Courtesy of SundanceTV
Rectify‘s second episode of the new season paints a portrait of a marriage in a tailspin as the show’s protagonist is sidelined in a coma.
Let’s bitch it out…
Not unlike last week’s premiere, Daniel Holden (Aden Young) spends the majority of ‘Sleeping Giants’ in a medically-induced coma, but this time we’re less privy to his dreams/hallucinations outside of a few brief scenes. And yet, just like Jon (Luke Kirby) tells one of his other death row inmates, the very concept of a sleeping giant suggests that it will eventually wake up. And Daniel does wake up, though it’s not until the emotional final scene of the episode. As a result ‘Sleeping Giants’ dedicates its time and attention on the other characters and their attempts to grapple with the implications of Daniel waking (or not waking) up. And, as you would expect with Rectify, the result carries a surprising weight.
For my money, this episode is exemplary for the scenes between Teddy (Clayne Crawford) and Tawney (Adelaide Clemens). They have two meaty encounters: one in the tire store and the other the following day after breakfast. The first occurs when Tawney encourages her husband to come home and he rebuffs her, indicating that he’s working on the numbers for his new business proposal. It’s clear from the get-go that they’re miscommunicating and that Teddy is unable to express what he’s so angry/afraid of. Initially it seems to be about work and for a few moments they go back and forth. At one point Tawney defensively states that Teddy wanted her to stay at home, which reinforces a number of suspicions I had about the patriarchal nature of their marriage.
When Tawney presses him, however, Teddy changes his tune, posing the question of what will happen if Daniel is disabled when he awakens. This is less about reputation and money, though; it is clearly Teddy’s own fears. What’s revealing is that when he communicates it to his wife, instead of claiming responsibility for broaching the scenario, Teddy claims that it is his father, Ted Sr (Bruce McKinnon) who is concerned, which we know is a lie from their conversation earlier (when Teddy raised it). Clearly Teddy is still working out his complex feelings of jealousy and emasculation where Daniel is concerned.
This first conversation feels like a prelude to the main event. After an extremely uncomfortable breakfast Tawney addresses the growing divide between them by admitting that she has a connection with Daniel and that she unintentionally led him on. The scene is perfectly filmed, alternating between long shots that emphasize the distance between them and close-ups on their faces which make their responses more intimate. Teddy asks if she has feelings for Daniel in a barrage of quick cuts that lends the questions an anxious urgency and when she finally says she does, it’s like the air has gone out of the room. Like so much on this show, there’s a great deal left unsaid in the aftermath of her confession. When Teddy gives her a quick peck goodbye and leaves, it’s not clear if he’s angry, appeased or something in between. He’s got the confirmation that his suspicions were well-founded, but obviously that comes with a cost, made particularly evident in the final scene when he learns that Daniel has woken up. Despite Tawney’s decision to come clean, the distance between them remains (visually represented by the physical presence of the bathroom door which isolates them in their own shots). This marriage was already on rocky ground due to Daniel’s attack on Teddy; with Tawney’s confession and Daniel’s recovers, it has never been in greater jeopardy.
Courtesy of SundanceTV
Other Observations:
- Amantha (Abigail Spencer) and Janet (J. Smith-Cameron) spend the episode at Daniel’s side. Amantha – not unlike Teddy – is inherently pessimistic, so when the doctor announces that he wants to bring Daniel out of the coma, Amantha immediately inquires about the chances that Daniel will never wake up. Her life is dangerously intertwined with his (something made explicitly clear in S1, but emphasized again here). Still, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get emotional watching her reaction when Daniel wakes up.
- For the first time this season we see Trey (Sean Bridgers) – one of the eye witnesses for the defense in Daniel’s case. I had my suspicions that Trey and Georgie (his friend who committed suicide back in S1) were actually the ones who raped and murdered Hanna and Trey’s actions tonight reinforce his shady character. His visit to see Georgie’s father under the guise of being unable to track him down reeks of an attempt to establish an alibi when Georgie’s body inevitably turns up.
