Was it a split-second decision, or did she plan it? Ashley Lee is a staff reporter at the Los Angeles Times, where she writes about theater, movies, television and the bustling intersection of the stage and the screen. Whatever you want, just slow down, please., This is what Laurie, and the audience, have been waiting to hear, and yet its validity is still in question. She angrily confronts him and pleads with him to tell her that he murdered Ben. It sort of strained credibility, especially in the way that I had written the character.". But I think if you read the book and you like the book, hopefully youll be a little sideswiped by this in a good way., Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day, Inside the business of TV with breaking news, expert analysis and showrunner interviews. Laurie remembers an incident from Jacobs childhood when Jacob had nearly hit another kid on the head with a bowling ball. Do you need the cleansing of truth or can you compartmentalize and find a balance just being a little bit darker?. Patz because of some pedo infatuation. Hope is eventually found safe and sound, but the damage has been done. Laurie tells Ben not to mess with her, Ben laughs and twists her arm. He left the party early after arguing with her, and didnt text her once hed left like he promised. Based on William Landay'seponymous 2012 novel and adapted for television by Mark Bomback,Defending Jacob began its eight-episode run on April 24, 2020 and concluded on May 20, 2020. This we do know in the TV show at least. "The book has one or two clues that suggest that Jacob might've done something to [Hope], and then we're really talking about someone who was a burgeoning serial killer," Bomback says. But in Defending Jacob, Jacob is shown to be using . Before going to Mexico, Andy wasn't sure about his son being a murderer, but things changed after the trip - and he ultimately started to side with Laurie on the matter. Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter. Jacob's parents defend him but struggle to ascertain whether their son is actually guilty. Jacob was not a suspect to begin with and his father, Andy Barber, worked on the case and Leonard Patz was a suspect initially . Hope is found safe and Jacob had nothing to do with her disappearance. And sometimes you really have to leave it up to the people around you and take that pressure off yourself, and then it will all unfold onscreen., For his part, Evans says he doesnt think the crash was a hugely premeditated move: I do believe its born of a subconscious choice. Its deliberately ambiguous. In fact, the onscreen ending is closer to the initial conclusion of the story when he first submitted his manuscript as he told Bomback. Jacob tells police that he tried to revive Ben after spotting his body in the woods, which would explain the presence of his fingerprint, but they still keep him in jail overnight. Laurie begins to think that Jacob is really Ben's killer. On its surface, Defending Jacob looks a lot like your traditional whodunnit. She cleans the knife in the water and goes home. Next: Apple TV+ Is Most Divisive Streaming Service. Inside, Jacob's continued silencekeeps dark thoughts swirling in Laurie's head. At a party on New Years Eve, Hope goes missing and Jacob leaves his shirt at the beach. Laurie gets mad and kills him. Upon the recommendation of Jacobs lawyer, Andy and Laurie send Jacob to a genetic specialist, Dr. Vogel. He says no, and then he says yes, but neither answer is reliable since hes afraid for his life. Billy pointedly asks Andy if he is sure, which might be an indicator that he intends to do something about it. In an effort to put that whole nightmare behind them, the Barber family goes on vacation to Jamaica, where Jacob hits it off with a girl named Hope. How Palm Springs ran out Black and Latino families to build a fantasy for rich, white people, 17 SoCal hiking trails that are blooming with wildflowers (but probably not for long! Browse our new catalogue to inspire you with homeware, gardening tools, books and more! Throughout the season, Laurie has been trying to get to the truth, even if it means destroying herself, while Andy has been trying to protect their son, even if it means lying to himself, said Bomback. It premiered on April 24, 2020. In the novel, youre a little more sure Jacob did do it, because of the disappearance of Hope, said Bomback. Jacobs case is dismissed. 