Rectify creator Ray McKinnon wants to leave some season finale questions unanswered
An actor recognizable from his appearances on such TV shows as Deadwood and Sons Of Anarchy and from performances in films such as Take Shelter and O Brother Where Art Thou? (as well as the Oscar-winning short “The Accountant,” which he also wrote and directed), Ray McKinnon branched into television production in 2013 with SundanceTV’s Rectify. The meditative tale of a Georgia man (Aden Young as Daniel Holden) released from prison after 19 years on death row, the show hinges on Daniel’s reaction to the changes that occurred while he was away—as well as the way the outside world reacts to his presence. After a first season that kept its focus tight on Daniel (while keeping the camera lens open wide enough to catch some dazzling splashes of Georgian sunlight), season two used its extended episode order to rope Daniel’s family members and the local law enforcement into the main action. That trend climaxed in a season finale that shed light on one of the show’s smaller mysteries, while leaving its biggest—who killed Hanna Dean?—unsolved. In the wake of the finale, The A.V. Club spoke to McKinnon about the implications of the episode, the show’s recent third-season pickup, and why fictional works don’t have to adhere to the letter of the law.
The A.V. Club: What did you want viewers to take away from the two accounts of Hanna Dean’s death that Daniel gives in the finale? In one, he discovers her body; in the second, he’s her killer.
Ray McKinnon: It’s funny—we finished the sound design of episode 10 at 12:30 a.m. on a Thursday, I think two, maybe three weeks ago? And I’ve thought so little about the show since then that when [the Sundance representative] mentioned episode 10, I was like, “Oh, now what happened in episode 10?” [Laughs.] “Oh, that’s right!”
Oh my goodness, I’ve created a problem for myself and every character in the show. [Laughs.] So you mean whether her did it or didn’t do it? Whether he was coerced or not coerced? Can I ask you what you went away with?
AVC: It seems that what Daniel tells the district attorney and the senator before sending them out of the room is what he’s been trying to say this whole time—he’s been trying to tell the truth that he knows. In that moment, he realizes that’s not a truth that anyone in the room—aside from his attorney—will ever want to hear, so he more or less recounts what he said in his original confession.
RM: Right, along with some nuggets from Trey. My feeling on what anybody intuits is that it’s their subjective experience with the show. And once it’s out there, in some ways it’s out of my hands, so I don’t get into the business of trying to dictate or to coach others into what I think they should believe because that’s part of what fiction does. It leaves some of it up to the beholder, and hopefully what we’ve done here—not just in a plot narrative, but in the characters and the characterizations and the narrative of the characters’ own lives—is to leave some mystery, and some unknowingness.
But specifically with this “Did he or didn’t he?”, which has always been hanging over the head of Daniel and the family and the town and the viewers: I guess, in an ideal world, it’d be great if people went away from that episode with different takes on what the truth is. Some come away with “He did it,” and some come away with “He didn’t do it,” as you’re saying. And perhaps there’s the idea of are there really such things as forced memories that become like real memories? And is that a part of it?
That’s kind of a meandering non-answer, I guess. But I am interested in storytelling that we’re conditioned to, and I think one of the reasons that storytelling became part of the human experience is we’re always trying to make sense of a world that sometimes doesn’t make sense. And storytellers can do that for us—but there’s also the idea that, as in real life, things don’t always become completely known. And maybe that’s a part of where we’ll wind up with the story. I’m not sure yet.
AVC: Sundance announced this week that there will be a third season of the show—