'Rectify': A Great, Haunting Drama Returns

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Few TV shows reward close attention paid to glances, polite conversation, and silence as much as Rectify, the wonderful drama returning for a third season on Thursday night. The ongoing story of Daniel Holden (Aden Young), who spent 19 years in prison for a murder he may not have committed, Rectify isn’t anyone’s idea of a murder mystery or a thriller. It is, instead, a drama about how people relate to each other, how impressions and opinions formed can or must change over time.

The third season begins right where last season left off, with Daniel having confessed to a killing for at least the second time now. Under the patience and care of Young’s performance and the scrupulous writing of show creator Ray McKinnon, Rectify convinces you that there’s a big difference between confession and truth. The show dramatizes the inner turmoil that Daniel has undergone ever since being released from his long prison stint, how his mind has been so tortured by his imprisonment and his freedom, he may very well not know when he’s telling the truth or not. If this was a novel, we’d call him an unreliable narrator; as it stands, Daniel is one of the most compellingly complex characters on TV.

The season premiere’s best subplot involves Daniel’s sister, Amantha, played by Abigail Spencer with a remarkable mixture of prickly toughness, intelligence, and hilariously dry humor. Maybe I’m a sucker for stories about people who work lousy retail jobs, but Amantha’s ongoing anti-career at the small-town Thrifty Town discount store is one I look forward to every time it comes up. I’d been worried that Rectify was steadily pushing Amantha out of the series, so I was glad to see that this first episode brings her, if anything, closer to Daniel, who’s looking for a new place to live.

I’m not going to give away many more details — the smallest facts and actions in a Rectify hour are invariably crucial or revelatory, even if they don’t seem so upon first watching them. So instead, I’ll praise the performances. In addition to the exceptional work by Young and Spencer, Clayne Crawford and Adelaide Clemens are doing superb jobs as Daniel’s step-brother and his wife, a troubled couple whose marriage may be unraveling. And J. Smith-Cameron and Bruce McKinnon, as Daniel’s mother and step-father, suggest a long history of painful memories kept at bay by brave hard work and generous hearts.

I’m afraid I may be making Rectify sound slow or grim — off-putting in some way. I’m not gonna lie: The pace is deliberate, and there aren’t the kind of laughs that other dramas employ as comic relief. But there’s real wit and propulsiveness in the storytelling Ray McKinnon does in this show. I howled when I realized SundanceTV had only sent out one episode for review. Can’t wait for the next hour.

Rectify airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. on SundanceTV.