Rectify 2.6: Rare Education

An especially tender and psychologically brutal Rectify 2.6 tonight - actually, all the episodes of this show are that way, especially tender and brutal, sometimes psychological, sometimes physical - but it never gets old to say it.

It's the small things that are the most exquisite in this series.   Daniel mispronouncing panini a few episodes ago - "palini" - that makes him so endearing.   Tonight it was a few lines from his stepfather that had such resonance.

Last week, we saw Ted Sr. coming down too hard on Daniel for ripping up the kitchen.   Daniel's mother correctly gave Ted a piece of her mind.   And guess what?   Ted Sr. has learned his lesson. Tonight, when Daniel and the erudite junkman deliver a second-hand stove to Daniel's mother for her birthday, and Ted Jr. goes off about how much work it would take to get it up and running in the kitchen, Ted Sr. comes to the rescue with a great pep talk about how easy it would to set it up, and how the gas stove will make food that his wife cooks even better tasting than on the electric stove.  This sort of education rarely happens in real life.  It's heartening to see if happen on television with Ted Sr.

Speaking of Ted Jr, he's clearly one of the most despicable characters on the show, unable to do almost anything good or right.  Two episodes ago, he told the sheriff about Daniel and the coffee grounds, swearing him to secrecy.   And tonight, in a surprisingly low-class move, the sheriff blabs to the senator - more loathsome than even Ted Jr in his determination to get Daniel back in the jail.   At this point in the series, I probably wouldn't want Daniel back in jail even he was indeed guilty - a measure of how well the series has presented Daniel as an injured, gentle being.

But Daniel's intersections with the law are  the broad strokes, often brutal, which, as I said, are not the truest genius of this series.  That resides in the small things, the little conversations, that Daniel has with Tawny, for example, when he tells her she awakened something in him.  That was even more powerful to see than Daniel's expression when he then finds out she is pregnant and Ted Jr is crowing about it.

What a show.  My only regret is I can't sit down and watch the whole story in one sitting.

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

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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