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Rectify

2013–2016 American television series

Rectify (2013-2016) is an American television drama series created by Ray McKinnon and the first original series from SundanceTV. In the show, a man must put his life back together after serving 19 years on Georgia's Death Row before DNA evidence calls his conviction into question.

Season 1 edit

Always There [1.01] edit

Daniel Holden: I'm not sure what to make of this drastic change of course in my life. I'm certainly not against it. Over the past two decades, I have developed a strict routine, which I followed religiously, you might say, a way of living and-and thinking, or not thinking, as was often the point of, well, the point. Now, this way of being didn't encourage the contemplation that a day like today could ever occur, or a tomorrow like tomorrow w-will be for me now. I had convinced myself, that kind of optimism served no useful purpose in the world where I existed. Obviously, this radical belief system was flawed, and was, ironically, a kind of fantasy itself. At the least, I feel that those specific coping skills were best suited to the life there behind me. I doubt they will serve me so well for the life in front of me. So, I will seriously need to reconsider my world view.
Daniel Holden: Thank you, Amantha, for everything.
Amantha Holden: You're quite welcome, brother. Anytime.
Daniel Holden: We're lost, aren't we?
Amantha Holden: Totally.
Kerwin Whitman: I can't do time the way you do it.
Daniel Holden: I don't do time.
Kerwin Whitman: That's what I'm talking about. I can't do time by not doing time the way you do time.
Kerwin Whitman: You know what's whack?
Daniel Holden: Lots of things.
Kerwin Whitman: Sittin' in this tomb, day after day, puttin' up with this food, puttin' up wit' your pale, white ass. What's whack is I still wanna live, every day. What's that about?
Daniel Holden: [laughs] Vitamin A deficiency. You trip me out, D.
Kerwin Whitman: You trip me out, Kerwin.
Daniel Holden: I can't quite get a handle on the concept of time yet. There have been moments here today where I feel like I've only been gone a few weeks, and I'm still in high school. But mostly it seems like I was always there. So you may have to tell me, Mother.
Janet Talbot: Tell you?
Daniel Holden: When it's time for me to leave.

Sexual Peeling [1.02] edit

Daniel Holden: The place where I was had no windows, just these thick walls surrounded by more thick walls. So I never knew if it was raining or even heard the loudest thunder.
Tawney Talbot: That's so sad.
Daniel Holden: It's not as bad as it sounds because I didn't sense things in a normal way, I didn't miss them. If I couldn't sense them, they weren't real to me.
Tawney Talbot: What was real to you, Daniel?
Daniel Holden: The time in between the seconds. And my books. And my friend.
Daniel Holden: Now that I'm here in this world where everything's marked by hours or dates or events, I find myself in a state of constant anticipation. What it is I'm anticipating, I'm not always sure, nor is it necessarily a pleasant feeling. But in the case of the inevitable rain and thunder which I am sure to experience, thanks to you Tawney, I am very much looking forward to that.
Tawney Talbot: It will be glorious, Daniel. You won't be disappointed.
Daniel Holden: Word gets back before you do. Decent guys on the row won't look at you now, they're too embarrassed for you. Then there are the ones who when you pass by their cells they look at you with the basest form of curiosity, Ted, like you are some freak show and they want to get all their money's worth because more than anything, they're aroused by another's shame. You know? And there is a very special group on the row, who look at you with this look like... how can I describe it for you Ted so you can really understand it. It's like they pull you into their cell and not just do things to you, but literally consume you. Take your breath. Eat your heart. And shit you out like you were nothing. [pause] I'm sorry. I'm sure that was more than you were... But it is difficult to gauge things in this world. Like you, I suppose, hard to know where the lines are.
Daniel Holden: I'm just so aware that most of what I draw on from inside my head are things I've read about. My real life experiences are actually rather narrow. I don't think about the seasons, not for the longest time, anyway.
Tawney Talbot: I'm sorry.
Daniel Holden: I don't mean to sound pitiful.
Tawney Talbot: Oh no, you don't, not really.
Daniel Holden: I don't feel that way, sorry for myself. I do feel I am being received sometimes that way, by others. And I know I have a part in that somehow, I just don't have it figured out yet.
Tawney Talbot: That will probably take some time, figuring things out.
Daniel Holden: Maybe it was when they first saw something akin to optimism on your face, or a bit of peace, or just that moment when you begin to believe that you could survive it in some paradoxical way. I don't know why they did it. Justification is a slippery slope, Ted.

