MovieChat Forums > Rectify (2013) Discussion > a dark epilogue for rectify

a dark epilogue for rectify


I don't know about you but I found the season 4 finale and most of season 4 cringe inducingly happy. Here's some very pessimistic but plausible outcomes which might happen to some/all of these characters. Read at your own risk.

Daniel: Daniel finishes the book Chloe gave him, but she barely remembers him. Awkward pleasantries ensue and they never speak again. Daniel spends the next few years working hard for low pay, basically homeless. Despite therapy he still becomes unhinged like he does multiple times in the series which holds him back.

Ted Sr: His son's divorce changes his outlook on marriage and he makes less and less of an effort with Janet until they finally separate. He spends his remaining years riding in taxi cabs telling them to drive him to historic places.

Janet: Despite being told to let go she becomes more and more consumed by caring for Daniel and distances herself from the rest of the family, while also feeling more and more guilty about it. Eventually she is committed after a neighbor finds her redoing her kitchen and cleaning the fridge over and over.

Teddy: Teddy is successful in a new career but no longer feels the same drive to succeed like he did with the rim rental business, nor does he make the effort to maintain relationships like he used to. He ends up having many flings but never has a family of his own, and his closest friend is Melvin.

Tawney:
Eventually after the reality of her new vocation sets in she loses that faith that she was destined to do it, and having sacrificed most of her family and to achieve this, she ends up similar to the old man with no family around her at the end, asking for her plaque.

Amantha: After working at Thrifty town for a huge chunk of her life Amantha loses her job when the store is replaced with Walmart. She spends the rest of her life wondering what her life would have been like if she hadn't moved back for Daniel at the beginning of the series.

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I didn't think it was cringe inducingly happy. When you read threads here, without context, you could get that impression ( "Tawney doesn't deserve a seat at the table" The. Table. Like it was a portentous official something or other.)

Daniel lives in a halfway house. Teddy and Tawney are divorcing. Amantha and Daniel work for low wages at stultifying jobs that don't particularly challenge either of them. Janet and Ted are doing Janet and Ted. Outside of this huge thing that happened to them (Daniel's incarceration and his release), they are just average American people. No one is going to have some great career or wealth or exciting life, really.

I don't think some of your predictions are that far off, in fact the text supports most of them to some degree or another. 

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Well said.

"If it doesn't make sense, it's not true." -- Judge Judy

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Teddy's closest friend Melvin would indeed be dark for teddy not so much for Daniel.

Season four did not seem particularly happy to me.

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I agree. Season 4 was disgustingly happy. There was almost no conflict at all aside from Daniel disliking his roommate and Daniel having an argument with his girlfriend about going to therapy.

Really they should have just ended the show after season 3. There was clearly no story left to tell.

Season 4 is all about people growing and finally speaking their mind, and saying what needs to be said to each other. Damn near every relationship is patched up over the course of the season. The only major character that didn't get what he wanted was Teddy Jr. He got to do a little self improvement but his life is way shittier than it was before.

And after sitting through all these painful "breakthrough" conversations, I still don't get to know who killed Hannah.

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Maybe there's a happy middle ground...

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