I'm definitely changing the sheets.
After 4 episodes of being teased, it's finally time for Janet to meet Daniel again. Jon's journey to discover the truth about Hannah continues, while Ted jr. takes the single biggest decision of his entire life, in this week's, amazing, episode of Rectify. Let's break it down, the end is nigh, but it's not quite here yet.
It has been a long time coming, 4 episodes since when Daniel and Janet last saw each other in the final seconds of Season 3, before Daniel got in the halfway house for the first time. Hold your horses though, because she still has a long road trip ahead of her, a road trip where she and Ted senior share one of the, if not the, most honest conversation they ever had. Janet goes out on a limb, and admits to Ted that she wants to sell the store. He is, understandbly, a little disgruntled by the whole thing, since she's kind of asking his opinion, even though the final decision falls upon her, being the actual owner. But Janet's weird state of mind doesn't stop there, as later an innocent game about what their life could've been, had they given a choice, turns into the two of them fighting, where Ted senior ends up admitting for the first time, how sometimes he feels resentful of Janet, and that he does so in silent, while also blaming her for never even uttered a "thank you" for all the things that he had been forced to accept and adjust in his life, in order to be husband, to be with her and help her through a lot of hellish times.In the final moments of the episode we see her weeping, finally tired of dealing with all that life has been throwing at her.
The main event of the episode though, is surely represented by the huge development in Ted jr. and Tawney's storyline. They have been at odds for a long time now, and their little weekly dates have done little to improve things, they wanted to give themselves time to figure where their relationship should go, and even though it's clear what would the be the best thing to do for Tawney she hasn't been able, and probably would never be able, to pull the gun on it, and that's why Ted decides to take matters into his own hands, do what he knows is the best thing for her and the worst thing in the world for him, and asks her to kindly allow him to divorce. I've been babbling about the amazing development of the Ted jr. character and Clayne Crawford as an actor since I've began to review the show, but really this is the kind of checkpoint that would've been unthinkable when all things started many years ago. Things take a bad turn for Tawney too, as later in the episode she finds out that Zeke, the old man she was taking care of in the hospital his now in coma, and probably won't ever wake up again. She wants to be there in his final moments, on the bed beside him, dreading the possibility that her life might become lonesome as the one of that old man.
Not a lot of time for Daniel this week, but he finds to courage to openly confronts Manny, in front of Avery and all the other tenants at the halfway house, about we saw him do last week, masturbating in the same room where Daniel was, merely a few yards for him. While such a thing would be disturbing for most, it is especially for Daniel since it reminds him of when he was in prison and was sexually assaulted multiple times by the other inmates. In a surprising twist of events he even shares with Chloe these feelings, and some of the things that he's been through, and while she can't cure him, as she kindly puts it, she could hold him, and that's what she does. The week definitely ends on a high note for him, as he finally sees his mother Janet and Ted senior again, waiting for him at the halfway house, and we even catch a glimpse of the same old, worriless Daniel that has surfaced through other times previously in the series, as he shows them his room. He's also made great strides with his tenants and they care about him, as is shown by Mr. Pickle's decision to switch places with Manny and become Daniel's new roommate.His siblings Amantha and Jared remain on the bench too, despite appearing in a couple of key scenes with Janet first and Ted jr. later, as other stuff take a more prominent positioning this time around.
Ted jr. is definitely shaken by the way his life as he previously knew it is crumbling around him, his marriage with Tawney now over, and the prospect of Janet selling the tire-store looming, he's definitely in a bad place, and we see him drinking a lot of beers throughout the episode, though no one more important than the one he shares with Bobby, Hanna's brother. He goes to the Talbot house looking for Daniel (the fact that Daniel hasn't been there for month, gives a pretty accurate picture of Bobby's current grip on his surroundings), or Jared even, but only finds Ted jr. as the unwilling recipient of the burden that he so much wanted to unload. He reconstructs what life was, for his mama and him, in the aftermath of Hanna's death, with George Melton going to their house everyday, playing with him, grieving with his mother, before deciding that he just couldn't do it anymore, because it wasn't right, just before leaving with three words... "Trey went back". Something that it's hard, for both us and Bobby (or even Ted jr. or Amantha for that matters) to make a sense of yet, but that for sure will play a big role in the unveiling of the facts that happened so many years ago.While Jon doesn't know yet of the new development that Bobby just shared with Ted jr. and us, his quest for the truth leads him back to Sheriff Doggett, which upon calling him to meet at his house, leaves him alone for half an hour, with an affidavit of Christopher Nelms' interview that he conducted last season, while gathering evidences against Trey for the rape of Hanna Dean. Luckily Jon will probably soon find out about Bobby's words too, since Ted jr. shares them with Amantha and Jared, before heading back to his old house, the one where Tawney lives alone now, and channeling his inner lock picking abilities, as he breaks inside of it. In a sort of a farewell to his old house and the life that it represented, he cooks a nice steak on the barbecue that hasn't been used since he left, gathers some of his fishing and hunting gears, and steps one last time in his own bedroom.
This was one hell of a episode. While this has been a very good season of Rectify, other than that one scene in the premiere, it hasn't really delivered a lot of punches, dramatically speaking, in the three hours that lead to this one, but oh boy oh boy, did things took a very dark turn in this one, as the show delivers some of its best guts-wrenching sequences yet, with Ted jr. finally divorcing Tawney, Daniel's moment with Chloe or the unfolding of what had been so far one of the few anchors we could cling to, Ted senior and Janet relationship. While things could feel kind of hopeless some times, I think the show will ultimately be about how we can always strive to move forward, never backwards.
So what did you all think? Sound off in the comments below.
Episode 4.05 - "Pineapples in Paris" - A