Modern Times [1.03] edit

Rutherford Gaines: Just don't let all this technology lull you, son.
Jon Stern: How's that?
Rutherford Gaines: Into thinkin' we're in modern times... watch yourself.
Senator Roland Foulkes: How are the biscuits today?
Jon Stern: Good. Biscuits are good.
Senator Roland Foulkes: That woman sure knows how to make the dough rise, don't she?
Rutherford Gaines: Humans don't change that much in fifty years. Or a hundred. Or a thousand. It's the laws that change, the rules of civilization. We just repeat ourselves, everyone with a part to play.
Judy Dean: [into TV camera] Why ain't you dead, Daniel Holden? Why ain't you dead?

Plato's Cave [1.04] edit

Daniel Holden: That it wasn't worth pondering.
Tawney Talbot: But of course it is! That's what makes us human.
Daniel Holden: I think what makes us human is the ability to choose to ponder or not to ponder.
Daniel Holden: Finding peace in the not knowing seems strangely more righteous than the peace that comes from knowing.
Tawney Talbot: I can see and feel God in all things.
Daniel Holden: Like Thomas Aquinas.
Tawney Talbot: I don't know much about him.
Daniel Holden: He felt that God revealed himself in nature.
Tawney Talbot: Yes, yes, that's what I feel, in a sense.
Daniel Holden: He believed that supernatural revelation is faith, and natural revelation is reason, and the two are not contradictory, but complementary.
Tawney Talbot: Could you ever accept Christ into your heart?
Daniel Holden: I don't think Buddha would mind making room, or Confucius. Nietzsche might grumble.
Daniel Holden: It does something to you, not to be touched in any positive way for so long. You begin to vacillate between being repelled by touch, and seeking it out in any form, even the most negative.
Tawney Talbot: I'm so sorry.
Daniel Holden: Out here, you... you're the only touch that soothed me.

Drip, Drip [1.05] edit

The Stranger: Hey, I know you. So, where you headed?
Daniel Holden: I don't know. I'm not sure.
The Stranger: Not all who wander are lost. Yeah. If you get things figured out, you reckon you could help me with a little chore?
Daniel Holden: I don't mind.
The Stranger: Can-do attitude...
Kerwin Whitman: It's weird, isn't it?
Daniel Holden: What is?
Kerwin Whitman: That I know exactly when I gonna die.
Daniel Holden: It's very sad, Kerwin.
Kerwin Whitman: It has it's pluses. You can grieve your own death.
The Stranger: It's the beauty that hurts you most, son, not the ugly.
Ted Jr.: I don't buy your lost soul act for a minute. You don't want to get right with God, you want to get right with my wife. Right in bed with her.
Amantha Holden: So what do we do, call the men in white coats? Are there still men in white coats?
Janet Talbot: I hope not.
Amantha Holden: What about the men in white hats?
Janet Talbot: They never existed.
Amantha Holden: Deep down you're darker than I am, mother. Admit it.
Janet Talbot: I don't think I want to do that, Amantha.
Amantha Holden: Well, I guess we just wait then.
Janet Talbot: I think so. He'll be...
Amantha Holden: Up.
Janet Talbot: I'm gonna start finishing my own sentences.
Amantha Holden: Please mother, don't take away one of my few pleasures.

Jacob's Ladder [1.06] edit

Chet: I just like to have something to balance out the farce, you know?
Daniel Holden: I think farcing may be sadder.
Chet: God, you're right, it's all sad.
Daniel Holden: And farcical.
Daniel Holden: It shocked me to find you here. You know, just not used to contemplating all the variables one might encounter. I mean, there were variables inside, but it wasn't like out here, where it's... you know, if you don't have the years of experiences, if there isn't the repetition of everyday living to make things mundane, because mundane is calming and soothing, mundane isn't out of the ordinary. And when everything is out of the ordinary, it can be too much sometimes, you know? Like finding you behind this door, when I didn't even consider there could be somebody else behind this door but my sister. Your mind puts it together, of course, but even just the door opening is still very unreal.
Daniel Holden: You're elusive, Chet.
Chet: That's an under-appreciated skill.
Daniel Holden: So it can be developed?
Chet: I think so. Probably helps to have a little bit of a knack for it first.
Janet Talbot: Did you jump the gun?
Amantha Holden: Don't I always?
Janet Talbot: No. You usually face the gun, Amantha. You always have, ever since you were a child.
Jon Stern: You doing okay? With things?
Daniel Holden: I don't think so, Jon. I don't think so.
Jon Stern: That's not... that's normal.
Daniel Holden: What is?
Jon Stern: Not doing okay - considering everything.

