DVD Review – Rectify (Season 2)

DVD Reviews, Reviews

Dan Holden (Aden Young) has spent the better part of 20 years on death row, convicted of a crime he swears he didn’t commit. When DNA evidence exonerates him, and frees him from prison, a now 30 something Dan is released back into the world as a free man. Rectify follows Dan and the world around him as he adjusts to freedom … and the world adjusts back to him. He’s not an innocent man … that we know. The events of the murder of his teenage girlfriend Hanna nearly two decades before are still murky and the world assumes that either he did it and got away with it … or was a part of it and got away with it.

Going into season 2 of the show, a Sundance original that found enough of an audience (and critical reviews) to be working on its third season.

The second season picks up where we left off in the first as Dan is trying to find his place in a world that’s foreign to him. The world around him isn’t a fan of him, or his past, and the second season follows his continued adventures in a world that seemingly doesn’t want him in it. Whereas the first season was about his reemergence back into polite society … this season is about Dan coming to grips with what he did.

The one thing that stands out most about the season, as the first season, is that this is a show that allows itself to work the gray area. This isn’t black and white. Dan isn’t a good man and clearly has done something evil, something that should’ve put him in prison in the first place. But it wasn’t the crime he was convicted of thus we’re in a moral gray area. He’s not a good man and probably shouldn’t be free … but the truth isn’t known. It’s gutsy story-telling that rarely happens because usually you’d expect this show to be either about a bad man free on a technicality or a good man convicted of a crime he didn’t commit.

We don’t know the whole story, just that DNA evidence got him out of prison. It’s different from the usual story told about an ex-con released back into the world as there’s enough ambiguity to make it interesting. We don’t know what happened, thus it makes the show that much more interesting as it goes along.

It’s also a bit of a problem because until we see where the show’s final destination point it’s going to feel incomplete.

An EPK piece is included.

Anchor Bay presents Rectify (Season 2). Starring Aden Young, Abigail Spencer. Run Time: 272 minutes Not Rated. Released on DVD: 6.18.2015