38. The last episode of Defending Jacob starts with the Assistant District Attorney and Jacobs father Andy Barber getting a phone call from their family lawyer, Joanna Klein, that Leonard Patz had left a notemoments before he had committed suicide. The story shows how both parents lives are unraveling due to the pressures of not knowing whether their child is guilty or innocent. Apple has a policy that villians in tv shows or movies can't use Apple Products. As more information came out about him, it was obvious that the child was likely a psychopath and his father (unlike the mother) was in denial, refusing to see the . The possibility of the murder gene is floated. But whereas the TV series reveals thatHope merely disappeared, the book ends with her corpse being discovered on a beach, and that she'd likely been strangled to death. And what do I believe? 4. The open-ended show leaves it to the viewers to decide on it. However, Laurie becomes increasingly preoccupied with the idea of Jacobs guilt and on a drive, crashes the car into a tunnel, killing Jacob and leaving herself in a critical condition. The next morning, Hope cant be found. Andy storms away and decides to not tell anything to Laurie. [This story contains spoilers from the finale of Apple TV+s Defending Jacob.]. She then swerves and crashes them headlong into the side of a bridge. The final irony is that everybody seems to know what Laurie did - in fact, there are even witnesses whosaw her failed suicide-murder attempt. However, towards the end, the pressure gets to them. As a character,Billy underlines Andy's life-long guilt. Her body turns up several weeks later, and an autopsy discovers that her windpipe had been crushed. Not Quite. I do think Jacob was guilty and just had zero remorse for anything. We learn that Jacob does not have this gene, but his grandfather and father do. Over the course of its eight episodes, the AppleTV+ limited series carefully doles out many of the hallmarks of a standard murder mystery, from red herrings and tense trials to more than a few shocking twists. Billy sent Father OLeary to force Patz to confess to Bens murder, before strangling him to death and making it look like suicide, to prevent Jacob ending up in prison like him. Are his wife and son both murderers? No, I do not believe Jacob had killed Ben Rifkin. Copyright 2023 Distractify. Hes pulled off the case after his son Jacob, a classmate of the victim, is arrested for the crime. Ben was found in Cold Spring Park the morning Jacob walked to school. Disappearance At Clifton Hill Ending Explained: How Does Abby Solve The Kidnapping Case. By entering your details, you are agreeing to our terms and conditions and privacy policy. WARNING: DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED DEFENDING JACOB!!! Entertainment Weekly may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Im not kidding. What Actually Happened: Laurie goes for her morning run and sees Ben. The novel Defending Jacob hit the shelves in 2012 and became an immediate best-seller. Hough is a senior writer at Screen Rant. Set in Massachusetts, Defending Jacob revolves around the Barber family. WARNING: Major spoilers concerning the source materials ending revealed below! 115. Offers may be subject to change without notice. Outside, the rain pours and makes navigation difficult. However, Andy finds out that his father had arranged for Patz to be threatened into writing a confession and be killed. At the end of this, now hes going to be the one living with it did they or didnt they? Defending Jacob ending has posed a lot of questions about the show and the plot in the minds of the audience. arsy80 3 yr. ago. Not Quite, Apple TV+ Is Most Divisive Streaming Service. While both District Attorney Andy (Chris Evans) and teacher Laurie (Michelle Dockery) vacillate on their sons innocence (or lack thereof) throughout the series, the later episodes reveal that both have been complicit in covering up suspicious behavior, and the man who came forward and confessed to the crime was blackmailed into doing so by Andys own criminal father. How is the shows finale different from the books ending? Defending Jacob doesn't confirm whether Jacob murdered Ben, but all signs point towards him doing so. Trailer Mimicking Filmmakers Style Divides Social Media, On the Set of The Masked Singer: How the Team Produced the Show Safely During the Pandemic, This Is Us Star Sterling K. Brown and Writer-Director Kay Oyegun on Crafting an Emotional Story About Randalls Birth Mom, The Crown: All the Details About Its Final Three Seasons, 'Awards Chatter' Podcast Chris Evans ('Defending Jacob'), How Boston-Based 'Defending Jacob' Landed Hometown Hero Chris Evans, John