We caught a few episodes when this amazing series was still on non-premium cable, but it's much easier to stay with it now on Netflix, stripped of roughly 15 minutes of ads/ep. (When somebody at the NY Times put it on a list of the 20 best TV shows of this century, we finally gave it another shot.) I'd classify it as Southern gothic suspense, though "suspense" may not seem like the word for a series that, like its protagonist, is as painstaking and thoughtful as this one. Daniel Holden is a Georgia man approaching forty who's just been released on appeal after nineteen years on death row. Those years have made him a bit of a Stoic philosopher; his speech is measured, ironic, sometimes cryptic--his jealous stepbrother, Teddy, calls him "Starman," which is not meant kindly, but seems pretty accurate.
It's impressive that "Rectify" somehow manages to keep up the momentum, and even maintain a pretty high level of suspense, despite its frequent detours into the everyday life of the extended Holden/Talbot clan. (The underlying wrong-man murder plot hangs fire for long stretches while we inspect the shaky underpinnings of the family tire business and Teddy's fragile marriage.)
The most affecting of these subplots involves the platonic attachment that forms between Daniel and Teddy's wife, Tawney, a sweet-natured Born Again Christian; her first conversational gambit--"What's your favorite season?"--takes an unexpected turn when she realizes he really hasn't been outdoors for almost twenty years. She hopes to convert him; his hopes are unspecified, but clearly different--"I'm a romantic," he explains.
Aden Young really nails the part of Daniel, who reminds me of a higher-functioning version of Herzog's Kaspar Hauser, and the supporting cast is excellent. The writers experiment with a couple of David Gordon Green-style "Rough South" touches in the first season--an encounter with a volatile goat rustler and a backwoods rave party--and we were sorry that things got more normal and plot-driven after that; likewise we weren't too happy with the arrival of an off-the-shelf Manic Pixie Dream Girl character as Daniel's prospective love interest in season 4, but otherwise it's all good.
It's impressive that "Rectify" somehow manages to keep up the momentum, and even maintain a pretty high level of suspense, despite its frequent detours into the everyday life of the extended Holden/Talbot clan. (The underlying wrong-man murder plot hangs fire for long stretches while we inspect the shaky underpinnings of the family tire business and Teddy's fragile marriage.)
The most affecting of these subplots involves the platonic attachment that forms between Daniel and Teddy's wife, Tawney, a sweet-natured Born Again Christian; her first conversational gambit--"What's your favorite season?"--takes an unexpected turn when she realizes he really hasn't been outdoors for almost twenty years. She hopes to convert him; his hopes are unspecified, but clearly different--"I'm a romantic," he explains.
Aden Young really nails the part of Daniel, who reminds me of a higher-functioning version of Herzog's Kaspar Hauser, and the supporting cast is excellent. The writers experiment with a couple of David Gordon Green-style "Rough South" touches in the first season--an encounter with a volatile goat rustler and a backwoods rave party--and we were sorry that things got more normal and plot-driven after that; likewise we weren't too happy with the arrival of an off-the-shelf Manic Pixie Dream Girl character as Daniel's prospective love interest in season 4, but otherwise it's all good.