talk about O.J. Simpson when referencing the show, making it seem like Clark dreamt up The Fix in order to get a do-over. In an interview with The Toronto Star, Tunney specifically referenced The Fix as a "revenge story." She said:
“How many of us wish we could write a revenge story where we could get our life back? I think the case broke Marcia Clark. It made her retire from the law she loved. What happens in the future will likely have nothing to do with Marcia’s world, and I think the hope is, the first season you deal with the trial. And in future seasons there are other twists.”
So Sevvy Johnson is definitely not O.J. Simpson, but for those who were glued to the case either in 1995 or during one of the many docs and series about the trial, the coincidences may be too many to count.