{"id":919,"date":"2014-08-08T14:45:10","date_gmt":"2014-08-08T18:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/?p=919"},"modified":"2014-08-15T17:42:43","modified_gmt":"2014-08-15T21:42:43","slug":"rectify-recap-great-destroyer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/2014\/08\/08\/rectify-recap-great-destroyer\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Rectify’ Recap: ‘The Great Destroyer’"},"content":{"rendered":"

As is the case with many Rectify<\/em> episodes, this one merely kicked the plot can a few feet, maybe one and a half sidewalk squares down the block. As is the case with all Rectify<\/em> episodes, most fans don\u2019t seem to care.<\/p>\n

Part of it has to do with its ability to inject life into any situation, no matter how dark or emotionally complex. Trey, who until recently has only lurked around the periphery until recently, wakes up in his truck\u2019s driver seat with a vomit-stained chin and his daughter knocking on the door asking where he was the previous night; \u201cDo you wanna get married someday, Alice?\u201d \u201cI do.\u201d \u201cThen never<\/em> ask a man where he\u2019s been.\u201d (While I don\u2019t know whether Trey is sinister or just a good ol\u2019 boy that\u2019s kind of an asshole, this exchange is evidence that\u2019d support both.) Then Jared comes to Ted Jr.\u2019s under the confusion of Daniel possibly accepting a plea deal, and the teenager confesses he doesn\u2019t like beer all too much. Teddy, who\u2019s making a (very) slow comeback as a tolerable human being, replies, \u201cFirst you hate it. Then you love it. It\u2019s called beer.”<\/p>\n

The show also possesses the ability to turn on a dime and become other shows, if only for moments. Daniel\u2019s very first meeting with Trey a few episodes ago was scored for moments as a horror movie, and his mushroom trip in the woods was a trippy, psychedelic reprieve from whatever else happened before and after its last shot.<\/p>\n

But mostly, the reason its audience doesn\u2019t bother with the show\u2019s pace has to do with the deepening and complicating of its various characters (and that\u2019s when it\u2019s not already drawing colorful vignettes of characters that come and go, like the first season\u2019s goat man or Lezlie With A Z): If nothing else, this show is miraculous for softening, at all, its audience\u2019s stance on Teddy Jr.; his father\u2019s majesty as perhaps the greatest man to live is about to be tested; Daniel\u2019s mother, for all her sweetness, is suffering from guilt that she didn\u2019t have hope for her son; Amantha actually cherishes her job at a strip mall thrift store; Tawney and Daniel seem to have come to an understanding on the depth of their feelings for one another, even if that understanding is that they can\u2019t understand it; hell, even Wendell showed that he possesses a philosophical slant when he\u2019s not masturbating or running his mouth (or, as he\u2019s wont to do, both at once).<\/p>\n

And while we should applaud the program for executing the show so beautifully upon the reliance of the deepening of relationships and characters, its card up its sleeve is that there is still a mystery to be solved; these families are living, struggling, and coping with a nightmare that haunts Pawley County in the background. Which is why meetings such as Sheriff Daggett\u2019s with C.J., his predecessor, can be so delightful and intriguing.<\/p>\n

Daggett, who\u2019s undergone his own series-long turn from a creep to a guy who just wants to get things right while being pressured by the powerful Senator Foulkes, seeks C.J. out and learns that there were conflicting stories from the kids near the scene of the crime, that Daniel\u2019s confession could have very well been forced, and that George Melton (the departed from the series premiere) wished to speak to C.J. after the trial, but the sheriff wouldn\u2019t see him. But I\u2019m afraid that Daniel’s presence in George\u2019s house will come back to haunt him if legal or law enforcement scrutiny ensues. He certainly left plenty of evidence himself, and I suspect Trey planted some from his criminal tote bag.<\/p>\n

Up next week: How is Ted Sr. going to handle Senator Foulkes\u2019 revelation regarding his son, Daniel, and coffee grounds? There\u2019s a joke about percolating somewhere in there, I\u2019m sure.<\/p>\n

NOTES<\/p>\n