Rectify 2.7: The Plot Thickens

An excellent Rectify 2.7 tonight, featuring Teddy willing to lie to the Sheriff and the Senator, on the basis of his astute analysis that his stepping up and pressing charges against Daniel for the coffee grounds incident last season (last week in narrative time) would tear his family apart.   The Senator's saying that he'll take the matter up with Teddy's father was true to form.   The Sheriff remains the only person in the law with no axe to grind other than that truth and justice prevail.

But the conversation that Trey and Daniel have at George's house - both of them high on pills - once again puts into high relief that we don't yet know what the complete truth is regarding who killed Hannah.  Trey's stoned monologue about what really happened that night by the river sounds pretty convincing, even there's not much to like about Trey as a human being.  But he seems to think that Daniel killed Hannah, and he's not unfamiliar with Daniel's violent streak - which is why Trey packed a gun for this trip.

Trey also raises the question that law enforcement keeps harping on: why did Daniel confess if he didn't do the crime?   The easy answer is that he was manipulated into the confession, with the law playing on the guilt he felt for Hannah's death.   But is there a less easy, more truthful answer?   And why doesn't Daniel recall anything from that fateful night?

What's clear is that Daniel is an unusually intelligent, introspective, decent, gentle human being now.   But he's also given to violence -- which has not only given the Senator a weapon to make good on his work as Prosecutor regarding Daniel, but should also give us pause in our certainty, if we have it, that Daniel could not have killed Hannah.

I still believe in Daniel.  But it's a measure of how keenly Rectify is playing this that this belief gets not easier but a little harder to hold as the story progresses.

See also Rectify 2.1: Indelible ... Rectify 2.2: True Real Time ... Rectify 2.3: Daniel's Motives ... Rectify 2.4: Jekyll and Hyde ... Rectify 2.6: Rare Education

And see also Rectify: Sheer and Shattering Poetry ... Rectify 1.5: Balloon Man ... Rectify Season 1 Finale: Searingly Anti-Climactic

 
another kind of capital punishment

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