DEFENDING JACOB!

Hello beautiful people, how was your weekend? did you see something new? something interesting? if not, I bring you a show that you will not want to miss.

Defending Jacob is an Apple TV + show. It all begins when the body of a teenager appears in a park and automatically there is a main suspect, Jacob Barber (Jaeden Martell), who happens to be the son of the prosecutor who was going to take the case, Andie Barber (Chris Evans), and from a much-loved teacher in town, Laurie Barber (Michelle Dockery).

The interesting thing is that Mark Bomback's (War for the Planet of the Apes) work, which is based on William Landay's novel, does not focus so much on research as on the idea of living in the shadow of suspicion. The Barbers find themselves in an uncomfortable situation: their son claims he is innocent but there is evidence against him, and suddenly the community rejects them.

There are eight episodes that deconstruct the idea of the perfect family, fatherhood and motherhood with a well-treated mystery. Jacob's demeanor, who doesn't have a lot of social skills, fits wherever he wants: adolescent stupidity and psychopathy, so the game works wonders with a trio of always-effective actors.

Defending Jacob ends up with a much more ambiguous cut than William Landay's novel, and if you haven't read the novel and haven't seen the show I'm sorry to give you a SPOILER but I thought it was a good way to have an ending in which the viewer can create their own opinions.

SPOILER BELOW

After learning of a substantial cover-up to the case, and increasingly doubting her son's innocence, Laurie crashes her car into a wall. In the book, Jacob is killed instantly on impact, but in the series the young man ends up in a coma, leaving us wondering if the boy is guilty or not.

Mark Bomback spoke on this point and said the following:

“I think if the show had given a definitive answer on guilt, it would have been a bit frustrating. I was very interested in making the viewer feel the experience that parents have. In the end, what matters is what Andy and Laurie think their son may or may not have done".

Chris Evans, who had previously spoken about Defending Jacob, arguing that only by immersing ourselves in particular extreme situations could we understand the series, said this:

“I think in our version, everyone deals with shame and guilt differently. Laurie didn't know how to overcome such trauma, by now, it had become part of a complex lying mechanism. 

She even preferred to die rather than continue to deal with it. I think this ending is much more interesting. You don't know if it is better to accept the truth or find a difficult balance in a world of lies”.

END OF SPOILER

Defending Jacob was a surprise to me within the huge panorama of current series, especially police series. In a genre that is increasingly characterized by trying to catch the viewer from shock, strange narrative turns and the most horrifying secrets imaginable (sects, conspiracies, secret fortunes, etc.), a series whose axis passes through the consequences of a possible crime between two boys who got on badly in a high school ends up becoming something realistic and even credible.

If you dont have access to Apple TV, or dont want to pay for streaming, you can see it through the Cuevana page at the following link https://cuevana3.io/serie/defending-jacob

Hope you like it, let me know on the comments.

XOXO Li.

Trailer