Defending Jacob

Gripping tv series, you keep questioning every episode. My recommendation is - give it chance with only one episode, and you will love that!

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.

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?

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...

We were enjoying this series a great deal even if it was a bit predictable. The story telling (script) and acting was on point. Problem with this series was it missed the landing on the last episode. Felt rushed in the end and honestly made me drop my score overall by a point / Honestly the final episode felt shoe horned in with how it was told (did not go along with everything else on the previous 7 episodes) I had to look to see if there were 10 episodes in the season because I could not believe that it just went this route in the end. It honestly could have used a couple more episodes to finish the story off properly.