If you haven’t been watching Presumed Innocent on Apple TV+, you’ve been missing out on a gripping legal thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, and Ruth Negga.
Spoilers ahead!
Presumed Innocent centers around a prosecutor in the Chicago District Attorney’s Office, named Rozat “Rusty” Sabich (Gyllenhaal), who is accused of the murder of his colleague, Carolyn Polhemus (Renate Reinsve). Rusty is married to Barbara (Negga) and has two kids—a daughter, Jaden (Chase Infiniti), and a son, Kyle (Kingston Rumi Southwick). And the family is shaken to the core when it is revealed that Rusty was having an affair with Carolyn and visited her home at the night of her murder.
Rusty’s case is being defended by his boss and best friend, Raymond Horgan (Bill Camp). The case against him is brought by the newly elected Chief Prosecutor, Nico Della Guardia (O-T Fagbenle), and his deputy, Tommy Molto (Sarsgaard), two guys who just defeated Horgan (and Rusty) in an election. With the circumstantial evidence stacked against Rusty, the series follows them into the courtroom as the trial takes over their lives.
The eight-episode series, which just aired its season finale, has been adapted from a 1987 novel by Scott Turow (also, co-executive producer), which already had a film adaptation in 1990, starring Harrison Ford. Now that the season 1 finale has aired, the killer’s identity has got everyone talking about how it sets the series apart from the novel and the film adaptation. Because, turns out, the series changes who the killer is.
It’s a major curveball, since there’s no way anyone could’ve expected this person to the be killer! NGL, it’s going to make a few invested viewers (me) a little mad over it too, because it was clearly done for shock value. And it begs the question, what else has Presumed Innocent the series changed up from the novel and the book?
Rusty’s family
In the movie and book, Rusty and Barbara have only a son. But in the series, they also have elder daughter, Jaden, played by Chase Infiniti. As we find out in the season finale, Jaden wasn’t just a random addition and had an important part to play in the story.
Character gender
Three minor characters from the book and the movie have been changed. Judge Lyttle is a man in the book and movie, while in the series, the character is a stern, no-nonsense woman, played by Noam Dumezweni. The detective investigating the case in the book and the move is a man named Lipranzer. But Presumed Innocent the series replaces him with Nana Mensah’s Detective Rodriguez aka Rigo.
And finally, the book and film have a character called Sandy Stern, an attorney that Rusty has often gone up against, and who he brings on board to fight his case. However, in the series, Raymond is the one who brings a second chair on board, and it is a character named Mya, played by Gabby Beans.
Carolyn Polhemus’ sexual history and connection with Judge Lyttle
In the series, Carolyn Polhemus has had an affair with only Rusty. However, in the book, Carolyn is an ambitious political climber who has had brief affairs with both Raymond Horgan and Judge Lyttle, the presiding judge on her murder case, before she gets together with Rusty.
Carolyn’s history with Judge Lyttle isn’t just a passing note, but becomes a crucial tool in the hands of Rusty’s lawyer Sandy Stern. Rusty’s friend, Det. Lipranzer’s investigation leads them to find out about the judge taking a bribe for another case, and Carolyn being the one to deliver the bribe to him. Stern uses this information to pressure Judge Lyttle into dismissing what could’ve been an important piece of evidence in the case, and thereby the case itself.
In addition, Judge Lyttle in the book doesn’t like Tommy Molto all that much, while Molto is aware of the bribery incident.
The incriminating evidence
In Presumed Innocent the series, the missing murder weapon, the fire poker, is the major piece of evidence that gets dismissed even before it can be submitted. It is when Rusty goes to confront Barbara about tracking her car to Tommy Molto’s house, where the fire poker was recovered from, that we find out who the real killer is.
In the book and the movie, this is done a little differently. Rusty finds out about Barbara being the killer when she wants to take their son and leave Rusty, and he confronts her that she killed Carolyn as revenge for destroying her family.
And there’s evidence to prove this too. There’s a bar glass with fingerprints from the crime scene that goes missing before the trial begins. After the trial, Rusty’s friend, the detective Lipranzer, visits him and tells him he had the glass, which he was able to procure because of negligence on the part of the prosecution. And he didn’t give it back because he didn’t want to help them.
That’s when Rusty reveals to Lipranzer the truth about Barbara and why she did what she did. He admits that it looked like Barbara intentionally left evidence at the crime scene because she wanted him to know what she had done, or probably get him convicted for it. Rusty then wipes the glass clean (in the movie, he throws it into the river) and destroys all evidence, because he doesn’t wish to separate their son from his mother.
The killer
Oh yeah, this curveball. In the book and the movie, it is Barbara Sabich, Rusty’s wife, who kills Carolyn Polhemus for ruining her family.
In the series, however, this has been changed. In a rather shocking and I daresay a tad ridiculous second twist, it is revealed that not Barbara but Jaden, Rusty’s daughter, is the killer. This is revealed when Rusty is confronting Barbara and Jaden walks into to confess how she was angry at Carolyn and only went over to her house to talk. She found out that Carolyn was pregnant with her father’s child and in a moment of rage, she struck Carolyn with a fire poker.
It is also revealed that Rusty had, for some inexplicable reason, returned to Carolyn’s house the night of the murder. When he saw Carolyn’s head bleeding out, he figured out it could’ve been Barbara, and decided to tie Carolyn up to make it look like a killer from a previous murder case did it.
The promotion
O-T Fagbenle’s chief prosecutor Nico Della Guardia’s annoying drawl has been talked about a lot amongst fans of the series. So if you care, here’s some great news for you about the character we love to mock. In the book, after the trial, there’s a recall election which Nico loses because of how badly the prosecution messed up in the murder trial.
And guess who is brought in to replace him? Rusty! In fact, Rusty and Nico used to be friends, but professional rivalry got in the way.
Rusty’s guilt
Presumed Innocent the series, after dropping that doozy of a twist, doesn’t dwell much on the lives of its main characters, except showing them all moving on to normal life, but looking like they could burst out screaming any minute from all that they’ve endured.
However, in the book and movie, Rusty, who has been seeing a therapist since a while now, actually harbours guilt over whatever happened to Carolyn, and blames himself for the reason she won’t ever get justice.
All eight episodes of Presumed Innocent season 1 are now out on Apple TV+ and a season 2 has been announced already. What did you think of the finale?
Published: Jul 25, 2024 01:20 pm