'American Crime' Sneak Peek: Full-Court Press

Fearing the school’s reputation may be on the line, Leslie Graham (Felicity Huffman), the adept headmistress of the elite Leyland Academy, needs one of the basketball players to take one for the team in the aftermath of last week’s rape accusations in the Season 2 premiere of American Crime.

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In this exclusive first-look clip from the second episode, airing tonight, she powwows with the boys’ super invested coach Dan Sullivan (Timothy Hutton) on what the next step needs to be in order for the faculty to “look thoughtful and responsible” and to “close out” the incident.

“If we’re the ones deciding what we’re going to do, we can do what has the least impact,” she says. “This is a little act — one player, one game — to prevent more hurt elsewhere.”

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Sullivan doesn’t believe disciplining one of the student athletes for an allegation he calls “insane” is the right course of action. Instead, he suggests punishing the kids spreading the pictures on social media and text. He’s concerned that forcing someone to sit out even one game will make them appear guilty and might affect their chances of playing college ball.

“There are many characters trying to do the right thing and they aren’t coming from a malicious place, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t doing harm,” series creator John Ridley told Yahoo TV during a December interview about the second season. “Felicity’s character is concerned about the school’s reputation. Tim’s character is a coach who is very close to the accused. And lots of folks won’t be able to believe this happened to a male student or that popular well-off athletes committed the crime.”

What play will the coach make? Will he dare defy his boss’s orders? And if the controversy grows and word gets out (and is there really any doubt?), will Graham’s strategy have the desired outcome?

American Crime airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on ABC.