Entering the Void

"In so far as one denies what is, one is possessed by what is not, the compulsions, the fantasies, the terrors that flock to fill the void..."

Sundance Channel’s first wholly-owned scripted production, Rectify, will premiere on April 22 in the U.S. The show, from AMC Networks and Breaking Bad producers Gran Via, has been also been secured by AMC/Sundance Channel Global for an exclusive first window rollout in Asia, Latin America and select European territories including France, Spain, Portugal and Benelux. ITV Studios Global Entertainment is handling international sales on the six-episode serial created and written by Oscar-winning moviemaker Ray McKinnon (The Accountant; That Evening Sun). It stars Killer Elite‘s Aden Young as Daniel Holden, a man released from prison after 19 years when DNA evidence casts doubt on his conviction for the rape and murder of a young girl. He returns to his home where he must readjust to a new life, including unfamiliar family members and surroundings as a mystery that defined a small town is gradually reopened. J. Smith Cameron (True Blood) will play Daniel’s mother, Abigail Spencer (Mad Men) will play his sister, Clayne Crawford will play his step-brother Ted and Adelaide Clements (Parade's End) will play Ted’s wife. In addition, Jonah Lotan will also feature as Daniel’s lawyer, who works for the non-profit Justice Row, and also making an appearence is the legendary Hal Holbrook.

Rectify was recently screened at the Sundance Film Festival in anticipation of its release on the Sundance Channel this April, and it looks promising from reports of those in attendance. The first two episodes were shown and the audience was left wondering if Holden actually did the crime or not. The show is presented in such a way that the truth is not apparent. The question of whether he is guilty or not is present during these first episodes and consequently, if he’s not guilty then, who was the killer. The series doesn’t focus on the legal aspects of the case, but instead focuses on Daniel’s difficulties adjusting to life outside prison and also on the horrible experience of being behind bars, made clear to the audience in his frequent flashback scenes.


McKinnon got the idea for the series a few years ago while watching news reports on inmates being released based on DNA evidence. He decided to study these cases and add the family life aspects of it in his series. "The story begins with a man being released from death row after 19 years and I wanted to explore what that moment would be like for him," he said. "That moment of being in a literal box and then suddenly thrust out into the world." Sarah Barnett of the Sundance Channel revealed they jumped in on production because they had never read a script like this. "What we are trying to do is tell daring stories and this is a really brave story," she explained.

In a recent interview with Co.Create, Barnett admitted she is hopelessly biased when it comes to Rectify. "It’s hard for me to talk objectively about this show, but I think that there’s a breathtaking lyricism to the way story is told," she stated. "There’s this amazing narrative event at the beginning, which is this guy that’s been on death row is released after 19 years, and there’s something extraordinarily dramatic about that. Then what I love is there’s a truthfulness to the experience of how somebody would adjust, how somebody would actually re-engage with life after all that time. And who is this guy? There’s the question of whether he did it or didn’t. It’s not answered in the first season. But more than that, there’s also the question of just who is Daniel Holden? Who is this person? Even if he didn’t do it, he’s been death row for 19 years, what does that do to a person? How do they come out and learn to re-engage in a world where your family is triumphantly relieved but underneath that also confused and anxious and unknowing about how to accommodate this lost son/stranger into their midst? And then there are the other ripples of Daniel’s return in terms of the politics of a small town and a community. I think it’s an incredibly rich scenario. There’s so much story to explore. Ray has painted such psychologically believable and layered characters this show could go anywhere really."

Speaking about his central character, Aden Young revealed: "He's been greatly affected by his time in prison with 23 hours of solitary confinement and five stays of execution. The story follows his first seven days of release and through him we begin to explore how his family has related to each other since his incarceration and there's a lot of wounds." Spencer plays the sister who from the age of twelve has dedicated her life to her brother's freedom. "The effect on her life is about what is she going to do now that he is out and how to do you make that twist to become your own person," she said. "It's like a rebirth with every character," agrees Young. "With this reintroduction of Daniel into their world their roles have to be completely redefined and people are left with this extraordinary void and have to figure out how to fill it up."

When asked about the process of how Rectify got on the air, Barnett explained: "Actually, the show was pitched to AMC and developed at AMC several years ago. So Ray wrote the initial pilot script a long time ago, and AMC didn’t go forward with it. But it was known within this company. Quite early on, when I actually first got this job, Ed Carroll, my boss [the chief operating officer of AMC Networks], said, "Read this script. What do you think?" I read it, and I was like, "Wow. This is absolutely amazing." But at that time we weren’t at a position to know how to make it. We didn’t have a scripted strategy. We were doing these co-productions, but as time went by and we put into a place a plan and a budget for scripted, it actually felt in a way quite easy to decide to do Rectify."

Having known this amazing script was just sitting there waiting to be made, she must have been thrilled to finally be able to get to work on the project. "Totally," agrees Barnett. "We worked with Ray to reconfigure it somewhat because he had written it awhile previously, and our model is to actually not pilot but to go straight to a six-episode season order. So Ray had structured the format for the first season to be 10 or 13 episodes. Ray very quickly realized that the six episodes was a really interesting creative opportunity for him, and he shifted it quite significantly and decided to make the whole first season just the first seven days of Daniel Holden’s release. So it allowed him to really tell a textured, emotional, immediate, visceral story about that first week of Daniel’s release. I think as an artist Ray was actually freed up and excited about the way in which the format for the first season shifted for him."