Défendre Jacob

I'd only read the book a few weeks before this started so the plot was still fresh in my head, I knew there would be changes but I was really hoping they wouldn't make it completely unrecognisable (Virgin River did this). I was pleasantly surprised that for the first 7 episodes the changes weren't too bad at all, Andy and Laurie were much younger than in the book, Laurie was a homemaker, formerly a schoolteacher and Pam Duffy and Joanna Klein were both originally male characters. There was more but nothing that would have made me switch off in a huff.

Then we got to episode 8 where they completely changed a major plot line that was essential to our understanding of both Jacob and Laurie. Then they changed the ending. So the 8 I was originally going to rate it went down to a 5.

Why are final episodes so often a let-down?

Enjoyed the series. Kept me gripped. Thought the cast were brilliant.

A lot of people are saying that the ending was unsatisfactory. I quite disagree. It would have been had this show been meant to be a whodunnit. But it never was that. If it were, it would have been called 'the murder of Ben Rifkin' and nit 'defending jacob'. This show is all about Jacob and his family. This is a show about how the balance of a perfectly normal family can go haywire when faced with an adversity such as a murder charge on a 14 year old. How doubt and suspicion can eat away at seemingly perfect bonds and suddenly make everything fall apart. It's about how we end up externalizing our troubles when the root actually lies deep within ourselves.

I liked every bit of it. As a mother of a 14 year old boy nyself, I would say the "defending jacob" affected me deeply. Couldnt find myself taking sides. Yes, this kind of an untoward incident, if it happens to anyone, will impact their family exactly the way it inpacted the Barber family. Very realistic characterization, awesome acting by everyone. Michelle Dockery disappoints a bit - its as if she forgot at times that she's playing the hapless mum of stoic teenager and not the wooden faced over-bred aristocrat from Downton Abbey.

The last episode, matters a lot, if not most, in any series. If you ruin it, you ruin the whole series. "Defending Jacob" did the same. A lot of things went quick in the last episode, and rest of the episodes in series move slower than my gradma. If the finale was good, I would have rated it 8. I'm sorry.

The topic is not novel, similar productions have been before (usually pondering on and over the guilt of a spouse), but a mix of procedural and family drama as here is somewhat more interesting to follow. The performances are solid (all leading ones), but the clues and insinuations revealed step-by-step can be meaningful for viewers, but not from the point of view of active criminal investigation. So the plot got stuck for me in several places and I started involuntary comparisons with topical Danish series where distress and doubts are presented in a more thrilling manner.

PS I have not read the book, but as mothers tend to defend their sons to very end, the events in the last episode are not too realistic...