Season 2 edit

Running with the Bull [2.01] edit

Kerwin Whitman: What do you say to a little girl who you... What do you say?
Daniel Holden: Maybe you just let her know who you are now, Kerwin. Who you've become.
Kerwin Whitman: That's the thing, dude, it's getting hard to remember who I am.
Tawney Talbot: How is he?
Amantha Holden: Not good. Thanks for asking...
Tawney Talbot: Is there anything I can do?
Amantha Holden: You wouldn't be a brain surgeon by any chance?
Senator Roland Foulkes: Ah, that's what makes life so interesting and confounding.
Sheriff Carl Daggett: What's that?
Senator Roland Foulkes: Variables, Sheriff. Variables.
Kerwin Whitman: You can come here anytime you want?
Daniel Holden: In theory, yeah.
Kerwin Whitman: All I'm sayin'. [indicating the beauty surrounding]
Daniel Holden: Yeah.
Kerwin Whitman: All I'm sayin', D. [walking into the woods] All I'm sayin'. All I'm sayin'...

Sleeping Giants [2.02] edit

Daniel Holden: [reading from pamphlet] Proper prisoner behavior consists fundamentally of the following: freedom from self-injury, absence of unhygienic acts, significant decrease in problematic behaviors, motivation to change, absence of destructive behaviors.
Janet Talbot: [in hospital] Everybody's been so nice here.
Amantha Holden: It's because we're not in Paulie, mother. You'll notice a difference in tone sometimes when people don't wish you were dead.

Charlie Darwin [2.03] edit

Amantha Holden: You do windows now?
Daniel Holden: Side effect of the coma.
Amantha Holden: Doctor didn't mention that as a possibility.
Daniel Holden: [grunts] It's rare.
Jon Stern: Sorry everything's cold, it takes a while to get it through all of the protocol.
Hollis: Strip-searched my hash browns, huh? Bunch of animals.
Daniel Holden: [sitting in the car] It's mostly buttons and knobs now, there's no... everything's rounder.
Janet Talbot: Hmm. I never really thought about it before, but I think you're right.
Daniel Holden: More curves, less angles.
Sheriff Carl Daggett: [about Daniel] That boy sees a pile of shit on the ground, he's gonna make every damn effort to step in it!
Amantha Holden: [voice breaking] I thought we were gonna lose you.
Daniel Holden: No crying, sister.
Amantha Holden: Sorry.
Daniel Holden: Emotion is for losers.

Donald the Normal [2.04] edit

Peggy: [joining him in front of a painting] What do you think?
Daniel Holden: What do I think? Well, I think I have looked at this painting for so long in a in a book that somehow my brain has trivialized it. And, uh, now as I stand here in front of the real thing, I feel, if anything, disappointment.
Peggy: Oh, that's too bad.
Daniel Holden: Well, not at the painting itself. More at my brain, I guess.
Peggy: I think the brain's afraid of being in a state of constant wonder. It's for safety reasons or something.
Daniel Holden: I suppose it's inevitable.
Peggy: Usually by the time we're four.
Daniel Holden: Then there's the the issue of great expectations.
Peggy: Something the brain doesn't seem the least bit interested in protecting us from.
Daniel Holden: [chuckles] No.
Peggy: Well, I think we should reinstate wonder, banish expectation.
Daniel Holden: I concur.
Ted Talbot Jr.: Why does everything got to be so goddamn polite in this relationship?
Tawney Talbot: Do you want me to start talking like you, Teddy? That make you happy?
Daniel Holden: Mrs. Whitman?
Mrs. Whitman: Yes, Daniel.
Daniel Holden: Thank you for, um well, for Kerwin. He was a good person, and he was my friend. I miss him every day.
Florine: Donald, are you in A.A.?
Daniel Holden: Uh, no.
Florine: Well, thank God. We've lost so many to them.
Florine: Why on earth would you memorize Tobias Wolff's "Bullet in the Brain"?
Peggy: It's a short story, Florine.
Florine: I don't care if it was a haiku. It was sad enough to read. It'd be torture to memorize.
Daniel Holden: No, it was it was calming, actually.
Florine: Okay. More please.
Daniel Holden: I don't know why, exactly. Well, it was it was during a period of my life where I was having some difficulties dealing with the passage of time, in a traditional sense. And since Mr. Wolff's short story deals partly with the bending of time, well, in memorizing it, or in taking the action of memorizing it, I too was able to bend time, in a way. Or at least... experience... it differently.
Peggy: Nicely defended, Donald.