Oliver Mocks Matthew McConaugheys Five-Hour Virtual Motivational Seminar, The Morning Show Snags Early Season 4 Renewal at Apple TV+, Barry Star Sarah Goldberg on Sallys Point of No Return: Its the Final Nail in the Coffin, Succession Director on Filming That Surprise Cameo and Tying Up Her Kendall Trilogy, Melanie Lynskey Says Cate Blanchett, Sarah Paulson Lent Their Trailers on Mrs. Episode eight follows on immediately from episode sevens ending. Distractify is a registered trademark. One similarity between the book and the series that remains intact is how its never explicitly stated whether Jacob really did kill Ben. Then again, the final image shows Andy sitting in his son's room, still in the dark, which suggests that Jacob's potential off-screen death essentially closes the door on clarity - not only about Ben's murder, but also about whether hecould forgive his own mother, Laurie. For Bomback, he says he wanted to write Jacob as a far more sympathetic, normal teen and as less of a psychopath-in-waiting, so he chose to focus the show primarily on Ben Rifkin's murder instead of Hope's. The eighth episode, which premiered Friday, begins with a big development: The murder charges that troubled teen Jacob (Jaeden Martell) had been facing all season are suddenly dropped. She may not have specifically been trying to kill him or indeed both of them but the crash wasnt an accident. Jacob told his parents that Ben bullied him, and he did own a knife that he took to school. During the holiday, Jacob befriends Hope Connors - a 16-year-old from Toronto - and the pair go to a New Years Eve beach party together. During this whole show, we didnt even get close to finding out who killed Ben. He chooses to lie again. Apple TV+'sDefending Jacobendingis tragic, but the book handled a bit differently. She confronts him about bullying her son but Ben doesnt care. The book version: The Barbers head off to the Caribbean and Jacob . It's up to Andy and his wife, Laurie (Michelle Dockery), to protect their son from a firestorm of media attention, combative prosecutors, and neighborhood gossipall while privately questioning whether their own child could be capable of the unthinkable. Driving even faster now, Laurie says, I will never know over and over again an improvised moment from Dockery in that soundstage, with the machine-created weather conditions and projected landscape moving at full force. Instead, the show leaves it maddeningly ambiguous all the way until the final frameand that, series writer Mark Bomback tells EW, is the point. He had built his marriage on a lie by not telling Laurie about his father being in prison. Laurie becomes more withdrawn from Andy and Jacob. Crucially, Andy doesn't tell Laurie about Billy until a family trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. The book and the show end differently but both come with a crushing blow. Jacob is in a coma. Jacob comes and sees what is happening. Andy has kept his feelings bottled inside for years, whether protecting Jacob throughout his trial or lying about his father's incarceration, but the disappearance of Hope is the thing that finally breaks him, and he tells Laurie the truth about Patz. The Defending Jacobending reveals that Billy Barber orchestrated Patz's murder. Entertainment Weekly is a registered trademark of Meredith Corporation All Rights Reserved. Defending Jacob: Who Is The Real Killer Of Ben Rifkin (Spoiler Alert ). Defending Jacob Review: Chris Evans Stars in a Twisty Crime Drama, Den Of Geek Book Club: Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children, Always Sunny to Talking Sopranos: The Best TV Rewatch Podcasts Hosted By Cast & Creators, The Star Trek Story Bridging the Gaps Between Deep Space Nine and Picard, Taskmaster and The Underrated Comic Genius of Kiell Smith-Bynoe. Its officially been ruled an accident in court after Andy testifies saying, It was raining. Coupled with Lauries memories of a young Jacob almost dropping a bowling ball on another childs head, it was enough to persuade her that he did it. An alum of the Eugene ONeill Theater Centers National Critics Institute and Poynters Power of Diverse Voices, she leads workshops on arts journalism at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. Andy admits that his father is a murderer named Billy who is in prison. Jacob, Patz, Derek, Sarah, or even Billys henchman couldve done it. Their car incident is deemed as an accident and Laurie is also hurt gravely. During the trial, she is shocked to hear the story because she didnt know about Jacob seeing