Rectify 3.5: Finally!

A superb Rectify 3.5 on Thursday night - a great night for television, what with the Jon Stewart farewell and the first 2016 Republican Presidential debate - but Rectify was uniquely satisfying, in that we finally get to see the story edging  towards a measure of justice for Daniel.

The sheriff finally seems to be getting it - or some to most of it - and is putting some of the pieces of this whole story together. The sheriff thinks:  George not Daniel killed Daniel's 16-year-old girlfriend, Hanna, all those years ago.  George and others - including Trey, not Daniel - raped Hanna as well.   The group, not including Daniel, worked to cover up their crime and were glad to see Daniel get convicted for it.   But George had a guilty conscience, tried to tell the truth at the time, and felt even more guilty after Daniel's release.  Sheriff Daggett thinks Trey killed George to prevent him from confessing, and arrests Trey at the end of the episode.

Daggett is wrong about the last point - we saw George take his own life after a conversation with Trey in the very first episode of the series  - but the arrest of Trey is certainly justified for other reasons (Trey tried to frame Daniel for George's "murder," which was actually a suicide), and great to see happen in this episode.  This gets at one of the deep strengths of Rectify.  Unlike most police and murder mysteries, in which the main characters are clearly good or evil, right or wrong in their facts, Rectify has characters moved by much subtler and more realistic motivations.  In this case, Daggett arrests Trey, eminently the right thing to do, for the wrong reasons - or least for the wrong main reason.

And, Rectify continues to leave unanswered exactly what happened to Hanna and by whom.  After all this time - in series time, we're just a few weeks into narrative time in Daniel's life - we still can't say with 100% percent certainly that Daniel did nothing wrong to Hanna.   Hell, that's what I feel, and would surely bet that he did not, but the ultimate facts remain tantalizingly elusive.

Meanwhile, the dialogue, especially from Daniel, continues to be first class.  I guess my favorite from Thursday was Daniel remarking, as he looked at the pool he was painting, that he was in his "blue period".  But there were many other gems, and I'm looking forward to more, as well as what Trey has to say about what really happened, in the season finale next week, for one of finest shows ever to be on television.

See also Rectify 3.1: Stroke of Luck ... Rectify 3.2: Daniel and Amantha

And 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 ... Rectify 2.7: The Plot Thickens ... Rectify 2.8: The Plea Bargain and the Smart Phone ... Rectify 2.9: Dancing in the Dark ... Rectify Season 2 Finale: Talk about Cliffhangers!

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

 
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