Act as If [2.05] edit

Daniel Holden: Young man knows more than he lets on. What else do you know, Jared?
Jared Talbot: I don't know.
Daniel Holden: You don't know what else you know?
Jared Talbot: No.
Daniel Holden: It's a family disease. How did Gaines die?
Amantha Holden: Regret or cancer. I forget.
Janet Talbot: [finding him in the garage] Hard to believe we used to park cars in here.
Daniel Holden: Yes, we are what we don't throw away.
Janet Talbot: You won't ever speak to him again the way you spoke to him this morning. I won't allow it.
Ted Talbot Sr.: You won't allow it?
Janet Talbot: He won't be treated like that in his own home.
Ted Talbot Sr.: Which is my home, too.
Janet Talbot: It was his first.
Lionel: "Occupy Movement," pinpoint its failure.
Daniel Holden: Occupy what?
Lionel: Exactly. All I know is revolution ain't never been fomented by poor people sitting on their ass in tents.
Daniel Holden: Uh, the Russian Revolution was started by peasants.
Lionel: Peasants, huh?
Daniel Holden: I don't know if they lived in tents, though.
Lionel: Tolstoy here talking about the Russian revolution like he was there.
Lezlie: Look, any man reads a newspaper knows Dan with a "D" Holden's overdue a little excess - a little indulgence of the senses. Some late-night, low-light intermingling and inter-tangling.
Daniel Holden: I hope you're suggesting girls.
Lezlie: Half of which at this party want to sleep with you. The other half are afraid of you, and half of them still want to sleep with you. It ain't even about luck at this point.
Daniel Holden: And that's how you reach enlightenment?
Lezlie: Who gives a shit? Come on, buddy. It's time to join the human race in all its permutations.

Mazel Tov [2.06] edit

Charlie the Chaplain: Beauty will redeem the world.
Darla: [to Amantha] First your brother shows up at Mr. Gaines' funeral rambling about God knows what, and now here you are acting like... I know you have to live your life. I understand that. I know it's not your fault, the position you're in. But could you go do it somewhere else, please? So that we don't have to think about Hanna and what happened to her that night?
Jon Stern: How old were you then? Five? Eight?
Amantha Holden: Jon, please.
Jon Stern: No. Really.
Darla: I was old enough.
Jon Stern: Old enough? For what? To listen to what your parents told you and believe it because they said it was true? Afraid to think for yourself. Scared to look at all the facts. And for what? So you'd never have to admit to yourself that you might be wrong? Could you go do that somewhere else? Please.
Daniel Holden: I don't know what to do.
Lezlie: That's 'cause you're stuck, Daniel. Surprised you ain't dead.
Daniel Holden: You're full of shit, Lezley.
Lezlie: At least I'm okay with it. You okay with what you are?
Daniel Holden: [eulogizing Rutherford] Occasionally I would see Mr. Gaines away from the crowd. Catch his eye and understand just how difficult it is for two people to come together in the face of such intoxicating lunacy.
Lezlie: I believe forces brought you out to my establishment in search of a stove for your mama's birthday. Same forces will tell you where to go next if you listen.
Daniel Holden: Sometimes it's hard to hear.
Lezlie: Yeah. Well, we usually hear better when we're in pain. But, damn, if you ain't got a high threshold. See you around the fringes, buddy...

Weird as You [2.07] edit

Woman's Voice: [Daniel dreaming] I remember when I was a little girl, my dad took me to the circus, the greatest show on earth. There were clowns and elephants and dancing bears, and a beautiful lady in pink tights flew high above our heads. And as I sat there watching, I had the feeling that something was missing. I don't know what, but when it was all over, I said to myself, "Is that all there is to the circus?"
Trey Willis: [suddenly alongside Daniel] Uh-oh, here comes trouble.
Woman's Voice: I know what you must be saying to yourselves, "If that's the way she feels about it, why doesn't she just end it all?" Oh, no.
Trey Willis: Cat's got his tongue.
Woman's Voice: I'm not ready yet for that final disappointment. For I know just as well as I'm standing here talking to you, when that final moment comes and I'm breathing my last breath, I'll be saying to myself, "Is that all? Is that all there is to dying?"
Trey Willis: Everything that is good between men and women was written in mud. And butter. And barbecue sauce. You know?
Daniel Holden: No.

