Rectify Recap: Series Finale, “All I’m Sayin’”

Here’s the very last Rectify recap ever, and this is a bittersweet day for fans of good television. Goodbye, Rectify, you’ve been good to us.

It’s hard to know where to start this Rectify recap. I’ve been a fan of this show from the very first episode, and I’ve written about it over the years through tears, clenched teeth, with fingers covering my mouth. I’m Rectify’s biggest fan and greatest advocate, and now that it’s over, I don’t know how to find the words to say goodbye.

This last episode, “All I’m Sayin'” was nicely bookended with a flashback and flashforward, spanning the time between what was and what could be. It was beautiful fan service but didn’t feel cheap in any way.

SundanceTV/Rectify

In those opening moments,  Janet remembers the day Daniel was released and Amantha’s emotional pleas to her to “be happy, just for a moment.” This prompts an honest exchange in which Janet begins to see herself through her children’s eyes, which can be an intensely emotional experience for a parent.

McKinnon has written Janet with reserve and distance over the last four seasons, but you have to admire his skill at writing the plight of the mother in this final episode. The absolute most striking scene of the episode comes as Janet sits on Hanna Deen’s bed and talks with Hanna’s mother. Even though the dialogue is clipped and restrained, McKinnon captures the maternal pain and loss perfectly. I sat with my hand covering my mouth, thinking, “How does he do this?”

Although this scene comes about half way through the episode, it really embodies the theme of release. For a show that’s been so tautly pulled for four seasons, the finale was a collective exhaling that we needed so badly.  Every single character has been delivered from their coil of pain and regret, and the loosening is a beautiful thing to behold.

Daniel even finds exoneration, if not completely literally, then at least figuratively. He’s

“It’s the beauty, not the ugly, that hurts the most.”

desperately disappointed at losing Chloe without so much as a goodbye, but as Pickle points out, “disappointment is the cousin to hope.” And seeing Daniel hope for something is one of the most encouraging bits about this finale. We’ve never seen Daniel have such audacity, and even though our hearts hurt for his loss, we’re “cautiously optimistic” that he’s healing. To quote the Goatman from season one and to sum up how Rectify has played out over these four seasons, “It’s the beauty, not the ugly, that hurts the most.”

He says as much to Jon, when the lawyer comes to see him in Nashville to deliver the news about his case. Daniel has been crushed under the guilt of having wasted everyone’s time. For so long, he felt unworthy of their compassion and love, but now he feels a responsibility to not let them down. This is Daniel’s ending.

Photo: SundanceTV/Rectify

There’s a scene in which Daniel calls Amantha while she sits on the front porch of her mother’s house and he sits in Chloe’s empty loft. They tell each other how much they miss each other and how much catching up they have to do. It’s so plaintive that I can’t help feel like this was meant for fans. That maybe Daniel and Amantha are acting like stand-ins for the audience and the show, to allow us our goodbyes and to give a voice to all the things we’ve felt over these seasons. They thank each other, love each other, and then they release each other from the entanglement they’ve been caught up in. They, like us, feel free to move on now.

Teddy, Tawney, Jared, Sheriff Dagget, Ted, Sr. and even Bobby Deen are all released from the binds of their respective struggles. Rectify tended to everyone in it’s last moments, and as a fan, I’m relieved. Everyone found a reasonable ending, and that’s all we can hope for from a show that is as authentic and earnest as this one.

Photo: SundanceTV/Rectify

Rectify lives in the small spaces of the heart – inching toward resolution, instead of leaping. Daniel’s slide over the continuum of human emotion is really Rectify at it’s finest. Sure, it

Rectify lives in the small spaces of the heart – inching toward resolution, instead of leaping.

would have been so satisfying to see Daniel end up with the traditional “happily ever after” but that’s not Rectify’s style.

What we get, instead, is Daniel lying on his bed, hoping for what could be – allowing himself the luxury of seeing a future. Those final moments of daydream, with Chloe and her baby, are our assurances that he’s going to be okay.  His wishful dreaming doesn’t have anything to do with his official exoneration,  (which seems to be on the horizon) but instead with just the sheer act of living.

Related Story: Rectify Recap: Season 4, Episode 7, “Happy Unburdening”

God bless you, Rectify, for showing me my own human heart; for forcing me to slow down and examine the responsibility we have as human – to see beauty, to love the people in our lives, to hope for the future.