- It’s also the first time this season we see Jared (Jake Austin Walker), whom I was surprised didn’t appear in last week’s episode. I don’t feel as though I have a great handle on Daniel’s younger step-brother, partially because he’s the member of the family we’ve spent the least amount of time with. I can’t figure out if Jared idolizes his older brother or if he simply doesn’t understand him. Either explanation could serve to explain Jared’s interest in Daniel’s walkman and the mixtape that Hanna made him twenty years ago.
- Initially it doesn’t appear that Sheriff Daggett’s (J.D. Evermore) attempts to bring Bobby Dean (Linds Edwards) and Daniel’s other attackers to justice will prevail, but after he pleads with the mother of the young witness, she relents. From there the boy fairly easily picks out the grieving brother from the book of mugshots, which is probably for the best considering Bobby Dean’s earlier destructive behaviour outside of the bar. There is a suggestion that the other two will take matters into their own hands to prevent Daniel (and Bobby Dean) from identifying them, but that’s the kind of sensational storytelling that Rectify typically refuses to trade in so I would be surprised to see the show go in that direction.
Best Lines:
- Amantha (saying goodbye, after she and Jon first exchange I love yous): “Yeah, later.”
- Daniel (when his mother tearfully asks if he’s okay): “So far so good.”
Your turn: what did you think of this mostly Daniel-free episode? Did you find the troubled marriage scenes engrossing like me? What do you make of Jared’s interest in his older step-brother? And is Daniel is any danger from the other two attackers? Sound off below.
Rectify airs Thursdays at 9pm EST on SundanceTV
Huh, I do not feel that either Trey or Georgie killed Hannah. The rape? Maybe…tho, to me, Georgie’s suicide felt more like it was about what he knew, not what he did. Or, rather, what he knew and did NOT do something about back then and has been tormented by and, now with the reopening of the case, unbearably trapped by. Trey, who, btw, was in S2 ep1 for one scene — in his shed where he’s going thru Georgie’s belongings that he took when he put his body in the river — yeah, he’s definitely trying to cover up something, and that something could be that he was one of the rapists. To me, though, it’s The Senator who is the most suspicious.
I’m talking about this show like it’s a who-done-it. Ha. Well, obviously, it so so much more. But it is a who-done-it too, isn’t it.
Your questions: Yes, the marriage scenes were riveting. Jared: I found the moments when he’s listening to the walkman both extremely moving and somehow foreboding. I wouldn’t quite say that he idolizes Daniel OR doesn’t understand him. I think he feels a deep, if somewhat confusing, connection with him, a sudden (because of his release) more concrete understanding of what he means to his mother and Amantha and the beginning of what he means to him (huge contrast to his other brother with whom he has little connection), all mixed with what would have to be a strange and tangled guilt about being, in some ways, Daniel’s “replacement,” a replacement for someone who was not supposed to ever come back, but whom he obviously has been preoccupied with for years, who’s now returned almost from the dead, only to be beaten nearly to death days after his return. Jared loves him. I think he loved him instinctively before he ever met him, and now he’s overwhelmed with all that has suddenly happened within, what, a week and a half?
Is Daniel in any danger from the other attackers? Well, from a narrative point of view, no. As in, it would not be interesting if the tried to kill/severely injure him again. Since we know from interviews with Ray McKinnon and Aden Young that Daniel is no longer the sort of wondrous/lost “child” when he wakes from the coma, it feel more like they could be in danger from him. Though it also doesn’t make storytelling sense that Daniel would go so far over a line that he’d be in legal trouble…so — and this is crazy to guess and leave forever on the Internet, but whatever — I can see him coming very close to crossing a line (many lines) but not going so far that he cannot come back.
Good piece, thank you.
I agree with you re: Jared. I think you managed to word the ambiguity a lot more eloquently. 🙂
Oh, wow. I forgot that I’d left this comment, and I never got an email about your reply. AND I just left a long comment on ep.6 as though I’d never left one before. Sort of. But I think it’s ok. 😮 Anyway, I’m doing what I said I’d do in my ep 6 comment — read all your Rectify reviews….