Defending Jacob series premiere recap: Who killed Benjamin Rifkin?

The knife in the drawer

On the way home from the wake, Jacob and Andy have a somewhat disturbing conversation. At first, Jacob tells his father that he finished reading The Catcher in the Rye, which starts him on a tangent about how he doesn’t like being forced to decode figurative language. In general, Jacob prefers when people say what they mean.

He goes on to say it frustrates him how many of the people at the wake act a certain way based on how they think they’re supposed to act, rather than based on their genuine emotions. If anyone understands this, it’s his dad, an attorney. Without the sinister implications, it’s a normal and insightful conversation, but by episode’s end, it’s hard not to look back at it as a warning sign.

The father and son duo enjoy dinner together at a restaurant and we get a glimpse at their relationship. They’re close, they seem to genuinely enjoy spending time together.

At home, Andy stays up late working on the case. He decides to pursue a possible lead on an unregistered sexual predator that lives close to wear Ben’s body was found. Even though the corpse showed no signs of sexual assault, it is the best lead the ADA has at the moment.

It seems that way anyway until Andy receives an anonymous email linking him to a Facebook post. The post is a commemorative one for Ben. Most of the comments are normal, “RIP Ben,” “we’ll miss you,” etc. But Andy notices a few saying things like “Jacob STFU.”

He scrolls a little more and finds that Jacob left a comment essentially calling everyone in the thread fake. Even more disturbing is the direct reply to Jacob’s comment. One student says that “everyone knows” Jacob killed Ben and that they “saw the knife.” Yikes.

Andy is, understandably, terrified by the accusation. He sneaks into Jacob’s room while he’s asleep and searches everywhere for the knife. He eventually finds it folded up inside a sock and stashed away in Jacob’s nightstand.

The look of worry and terror on Andy’s face as he holds up the knife says everything and foreshadows everything that’s about to rain down on the Barber family.

Odds & Ends

• During bedtime cuddles (wow, I am so jealous of Michelle Dockery), Andy briefly talks about his father. Apparently, he never knew his dad — or so he says. But later in the night, he wakes up from a startling nightmare that seems to indicate he’s hiding some kind of dark secret.

The first three episodes of Defending Jacob are available to stream on Apple TV+ right now. New episodes release on Fridays.