Rectify: The Source
August 16, 2015 3:11 PM - Season 3, Episode 6 - Subscribe
Janet and Daniel take a road trip. Tawney returns home. Jon regrets not helping Daniel more. Amantha has dinner with an unexpected companion.
I finally watched this -- the reason I posted the episodes but mostly didn't comment is because I watch the show with someone else who loves it as much as I do and she's not usually able to watch an episode until quite a while after it airs.
Anyway, this seemed like maybe it was written in case the show wasn't renewed for a fourth season (which it was). I would have been okay if it had ended here; but I do really want some more explanation of what Trey thought he was doing. I was a little disappointed and confused by this because I'd assumed that he had a plan of some form, if only to confuse things or cast more suspicion on Daniel because of the DNA evidence. And maybe that was in the back of his mind, but what he did in the end was basically to frame himself for George's death. That's not quite satisfying to me, perhaps because of genre conditioning -- which is to say, I think that it's actually pretty true-to-life about how someone like Trey would really act. He thought he was being clever but he was actually being stupid.
I have so many thoughts about this show when I watch it. Maybe I'll rewatch and go back and write some things for previous episodes. There's so much beautiful and interesting photography. One thing I noticed in this episode was the scene with John and Amanatha in the motel when John was packing to leave -- with him in the foreground blocking her directly from the camera's view, but with the closet door reflecting her on the opposite side of the frame as they talked. That was perhaps a little bit too contrived, but I'm undecided about it because I want to think about what it might have represented.
Every episode brings me close to tears. I think maybe I identify with Daniel quite a bit -- his scenes with Janet (which is my mother's name, too) and his scenes with Amantha (I also have a younger sister) are very strongly affecting for me. But they're always so beautifully written and acted.
I'm so happy that the show was renewed. I'm not really a fanboy type of person and so I pretty much never become up-in-arms if a favorite show of mine isn't given the recognition that it deserves. In this case, I think I would be quite upset about it if I weren't so puzzled. It can't be anything other than the fact that almost no one watches the Sundance Channel and, of those who do, only a few of them are watching this show. Its ratings are extremely low. Even so, basically every critic who's reviewed the show has praised it very highly and these days that does sometimes matter. But basically even here on MetaFilter no one is watching the show, which surprises me.
Teddy is a character who I have a lot of ambivalence about. A big part of his personality is all about the kinds of things I really dislike most -- he is petty and suspicious and vicious and has little empathy for anyone excepting Janet, and this is all driven by his deep insecurity. He's like people I've known and he's like a person I've sometimes been -- a person I work hard at not being. As we saw in this episode, there's something deeply hurt and broken within him, that's the source (!) from which most of his bad instincts and behaviors flow. This is also why I don't totally dislike and hate him and why I often find myself feeling a great empathy for him. I've always thought -- sometimes (mentally) shouted it to the television -- that the person he is with Janet is his best self and he'd be so much happier and a better person if he could learn to cultivate that part of him in the rest of his life. But first he needs to understand that broken part of himself and why it is that Janet is the one person he is a better person with (because she's the mother who didn't fail him).
But all of these characters are damaged (who isn't?) and I find myself caring about each of them. John is the one person we know the least about -- he's a solid character played by a good actor, but we really haven't seen that much of his inner life and I think that's actually made the whole Amantha/John thing have less dramatic weight than it was meant to have.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:00 PM on August 30, 2015
Anyway, this seemed like maybe it was written in case the show wasn't renewed for a fourth season (which it was). I would have been okay if it had ended here; but I do really want some more explanation of what Trey thought he was doing. I was a little disappointed and confused by this because I'd assumed that he had a plan of some form, if only to confuse things or cast more suspicion on Daniel because of the DNA evidence. And maybe that was in the back of his mind, but what he did in the end was basically to frame himself for George's death. That's not quite satisfying to me, perhaps because of genre conditioning -- which is to say, I think that it's actually pretty true-to-life about how someone like Trey would really act. He thought he was being clever but he was actually being stupid.
I have so many thoughts about this show when I watch it. Maybe I'll rewatch and go back and write some things for previous episodes. There's so much beautiful and interesting photography. One thing I noticed in this episode was the scene with John and Amanatha in the motel when John was packing to leave -- with him in the foreground blocking her directly from the camera's view, but with the closet door reflecting her on the opposite side of the frame as they talked. That was perhaps a little bit too contrived, but I'm undecided about it because I want to think about what it might have represented.
Every episode brings me close to tears. I think maybe I identify with Daniel quite a bit -- his scenes with Janet (which is my mother's name, too) and his scenes with Amantha (I also have a younger sister) are very strongly affecting for me. But they're always so beautifully written and acted.
I'm so happy that the show was renewed. I'm not really a fanboy type of person and so I pretty much never become up-in-arms if a favorite show of mine isn't given the recognition that it deserves. In this case, I think I would be quite upset about it if I weren't so puzzled. It can't be anything other than the fact that almost no one watches the Sundance Channel and, of those who do, only a few of them are watching this show. Its ratings are extremely low. Even so, basically every critic who's reviewed the show has praised it very highly and these days that does sometimes matter. But basically even here on MetaFilter no one is watching the show, which surprises me.
Teddy is a character who I have a lot of ambivalence about. A big part of his personality is all about the kinds of things I really dislike most -- he is petty and suspicious and vicious and has little empathy for anyone excepting Janet, and this is all driven by his deep insecurity. He's like people I've known and he's like a person I've sometimes been -- a person I work hard at not being. As we saw in this episode, there's something deeply hurt and broken within him, that's the source (!) from which most of his bad instincts and behaviors flow. This is also why I don't totally dislike and hate him and why I often find myself feeling a great empathy for him. I've always thought -- sometimes (mentally) shouted it to the television -- that the person he is with Janet is his best self and he'd be so much happier and a better person if he could learn to cultivate that part of him in the rest of his life. But first he needs to understand that broken part of himself and why it is that Janet is the one person he is a better person with (because she's the mother who didn't fail him).
But all of these characters are damaged (who isn't?) and I find myself caring about each of them. John is the one person we know the least about -- he's a solid character played by a good actor, but we really haven't seen that much of his inner life and I think that's actually made the whole Amantha/John thing have less dramatic weight than it was meant to have.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:00 PM on August 30, 2015
That's a beautiful recap. I just watched this on Netflix and found it kind of mesmerizing, but also frustrating at times.
What was the point with the jacket Trey said Daniel was wearing? I thought Trey was going to plant it somewhere incriminating; in fact I thought that's what Trey was doing when he broke into Janet and Ted's house.
posted by areaperson at 1:36 PM on February 1, 2017
What was the point with the jacket Trey said Daniel was wearing? I thought Trey was going to plant it somewhere incriminating; in fact I thought that's what Trey was doing when he broke into Janet and Ted's house.
posted by areaperson at 1:36 PM on February 1, 2017
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posted by Chitownfats at 6:54 PM on August 18, 2015