The most abstract thing to say about “American Crime,” ABC’s anthology miniseries returning for a second installment tonight, is that the direction is like nothing else on broadcast television. The opening moments of tonight’s premiere is just a scene of several teenagers either participating in or observing basketball practice, but it’s inexplicably, lyrically tense, as the camera first gets close to the sweating basketball players, and then hangs back to steal glances at the kids on the bleachers. Creator John Ridley—who produced “12 Years a Slave”—creates a sense of unchecked hormones, the pressure to succeed, and a sense of foreboding from just the visual landscape of the scene. As the season unfolded—ABC sent out the first four episodes to critics—I found myself returning to the scene, trying to dissect its ambiguous affect now that the show had doled out more information. “American Crime” offers up that scene the way that “Breaking Bad’s” second season offered up the floating teddy bear in the pool—not a flash-forward, but a sign of things to come, and one that gains more meaning as the weeks wear on.

“American Crime” returns with a Steubenville-esque assault story, reimagined along class, gender and racial lines