Many people who read the book, saw the film, reviewed it (it is among the most rented of the month), remembered the “big surprise” in Presumed Innocent, and this would be – probably – the worst of the challenges of the re-recording for Apple TV Plus, with a great Jake Gyllenhaal in the lead role. And yes the ending changed from the original.

The question of who killed Carolyn Polhemus (Renate Reinsve) was answered very close to the original version, keeping the culprit inside the house. Instead of Barbara (Ruth Negga), it was Jaden (Chase Infiniti), Rusty’s teenage daughter. Same reason, but this time our hero has a lady to blame at the registry office and honestly THIS change was a little weird.

In the end, Rusty is directly involved in his ex-lover’s death. He discovered her body and, assuming that it was Barbara who killed her, covers up the crime wanting to place the blame on an already convicted criminal. Obstruction of Justice, Manipulation and Complicity in Crime: Rusty is not above any reasonable doubt, just the terrible investigation, deliberately hindered by himself, did not present evidence beyond circumstantial.

Given this option by the showrunners, it becomes even more bizarre to know that there will be a second season, after all, now we are sure that the Sabichs, unlike the originals, are a bunch of selfish sociopaths.

The update to Carolyn’s personality and motivations, who was now just a talented, ambitious woman and not the calculating, man-eating woman of the original, was welcome. However, this narrowed down the list of suspects so much that it honestly seemed far-fetched that Rusty got off so easily. It could only, and it was, in some way, him. Poor Tommy Molto (Peter Sarsgaard) who tried his best and still lost to his enemy.

There was room for Barbara to be maintained as the true culprit, moreover, it seemed that she was determined to help condemn her unfaithful husband. But here we saw a wife trying to keep the family together, genuinely shocked by Carolyn’s death and what it brought to light, like Rusty’s feelings and his obsession with his ex-lover.

All the other likely suspects, including the annoying Tommy Molto, who was harassing Carolyn, or Eugenia Milk (Virginia Kull), another colleague who was in love with Rusty and jealous of Carolyn, could have been a new alternative. Of course, he was left unaware of the reason why Carolyn was Michael Caldwell’s (Tate Birchmore) absent mother and the one who was actually seen hanging around near the prosecutor’s house was Kyle Sabich (Kingston Rumi Southwick) and not his sister. In other words, they preferred a “prank” instead of something intelligent, compromising our “hero” who is actually a horrible and despicable being.

The moment in which Rusty confronts Barbara, accusing her of the crime, makes us want to scream for her to grab her suitcase and leave that toxic environment immediately. When Jaden then confesses what he did, after Rusty confirmed what he had done, I really don’t understand how Barbara felt. And yes, Rusty, far from being in the position of an unblemished Prosecutor, comes up with a plan: the three will never speak of the incident again, after all, Jaden and he acted “to defend the family”. That they killed an innocent, pregnant woman is a mere detail.

We could accept Rusty’s proposal and forget about the series completely, but the second season will see these hypocritical killers investigating a new case. As Presumed Innocent was the streamer’s most watched drama since its launch in 2019, the mistake is clearly mine.

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