her there. If he killed somebody, she believes shes guilty as well for letting it happen. And if hes guilty? A few days later, he was murdered. Since the show has Hope alive, the situation is even muddier. All Rights Reserved. During one last prison chat, Billy admits that he orchestrated thePatz murder, and just so that hisgrandson couldlive a relatively normal life. In Defending Jacob, based on the book by William Landay, creator Mark Bomback takes on the murder gene. We looked into the science behind it. What I was really interested in trying to create for the viewer was this very subjective experience of what his parents are going through. Bens father Dan, however, meets the Barbers in a car park but is stopped by a henchman who was stalking the Barbers. Could Jacob have been responsible? Billy confesses to hiring a hitman to kill Leonard and make it look like a suicide so that Jacob doesn't suffer the same fate he did. Yet nobody knows for sure if Jacobhad anything to do with Ben's death. In Defending Jacob Episode 7, the trial begins, and the prosecution does not hold back. But logic suggests that he's a quiet teenager who was bullied by classmates, and made some questionable comments for attention. Q.V. After that, all evidence already points towards Jacob so she decides to convince Andy that he is the murderer, since she already has a plan to make sure hes found innocent. Andy tells his father Billy over the phone that he thinks Patz did it. Jacob is initially surprised, and then frightened as his mother drives erratically. Its perhaps not surprising but also not indicative of veracity that it would only be after the trial, when Jacob isnt at risk of going to prison and Andy is fully smashed, that hed drop his guard. But then Hope show up, unharmed, after being drugged by vacationers. Andy had always suspected Patz, and after the police get the note confirmed to be that of Patz, Jacob is acquitted. Though Andy is questioned about the crash, he refuses to cooperate or incriminate Laurie in Jacobs death. When Andy asks his father if he did it, he repeatedly denies all knowledge albeit in a slightly stilted way. With the amount of context involving what Jacob said regarding the murder, it does not persuade me to believe that he did actually kill him. Due to the finding of Jacobs fingerprints on Bens body and the discovery that Jacob used to carry a knife to school, he (Jacob) becomes the prime suspect. Defending Jacob ending explained: Did Jacob kill Ben. Jacob because of the bullying. When they find Jacob's fingerprint on Ben and other kids start talking on social media about how Barber owned a knife he liked to show off . I felt bad for the mom, and Andy, besides being a stick in the mud, had his head buried in the sand at anything to do with his family. Laurie is badly injured and Jacob is in a coma. Related:Defending Jacob Cast Guide: Where You've Seen The Actors Before. Fox Says Battle With Parkinsons Disease Keeps Getting Tougher: Im Not Going to Be 80, TV Premiere Dates 2022: The Complete Guide, Broadcast TV Unscripted Scorecard 2022: Whats New, Renewed and Canceled, TV Pilots 2022: The Complete Broadcast Guide, The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News. Ultimately, however, Andy . Jacob says he didnt do it but he also wrote a story which sounded like it could have been a description of what happened. Due to the finding of Jacob's fingerprints on Ben's body and the discovery that Jacob used to carry a knife to school, he (Jacob) becomes the prime suspect. Defending Jacob is streaming now on Apple TV+ check out what else is on with our TV Guide, Try 12 issues for 1 today - never miss an issue. Laurie drives in full speed, crashing the car into a tunnel wall, possibly killing them both. What I wanted to leave you with is the same sensation the parents have, which is, 'We'll never really know.'". Also, Derek Yoo claims that Jacob wrote a story on a website called "Cutting Room" that greatly resembled the murder of Ben Rifkin. When Jacob is officially exonerated, Father O'Learyprotects the Barbers from a still-angry Dan Rifkin (Patrick Fischler),the father of the teenage murder victim, Ben. In telling her this, he knows hes potentially destroying his entire [life], says Bomback. Chris Evans character Andy learns to own up to everything that hes been trying to conceal, said Defending Jacob creator Mark Bomback. Andy finds out that a pedophile named Leonard Patz may have killed Ben.
Excellus Otc Catalog 2021,
Colorado Homeowner Magazine 40 Under 40,
Tom Macdonald Wrestler Wwe,
Articles W