In truth, it’s a bit uncomfortable to watch. Little has prepared us for this unexpected launch of Daniel 2.0 at the episode’s 2/3 mark, and rather than a surprising dramatic turn, the scene plays out like the document of an actor struggling desperately to justify his drastic change in mood and behavior. At last episode’s close, Daniel was a man for whom truth and memory had grown profoundly unstable. Trey Willis’ fiendish head-games had effectively planted a seed of doubt that began to eat away at Daniel’s very sense of self. After Tawny picks him up from George’s Florida trailer park, where the fascinatingly despicable Trey had left him stranded the night before, he bluntly admits that he is not a “good person”, then later makes reference to the “despicable things” he’s done. It’s not surprising that when John Stern presents him with the prospect of a plea deal, he sits down to give it serious thought. If he is so unsure of his innocence, perhaps this would be the most graceful resolution he could hope for. But then something changes. Was it Tawny’s exhortations to share the “good in him” with the world? Or was it Wendell Jelks accusing him of being “afraid to live” in the prison flashback? Either way, at this stage of the season Daniel’s sudden change of outlook is the dramatically correct course of events. It just seems that somewhere along the writer-director-actor chain of interpretation, the cause became a bit too diffuse and unclear. All in all, “The Great Destroyer” feels very much like a functional episode–and it does its job. The dialogues are a bit drawn out, the decisions a bit precipitated, but in the grand scheme of things this can be forgiven. We are witnessing the Rectify team setting the table for the main course, and they’ve done a good enough job sowing doubt, uncertainty and expectation over the past few episodes that it will be a well-deserved meal, indeed. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for all news updates related to the world of geek. And Google+, if that’s your thing!
