For Life is a tale familiar in New York, beyond — It shouldn’t be
‘For Life,’ ABC’s true-life drama highlights the failure of America’s justice system to protect Black and Indigenous people of color, headed for its second season
For Life was renewed at the beginning of June for a second season. You can and should catch the whole first series streaming on Hulu right now. And with a long weekend coming up designated for celebrating America’s greatest asset: freedom— If you’re white like me, consider ‘freedom’ doesn’t and hasn’t always included everyone.
For Life premiered mid-Black History month on ABC, a network on its own path of reckoning after HuffPost broke a story well-known to industry people of color. Based on the true-life story of Isaac Wright Jr. imprisoned for life for a crime of which he later exonerated himself. While incarcerated he became a licensed paralegal and helped overturn wrongful convictions of twenty of his fellow inmates.
In thirteen episodic narratives, For Life builds a tale as painful as it is beautiful shining a light on the inherent inequality and injustice within systems meant to keep society ‘safe.’ Wallace’s retrial is framed by the cruelty and barbarity of prison life, familial fracture when a family member is incarcerated how it spirals out into society. Secondary characters carry a lot of weight. Stars like comedian Felonious Munk as Hassan Nawaz and The Wire’s Roland ‘Wee-Bey’ Brice — Hassan Johnson as ‘Bobby,’ are unforgettable.
The voice of Nicholas Pinnock as Aaron Wallace opens the pilot episode. When we finally see Wallace, clad in a grey suit, a lawyer, he is speaking to his client. It’s then that a white lawyer walks into the courtroom on his cell. ADA Dez O’Reilly played by Erik Jensen, we later find, is one of the ADA’s who put Wallace behind bars. The abuses of the DA’s influence are also used later in the series to transfer a dangerous inmate, Cassius Dawkins (50 Cent) to Bellmore Correctional to ‘slow’ Wallace down.
O’Reilly does a double-take checks his paperwork and sees: Aaron Wallace: Defense Attorney
“How are you here?” O’Reilly says accusatory.
“Hard work and Good Will. What’s your method?”
Working among misjudged men alongside hardened criminals is no easy task. Wallace builds community with the inmates by ousting a corrupt prison warden as he passes the Bar. The first warden at Bellmore Correctional Facility is Cruel, ex-military looking white man who comes back later in the season for revenge. Thankfully, most episodes feature Game of Thrones’ jewel of Dorne, Indira Varma as prison warden Safiya Masry. It is with the help of Masry, his cellmate Jamal Bishop (Dorian Missick), his wife (it’s complicated) Marie Wallace (Joy Bryant), daughter Jasmine (Tyla Harris) and ex-senator Henry Rosewell played by familiar face Timothy Busfield that Wallace begins the fight of his life.
“No matter how hard they come at me, no matter what power they have; I will get my self home and I will have my life again.” — Aaron Wallace ep. 1 For Life
Masry and Wallace are discussing prison reform in the second episode, in terms of solitary confinement, one of Wallace’s clients is in solitary. Being kept in, a place lovingly called, ‘the hole,’ isn’t the only hotbed issue For Life dissects. As a series, it also highlights important issues like social and societal rehabilitation for inmates. The struggle Masry endures to break down literal walls and glass between prisoners and visitors so they can access a basic need (human touch) was not invented in a writer’s room, incarceration generally doesn’t include physical-emotional well-being considerations. Even though it has been proven that having emotional and familial support is a crucial part of eventual successful reintegration into society.
The third episode runs down Wallace’s police case file. While the fourth episode Marie fills in the critical backstory of how an innocent man, Wallace, ended up in prison. Episodes five, six, and nine gives the rest of the picture. Episodes seven, Do Us Part, will wreck you and in episode eleven, the polar opposite, Switzerland, gets the adrenaline pumping. These are examples of Wallace’s clients in Bellmore and speaks to the volume of innocent men behind bars. In Switzerland, during the catalyst between Dawkins and Wallace, I found myself standing. There’s something special when television implores a viewer to physically react. A hat tip to the writing.
Which, let’s take a second to recognize something:
Representation in writing
Representation on screens big and small — in Media — shouldn’t be a fundamental failure of institutions. ‘Diversity and Inclusion,’ in the land of dreams and silver screens should not be a lie. Our world is on the precipice of history; Turning, hopefully, and painfully, the tide on America’s inherent racism. The life of George Floyd, a Black man murdered by police in Minnesota. Peaceful protests have dominated news cycles as the cities and towns across the world respond, still.
And while streaming options for BIPOC stories have increased, network television is seriously lacking.
Wyatt Cenac’s: Problem Areas is incredibly entertaining yet substantially informative; Heart-breaking dramas like Ava DuVernay’s When They See Us on Netflix re-tells the story of five teenagers from Harlem wrongly accused of rape. I May Destroy You on HBO. Renewal of FX’s poignantly humorous Atlanta for its fourth season. Also, set in the city of Atlanta, the HBO documentary series Atlanta’s Missing and Murdered The Lost Children. Broken into five parts, the series chronicles the abduction and murder of 30 known African-American children and young adults from 1979–1981. And lastly but not least of all that is beloved, Insecure ended its four-season run on HBO just weeks ago. For Life will return in great company.
In the final episodes, we see how Wallace outsmarts a rigged system. Not everything comes together perfectly, it is a real-life story after all. And I won’t ruin anything for you except to say it sets up for an exciting and much needed season two. In a time when BIPOC need a win, this is a tale of triumph over injustice — but also it’s the beginning of another story — The story of how inclusion, in the places no one thinks about, turned the tide on racism.