Trey Willis: [to Daniel] You are who you are. Okay? It's forever. It's like being an Indian or something. I know you. Now you know you. If you ever really forgot.

The Great Destroyer [2.08] edit

Tawney Talbot: I can't remember the last time I used a pay phone. The last time I saw one, even.
Daniel Holden: They're hard to find. But it felt good to use a telephone that wasn't smarter than me.
Daniel Holden: You're afraid, Wendall.
Wendall Jelks: Shit, boy. I ain't scared of nothing.
Daniel Holden: I've never realized it 'til just now.
Wendall Jelks: What am I afraid of?
Daniel Holden: Silence.
Wendall Jelks: Just 'cause a man likes to talk don't mean he's afraid.
Daniel Holden: Ah, there's more than one kind of silence. In the real world you can live in denial, but not in here, not with your death on the docket. How long you got left, Wendall? I bet you already know. I bet you're counting the days. And I bet you're terrified.
Wendall Jelks: Do you think you're above it, Holden? Hmm? We ain't that different, you and me, two sides of the same coin.
Daniel Holden: We're not even the same currency.
Daniel Holden: Why did you want me to get saved, Tawney?
Tawney Talbot: 'Cause I wanted you to have salvation. I wanted you to know peace, I still want that for you.
Daniel Holden: And do you know peace, Tawney?
Tawney Talbot: Sometimes.
Daniel Holden: And you think that peace comes from God?
Tawney Talbot: I know it doesn't come from ourselves.
Daniel Holden: Do you believe that, or do you have to believe that because otherwise life would be intolerable for you?
Tawney Talbot: I believe that because it's true.
Daniel Holden: Or is it true because you believe it?
Tawney Talbot: Yes, both I guess.
Daniel Holden: So if I believe there is no God, then there is no God.
Tawney Talbot: It's not the same thing.
Daniel Holden: Why not?
Tawney Talbot: 'Cause you're just lost, Daniel.
Daniel Holden: Something we can agree upon.
Jon Stern: Maybe Daniel will just fire me.
Amantha Holden: He won't fire you. You're free.
Jon Stern: Well, at least he's getting his money's worth.
Alice Willis: Where did you go last night, daddy?
Trey Willis: Oh, come here. [picks her up] You want to get married someday, Alice?
Alice Willis: I do.
Trey Willis: Then never ask a man where he's been.

Until You're Blue [2.09] edit

Dr. Cassidy: The body has its own wisdom. There's a logic to how it works. It's important for you to know it's nothing you did. Up to 25% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage. It's very common early on. Usually it's due to chromosomal abnormalities, something not right in the egg, the sperm, the division process. It's nature's way of preventing serious defects.
Amantha Holden: As long as I can remember, I've had to follow you around, mom. Literally. Couldn't have started out that way. You must have come to me at some point, when I was in my crib. And even when I got you to stop and look at me, to acknowledge my existence, I still couldn't tell what you were thinking. Or feeling. So I always felt like I had to guess, or fill in the blanks, or push for some clue, until you would just get mad at me.
Janet Talbot: I'm sorry, honey. I really am.
Amantha Holden: And I know that's your nature, mom. Just like it's Daniel's to be so... [sighs] maddeningly private. But because it's not my nature, or because I don't always read between the lines, or understand that language, or because I want people to speak to me in my language sometimes, that does not make me the bad guy.
Janet Talbot: No, it doesn't. Quite the opposite.
Janet Talbot: I have lived in this world for some time, Amantha, and one thing I have learned it is not fair, and it is not just. The world is absurd. And if I could just have him, and you, and Jared, and my family... [sighs] What else is there?
Amantha Holden: I don't know.

Unhinged [2.10] edit

Daniel Holden: [in prison visiting room] How's the gas company?
Amantha Holden: They promoted me.
Daniel Holden: They did?
Amantha Holden: Senior customer-service specialist. Got my own cubicle and everything.
Daniel Holden: Just like me.
[Amantha laughs]
Daniel Holden: I hurt him, humiliated him, something I learned in prison, something to make a man feel powerless. It wasn't rape, but it was violent. And...
Tawney Talbot: ...and what?
Daniel Holden: Unhinged.
Amantha Holden: I didn't just want to get you out, Daniel. I wanted to clear your name. Our name. And you can say that people are gonna think what they're gonna think, but there is a difference. There is a difference.
Daniel Holden: Then change your name, Amantha.

Cast edit

External links edit

 
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