Rectify

The definitive image of Rectify’s tremendous third season finale “The Source” comes almost as an afterthought; while walking to his mother’s car outside Amantha’s house, Daniel looks forward, put his arms in the air, and takes a leap off the sidewalk onto the asphalt of the parking lot.

Hope is a weird thing, particularly on Rectify – as an intelligent commenter posited last week, it can even be hard to see the hope in Rectify, in either its lightest or darkest moments. But there’s an argument to be made that “The Future” is the most hopeful episode the show’s ever produced Rather than exist in the abstractions of salvation Daniel and Tawney talk about early in the show’s run, “The Future” presents the idea of forward progress in very tangible, defined ways: Daniel is not a suspect in the investigation around George’s death, and Janet makes some important steps to heal the relationship between her and the men she loves (even Lester, her deceased first husband) .Even on the most abstract of levels, “The Future” appears to be looking forward to the promise of the future, its uncertainties offering comfort rather than stress – at least in the case of Daniel, that is.

“What will I be when they put me back together again?” Daniel asks his sister during “Girl Jesus”, a thinly-veiled reference to the infamous, egg-starring nursery rhyme. Yet it’s a question that permeates every corner of Rectify’s third season, which has lifted Pawnee from any sense of temporal reality, observing the town and its people as if frozen in time inside a snow globe. Shaking said globe is Daggett, of course, trying to loosen the bits and pieces of truth surrounding George Milton’s death – and as the facts, rumors, emotions, and preconceptions fill the air of Rectify’s purgatorial setting, “Girl Jesus” begins to show characters fighting against the stasis of their lives, all looking for the unfamiliar, “more crooked path” to inner peace Amantha speaks of when having lunch with Jon.

It’s no surprise one of Daniel’s dream destinations is the land of Carthage in Tunisia, home of the Carthagian empire that fell to the Romans in 146 BC. When their lands were stripped and the Carthagian people were enslaved, legends said the Romans “salted the earth” of Carthage, cursing the land for re-inhabitation by the Carthagians or any others.

The trains of change are a-comin’ to Paulie, yet the Holden clan continues to hold on, if only for a little bit longer (cue music). The mindset of everyone, from Janet to Teddy, is best summed up when Daniel finds himself alone in the house; “What do I do… what do I do, what do I do”, oscillating between pretending everything is normal and trying to sidestep their darker sides.

What the honorable Senator was trying to say was “All good things must come to an end”, in reference to the casual affair he once had with Marcy, waitress at the local Paulie diner.

There’s nothing more important than family on Rectify—and I’m not just talking about Daniel Holden, or even the Holden family in general. The closing episodes of Rectify’s haunting, beautiful second season are all about breaking down the various families of Paulie, be it the Holdens, the Willis’s, or even something more abstract, like the law enforcement characters, or the general population of Paulie.

Part of Rectify’s appeal in its short first season was its intense focus, be it on a specific character, idea, or even just a singular image. It obviously wasn’t the show’s only strength, but it’s extreme focus on character over plot (a list of characters that included Paulie, Georgia) allowed it to dig deep – a level-headed exploration of faith, the legal system, and the nature of existence rarely found in any form of media.

Change. At the heart of Rectify is the idea of change: set in a town stuck in the past, featuring a family reeling from an event twenty years ago, and a main character whose entire reality is broken the instant he’s released from prison. And as the heart of Rectify, the Holden household kitchen serves as the perfect metaphor for change: starting over really only happens when you start over, when you finally get rid of the old and allow the new to consume you. But true, soul-enriching change is scary, difficult, and easily corrupted: and in “Donald the Normal” and “Act As If”, that struggle bleeds into every scene, every conversation, every shot composition – and as always, makes for some of the most compelling, philosophically curious TV around.

Part 3 of our listing of the best television episodes of the year to date looks at shows such as Louie and Game of Thrones, along with the individual picks of the contributors.

Whether it be feelings, traumatic life events, or relationships that forever haunt us, there’s always forces we can’t see constantly trying to deform and reshape who we are as human beings. In fact, our strength of character is often defined by how well we can stand up to these forces, like a tree branch unwilling to fall, even in the strongest of storms. And as every character in Rectify finds themselves fighting against events and ideas almost completely out of their control, “Charlie Darwin” is a story of resilience, of keeping hope in these dark, modern times, where the definitions of everything in the world (right down to “bad” and “good”) have become curved like the instruments in the Holden family vehicle, slippery, hard-to-define shapes missing the definitive angles they may once have had.

