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Rectify: Yolk

"Welcome back to Paulie."

Everyone is moving on, or trying to move on, but not succeeding very well. This was a mostly delightful episode, even though not much actually happened.

Janet wants to be with Daniel, but she's not. So she cleans the refrigerator and bakes cakes, and fusses over the adult kids that are there. Except Jared, the youngest, isn't even at home. He's off by the lake in a ratty tent held together with duct tape, trying to ignore the rain. Which was an obvious metaphor for how precarious they're all feeling, with water imagery thrown in.

Amantha is genuinely trying to be a good Thrifty Town manager. She's putting some effort into making her workers happy with their schedule and getting stoned alone out in a meadow instead of with her workmate Aleshia. The way she sang "Build Me Up, Buttercup" at the top of her lungs before she totaled her car made me smile. Amantha always makes me smile.

I was actually freaking a bit while she was walking alone in the dark because they were giving us such horror movie vibes; I'm sure we were meant to think that the guy in the truck was Trey and that he would hurt her. Instead, it was a delightful new character called Billy Harris, an old acquaintance of Amantha's, who made me laugh at least twice. Is it too soon to observe that he seems to be perfect for her? She was too snarky with him, but that defensiveness is her default setting.


Teddy and Tawney are having date nights in neutral locations while their marriage is on hold. She's happy as a clam, going to school and working at a retirement home, doing something with her life, while Teddy is clearly at loose ends, wondering why she hasn't come back to him yet so that he won't have to live with his parents anymore. Switching homes with Amantha was a good idea. Teddy doesn't want to move on, but he really should.

Jon isn't ready to move on, either. He wants full exoneration for Daniel and thinks that if only they'd waited a bit until Trey's arrest, they could have gotten it. The other people at the project don't get it. Daniel is free, after all, even if he is stuck with twenty years of probation while he's in exile from Georgia. Personally, I'd be thrilled if this series ended with Daniel's exoneration. Go team. Go exonerate Daniel, Jon. I think Daniel needs it. I think Jon needs it, too.

While the Sheriff was at the Deans warning Bobby that he shouldn't go beat up Trey like he did Daniel, Hanna's poor mother actually asked him if it was possible that Daniel, the man she has hated with a fiery vengeance for twenty years, might not have killed her daughter after all. That's the question, isn't it?

It's clear that Janet has already decided on the answer. That final scene where she snuck up on Trey's cart at the supermarket and deliberately smashed each individual egg was just great, a gesture that of course doesn't compensate for the twenty years she lost with Daniel. But I bet it felt good, in a slimy sort of way.


Bits:

-- The episode began and ended with broken eggs.

-- We saw the other side of the Janet/Daniel phone message in the previous episode.

-- Nathan Darrow, who played new character Billy Harris, played Meechum on House of Cards. I knew I'd seen him and liked him in something, but couldn't place him at first.

-- Zeke, one of the unpleasant residents of the retirement home was obsessed about getting his 35 year plaque before he died. "The key is in the mouth of the horny toad." I'm sure this means something, but I'm drawing a blank. (If you have a guess, post a comment!)

Quotes, all Amantha's:

"Superman does good. We do well."

"Buzzkill. Buzzkill times a bunch."

"Mom's chronically blue."

"I'm too old to be this poor."
I can relate to that.

"I'd hug you, but I've already had a bath."

Totally enjoyable way to catch up with the fam. Three out of four broken eggs,

Billie
---
Billie Doux loves quality television and spends way too much time writing about it.

5 comments:

  1. On one hand they spent the first episode exclusively on Daniel, so having the second spent on all the others was a symmetric move. On the other hand this is the first episode of Rectify where I look back and think "yeah, so nothing really happened, did it."

    There were no really stirring scenes in this episode and while I respect Rectify's narrative mode for me this was the least interesting episode of the show.

    That said this was probably a needed episode and I very much look forward to the next installment.

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  2. A day in the life on Rectify: work, clean, eat meals, go shopping, go camping, have car trouble.....
    While not exactly electrifying television; it did make me want to go clean my fridge and soak all the bins and trays in bleach in my bathtub. I'm putting that on my to-do list, right now.

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  3. I love Janet revenge!

    The horny toad bit might be a reference to O Brother Where Art Thou "We thought you'd turned into a horny toad!" a movie about prison escape. That was what I thought of.

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  4. Meant to really break down the premiere in my own way before moving onto episode 2 blindly but... couldn't find the way to start it. I couldn't do it with this episode either except to say that I loved it almost as much. I'll come around to doing both justice... soon

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    Replies
    1. Poor Janet... I tend to forget just how badly she's moving on from Daniel's departure. And Jon it seems like, funnily enough. Though I could totally understand why he's so fixated on the timeliness of all the things that came out just as Daniel gave his 2nd of false confessions. That must really stick in his craw...
      I feel really bad for Ted Sr. With all respect to Janet she must just absolutely be no fun post Nashville relocation lol. She's not neglecting Teddy too badly though... I liked that scene where she says she's proud of him for the patient dating/catching-up thing he's got going on with a Tawney who genuinely seems to be doing alright without him. I liked the OCD turning on/off the tap water thing he did. Amantha's doing fine too without Daniel, much less of a surprise though. Amantha just Amanthas.

      Also... Meechum-san from House of Cards! And a few changes to the opening credits. Tube Man at night (oddly haunting), and the ceramic mechanic on the same screen in different pictures. I never notice stuff like this. I was momentarily dismayed Melvin seemed to be gone but his spot was just switched to higher up lol.

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