Rectify Season 1 Ending Explained: Does Daniel Die?

Over the course of six episodes, Sundance TV’s ‘Rectify’ follows about a week in the life of a man who has returned home after serving 19 years in prison. The story follows Daniel Holden, who was sentenced to death for the murder of his girlfriend, Hanna Dean. Over the years, as one appeal after another is made on his behalf, he has no hope of ever being a free man again. Things take a turn with new DNA evidence, giving him another chance at life. However, he doesn’t know how, if at all, to celebrate this homecoming when nothing feels like home anymore. SPOILERS AHEAD.

Rectify Season 1 Recap

Eighteen-year-old Daniel Holden was found holding hands with the dead body of his girlfriend, Hanna Dean, whose hair he had decorated with wildflowers he picked from the field. All evidence suggested that he was the one who sexually assaulted and then killed her. He maintained his innocence, but the jury found him guilty, and he was sentenced to death. Over nineteen years, Daniel has waited for the arrival of his execution day, with no hope of getting out. He spends his days reading books his mother, Janet, sends him and recedes into himself with each passing day. Meanwhile, his sister, Amantha, keeps fighting for him, against all odds. Eventually, she finds a new lawyer, Jon Stern, whose efforts finally bear fruit in an unexpected turn of events.

It turns out that a crucial piece of evidence was ignored during Daniel’s trial. The DNA test of the said sample from Hanna reveals that she may have had sexual relations (consensual or not) with other men. Notably, Daniel’s DNA is not on that sample, which allows his lawyers to seek to have his sentence vacated. This means that although Daniel has not been exonerated, he is allowed to go home while a new prosecutor is appointed to review the case and, if needed, retry it. In some ways, this is a huge win for Daniel and his team, but he doesn’t know how to process this newfound freedom. To begin with, the town and the home he once knew have changed in the past two decades. His father passed away from a heart attack while Daniel was still in prison.

His mother remarried and currently lives in their house with her new husband, Ted, with whom she has a son, Jared. She is also a stepmother to Ted’s son, Teddy, who is married to Tawney. While Amantha, Janet, Jared, and Ted believe Daniel was wrongfully convicted, Teddy is not so quick to accept him. He is more concerned about what Daniel’s return means because the store technically belonged to his father. He is also jealous of all the attention turning towards Daniel, including his father’s. To make matters worse, Tawney, too, starts to take an interest in Daniel.

Her religious nature makes her want to take Daniel under her wing, especially as they have several philosophical discussions. Teddy thinks his wife may have a case of “convict crush,” but she assures him that her intentions are purely religious. She wants to help Daniel in his journey of redemption. However, her husband’s fears are not entirely unfounded. The more time she spends with Daniel, the clearer it becomes that she is more interested in him (romantically or not) than in her husband. There is clearly a distance in their marriage that she cannot or does not want to cross, and it seems that Daniel’s arrival has only made it worse.

What Happens to Kerwin? Is He Dead?

While following Daniel’s return to town, ‘Rectify’ also gives us a glimpse into his time in prison. Sometimes he talks about it with the people around him, like when he tells Teddy about the sexual assault by other inmates. For the most part, however, he prefers to keep those things to himself, including his friendships and losses that occurred behind bars. In the flashbacks, we see that, cut off from the rest of the world and with only his family members showing up to meet him once in a while, Daniel has only the inmates in the neighboring cells to talk to. Even then, he isn’t particularly friendly and prefers to keep to himself and his books.

However, his solitude shifts after a man named Kerwin Whitman occupies the cell next to him. With the walls between them, the only way they can talk to each other is through the vents that carry their voices. While the man in the other cell is antagonistic and often taunts Daniel for his crime and loneliness, Kerwin is more amiable. It is revealed that the young man is sentenced to death for killing a three-year-old girl. The specifics of his crime are not revealed, but it is clear that Kerwin shows deep remorse and is prepared for the execution, whenever it comes.

While his guilty conscience may have made him accept his punishment, he doesn’t let that inevitability affect his demeanor. Soon, he and Daniel are found sharing their tastes in music and books, and they even manage to play games together. Eventually, however, the day for Kerwin’s execution arrives. The day before it, Daniel dreams that his friend has somehow crossed the wall between them and come to his cell to talk with him. The next day, as he is taken out of his cell, Kerwin stands outside Daniel’s cell, asks his friend to look at him, and reveals that he believes Daniel is innocent.

Having accepted his death a long time ago, he doesn’t seem to have any fear in his heart about what is to come. And in supporting Daniel’s innocence, it seems he is trying to leave behind some hope for his friend who made his days a bit better. For Daniel, this is a major loss. Since eighteen, prison is the only life he has known, and it hasn’t been particularly kind to him. So, losing a friend like Kerwin makes the whole thing even more hopeless. Even though he knew where his friend and he himself might be headed, it doesn’t make the loss any less painful.

Does Daniel Die?

Not everyone is happy when Daniel is let go from prison. For his family and his lawyers, the new DNA evidence is an 0ppportunity to fight the case again, this time hoping to completely overturn the conviction and prove his innocence once and for all. Even though they know it might take years for that to happen and there are no assurances that Daniel will not return to prison, there is still hope to change things. However, others think he has escaped the rightful sentence he deserved. This includes the people who prosecuted him as well as Hanna Dean’s family. Other people in town spew their hatred in the form of threatening text messages to Jared, primarily directed towards Amantha, who has stood by her brother all these years.

They even start to attack the house, and the cops don’t seem too interested in stopping any of this. It’s because they, too, believe that Daniel deserves all this, added to the fact that there is no concrete suspect to hold accountable for these hateful acts. Still, everyone, including Daniel, knows that things are going to escalate to the point that Daniel will be cornered and attacked one day, and that’s exactly what happens. In the finale, Daniel decides it is time for him to move on from the town. In an earlier episode, he goes forth with the baptism on Tawney’s advice. And though it makes him feel better and gives him more sense of his situation, it also leads to a weird encounter with Tawney, which makes her reconsider her interest in him.

Later, he leaves her a voicemail, revealing his next plan. However, by the time she hears it, things have changed. In a bid to say goodbye to everyone, Daniel visits Hanna’s grave. This is the first time he has been there since her murder, and he sees this visit as a way to get closure with her. However, he doesn’t realize he is being followed, and soon he finds himself surrounded by masked men. He tries to fight them off, but he is outnumbered, and the men don’t pull their punches when hitting him. They leave him beaten to a pulp, and in the end, one of the men removes his mask. It turns out to be Bobby Dean, Hanna’s brother.

Who Attacked Daniel?

Bobby had earlier encountered Amantha and Jon at a bar, where he asked her whether her brother was planning to stick around. Even then, Amantha had been worried that Bobby would do something to Daniel, and her fears were proven right. Before leaving, Bobby urinates on Daniel to further humiliate him. By the time help arrives, Bobby and his friends are long gone. Even if the cops know he did it, they don’t really have any way to prove it, and it seems unlikely that Daniel will tell them who it was. His situation is so bad that one wonders how long it will take him to recover and finally go through with his plan to leave town.

But for now, the only consolation is that Daniel has lived to see another day. Meanwhile, Trey finally finds George, but instead of reporting it, he lets the river take away his former friend’s body. It seems he is more invested in keeping their secret intact than in letting anyone know what happened to George. It is also curious because the latter had been a primary witness in the first trial, and the prosecution is still looking for him to confirm his testimony should the case move forward. The fact that George killed himself out of guilt for not revealing the information that he and Trey had means that there is, in fact, more to the story of Hanna’s murder.

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