3 out of 5

Creator: Ray McKinnon

Covers season 1

Laborious, ponderous.  ‘Rectify’ gives the impression that slogging through its molasses pacing will result in an emergence into something greater – perhaps for us, perhaps for its characters – and it does peek its head seemingly into sunlight on several occasions but to no avail, spreading another thick layer of question marks on top of the half-chewed ones.  The show, with its odd dialogue, odd timing of events, and sometimes surreal character interactions, wants to be more than it seems to be about, which makes it all the more confusing when it includes scenes that suggest it IS what it’s about.

What?

Aden Young is amazing in the lead role as Daniel Holden, who has just been released from death row after 19 years due to newly discovered DNA evidence.  He’s not fully exonerated for the crime of rape and murder, but the DNA now supports that he wasn’t solely responsible.  The show smartly avoids flashbacks to that time – when Daniel was in his teens – and chooses to stick, mostly, to present day, where Daniel has twenty years of imprisonment to wash away in a greatly changed world.  The small town doesn’t quite know how to respond to him, especially since many people still are sure of his guilt, and his family is caught between love and worry over what might by Dan’s fractured psyche.

Any hope for resolutions as to whodunnit, or How Will Dan Find Happiness, should be set aside.  It doesn’t appear to be the focus of the show.  Instead, Dan – who Aden gives an unbelievably perfect balance of stupor, intelligence, fear, aggression, and every other survival / wonder emotion you can think of, mostly without speaking a word – Dan wonders silently about the town, occasionally offering uncomfortable tales of life on the inside, with an equally uncomfortable reverence for its predictability, but mostly just responding without eye contact, with a quizzical look, his thoughts elsewhere.  Which they probably are.  What we do flashback to are some moments in solitary, the cell on one side an inmate with whom Dan makes friends, the cell on the other a sexual deviant who enjoys taunting Dan and his friend, reminding them of their impending death sentences.  Unlike the heavy-handed allegories Mad Men has been using as of late (season 6), these time jumps are as curious as most of the show’s elements, which aren’t exactly mind-blowing juxtapositions, but rather true attempts by the writers to puzzle through a man shunted into such an existence – four walls within feet of him for twenty years, no positive physical contact, little emotional contact, and then suddenly back into the town of your youth where everyone gives you the wry eye.  The flashbacks are relevant in an indirect fashion, and seem sensible inclusions for a man with the scattered approach of Daniel.  Same can be said for each episode’s title and theme, mini explorations into how this world has changed.

But then we’ll return, at odd points, to those who currently care about the crime.  A senator, a lawyer, other ‘witnesses’.  And their stories are evolved a little but just out of principle, it seems.  Because eventually this will all come to a head (if the show gets a full run), and the creators will of course need the pieces in place, but it’s a choppy format and doesn’t sit well with how meandering the majority of it is, highlighting the lack of ‘point’ to any given event.  Which, from some meta level, is all interesting and whatnot, but it can make for frustrating viewing.  From afar, this is a brave show.  It doesn’t shy from brutal truths, but it doesn’t offer us easy TV answers.  Unfortunately there’s always the balance of entertainment vs. value, and I can’t say that I walked away from any particular episode needing to know what would happen next.  It’s a very interesting topic, given lots of room by the writers and depth by the actors, but perhaps works better when you can return to it, already knowing what to expect, and shotgun it in one go instead of holding out for non-conclusive episodes week to week.