The finale of “American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez” opens in gruesome fashion, with a human brain being thinly sliced like a common deli meat.
If you’ve watched any of producer Ryan Murphy’s other shows, including “Nip/Tuck” or “American Horror Story,” you know that such unsettling scenes are pretty typical.
The brain here is Hernandez’s, and its autopsy is an approximate depiction of what happened after the former Patriots player died by suicide seven years ago in a Massachusetts prison, where he’d been sentenced to spend the rest of his life for the murder of Odin Lloyd.
Over 10 episodes, FX’s “American Sports Story,” which was based on The Boston Globe’s Spotlight series and accompanying podcast, explored aspects of Hernandez’s background and personality that may have contributed to his downfall: an abusive dad; the effects of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) caused by repeated football-related blows to the head; uneasiness about his bisexuality; out-of-control drug and alcohol use; and coaches and NFL executives who were willing to overlook bad or questionable behavior.
All of these plot points show up in the series’ finale, with the issue of Hernandez’s sexuality being particularly prominent. Indeed, the last episode seems to imply that speculation about the football player’s sexuality – there’s a scene in which former WEEI hosts Gerry Callahan and Kirk Minihane (remember them?) joke about reports that Hernandez had relationships with men – was so humiliating to Hernandez that he decided to end his life.
The series finale is titled “Who Killed Aaron Hernandez?,” but perhaps it should be “What Killed Aaron Hernandez?” Because a forensic examination of the player’s brain by Dr. Ann McKee, a neuropathologist who leads Boston University’s CTE Center, revealed that Hernandez died with the worst case of chronic traumatic encephalopathy ever seen in someone so young. (Hernandez was just 27 when he died.)
The show ends with a montage of clips of sports commentators weighing in on Hernandez’s death in the hours after it was announced. Says ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith: “My heart goes out to loved ones whose lives were impacted by the transgressions of Aaron Hernandez. … I have no sympathy for him whatsoever.”
Mark Shanahan can be reached at mark.shanahan@globe.com. Follow him @MarkAShanahan.