Paired with last week’s premiere, “Sleeping Giant” feels very much like a prologue to the real second season of Rectify, a season that finally kicks into high gear with the ‘resurrection’ of Daniel from his coma (which manifests itself in Daniel’s brain as a prison cell, speaking to his character on so many levels). What precedes it is a meandering stroll through Paulie, as a number of characters examine their preconceptions, each of them discovering whether they have the “motivation to change” or not. Unlike season one, this theme isn’t as subtly crafted into each character’s story as it had before – but as Rectify moves from contemplative examination of one man’s mind to a larger story about the town surrounding him, “Sleeping Giant” begins the new task of combining plot movement with thematic unity (mostly) with grace.

As Daniel Holden’s life hangs in the balance, Rectify’s second season premiere takes a look at the people in his orbit and how they’ve affected their lives in the week he’s returned (and as a product of this, their entire lives). Where the first season was primarily concerned with the mental state of Daniel – and with six episodes and an uncertain future, smartly maintained this narrow view – the opening hour of the show’s sophomore effort takes a much broader look at Paulie and the families still living in the shadow of Hannah’s death in 1994. As riveting and reflective as ever, “Running with the Bull” is the blossoming of the beautiful, disturbing flower that is Rectify, giving new depth to the many petals clinging (or for others, like Ted Jr.), and setting up what looks to be another fascinating (and extended – huzzah!) collection of episodes.

There are plenty of television shows in 2014 with the ability to amaze an audience, surprising them with bold stories, impressing them with elaborate visuals, or engaging them by drawing parallels to our own world and lives. Many of these shows rank among the best on television, regularly analyzed by critics for their ability to blend cinematic elements, symbolic metaphors, and poignant dissections of life, that blend of intelligent and entertaining that’s hard to find at the box office in this day and age of loud tent poles and cliche, overwrought ‘indie’ films.

17. American Horror Story (FX- tie) With the climactic final four episodes of Asylum and the entertaining first nine of Coven, American Horror Story has had a diverse year, to say the least. Asylum wrapped up its exploration of health care, religion, and power and Coven dove in head-first with looks at gender roles, aging, …

The beginning of the year had a wealth of TV riches, a trend that continued through the spring. Here’s part two of Kate Kulzick, Simon Howell, Ricky D, and Randy Dankievitch’s list of 2013’s best TV episodes.

2013 is only halfway done, but there’s a fair chance that, in a television context, it might well be looked back upon as the year any and all accepted rules of “quality television” became utterly meaningless and the promise of great things arrived in all shapes and sizes, from all directions. Consider Netflix’s House of …

Back in ‘Plato’s Cave’ (which is my favorite hour of television so far this year, in case you’re keeping track), Daniel and Tawney have long talks about the intersection of reality and faith as Daniel struggled to find ways to reconcile himself with the changed, but still unforgiving Paulie, Georgia he returned to. ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ puts faith to the side (mostly) for a moment and replaces it with danger, as the threats existing mostly in Daniel’s peripherals greets him face to face.

‘Drip, Drip’ opens with Daniel Holden unable to sleep. It’s 3:14 in the morning, so he sneaks out his window and starts walking down the road, where a scrubby-looking man picks him up, and asks him for help with a project. He says yes, and the two proceed to steal some goats. They then sleep in a truck, look at a statue, and wrestle in a field, before they drive back to town and Daniel gets dropped off at his stepfather’s business.

I’ve always been fascinated by the ideas behind Plato’s Allegory of the Cave – so when I saw the title of tonight’s episode, I was obviously drooling with excitement.

Daniel Holden’s exoneration from prison ripped a deep, tender scar off the town of Paulie – and unsurprisingly, many of the people living in it, from mothers, to politicians, and even those who weren’t born when the murder and subsequent trial of Daniel rocked the city. In an hour almost completely devoid of plot, ‘Modern Times’ takes a long, hard look at the Holden siblings (and those around them) trying to come to terms with this new reality, one where a confessed killer seemingly escapes the grips of justice.

Midway through the second episode of Sundance’s new drama Rectify, Daniel Holden sits down in the outfield of a local baseball field. He takes a drink from a bottle of water, and lies back on the worn grass in shallow center field, looking up at the sun. Living on death row for 19 years will make a man enjoy the simple things, be it the heat of the sun or the taste of the air.