Rectify: J. Smith-Cameron Says Series Will End in a ‘Satisfying Way’ [Exclusive Interview]

The long wait is over. Rectify returns for its final season tonight on SundanceTV, and it promises to be even more powerful than what we’ve seen so far.

At the end of Season 3, we saw Daniel starting a new life after being banished from his home town, still unsure of whether or not he had actually committed murder. In Rectify Season 4, we’ll begin to see not only what Daniel’s life is going to look like moving forward, but also how everything that’s happened will affect his family.

I recently spoke with J. Smith-Cameron, who plays Daniel’s mother, Janet, about what to expect from Season 4, how Daniel’s new circumstances will affect each character, and what she’s going to miss most about Rectify.

One of the things Smith-Cameron said she’d miss about Rectify is the chance to play such a detailed character.

“I feel like my character was so specifically written, and the scenes were so delicate and specific. And you know, actors love that kind of stuff. That’s what we’re in it for really,” Smith-Cameron said.

“It’s so rewarding, and you don’t expect to come across that on a TV show, though that’s really changing now.”

“When I was growing up it was much more standard fare, and when I was first acting, I kept gravitating to theater because that’s where the real writing was,” she continued. “I don’t know when I’ll get another opportunity to do that kind of specific character — those kind of well-written scenes again.”

Even though the quality of television these days is so amazing, Smith-Cameron believes there could probably never be anything else quite like Rectify. “I just think it’s so singular,” she said. “It’s so specific to Ray McKinnon’s brain, and so specific to the south, and so poetic.”

“The pace of it and the character driven qualities of it are just not what you associate with television, so I don’t know if there could be another Rectify ever, to be frank,” she continued. “I think there might be equally compelling things, but I don’t know that they’ll ever be another Rectify or anything that has that kind of attention to detail and rich, sensitive observations about human nature. It’s just very, very particular.”

As for what we can expect for Janet’s character this season, Smith-Cameron said that she’s “beginning to let her hair down.” That’s something we’ll see as early as Season 4 Episode 2, when Janet has a moment that Smith-Cameron said was like she was breaking out of her shell.

“[Daniel’s] mom had a specifically– they were both kind of these quiet, introverted, bookwormy weirdos in a way. You know, they had this sort of special, sensitive, unspoken way they would be there for each other. And that was the good side of it. But the bad side of it, for Janet, is that I felt like she was really burdened by trying to hold everything together all the time. And that was partly her cultural and partly her generational demographic.”

“It’s just taken a toll on her,” she continued. “At the very beginning of the whole story of Rectify, she’s almost brittle. Like frozen.”

Season 4, however, is going to offer a chance for us to see each character, including Janet, being “explored in a new way.”

“They’re all out of their own individual prisons,” Smith-Cameron said. “They are beginning to have to find out what their life is without Daniel.”

“Janet’s coming to a boil, and it’s really driving her crazy to be separated from her son. So there’s some interesting storytelling that comes out of that frustration,” she continued.

“Season 4 has a lot of exploration that Janet goes through about herself, and that is really fun, and interesting, and poignant. I was really grateful for it. I feel like it was a really breakout kind of year for Janet,” she added.

Of course, Daniel’s return, and now his departure, has put a strain on many of Janet’s relationships. She found herself in conflict with her husband as each of them defended their owns sons, and ultimately, it changed their entire family dynamic.

“One casualty of the way things unfolded was, I felt like she had a really beautiful connection with Teddy and also Tawney. It got very strained, and they kind of had to forfeit some of their closeness. But they had no real obstacle with each other; it was all about Daniel,” Smith-Cameron noted.

There’s still one lingering question hanging over the show, and that is whether or not Daniel actually committed that murder. While Smith-Cameron didn’t want to give too much away, it seems clear that we won’t be getting an answer to that question this season, and that’s a good thing.

“The nature of Rectify is to examine how difficult it is to get at a concrete truth. That’s sort of the ambiguous uncomfortable [part] of life,” Smith-Cameron said. “It’s more about how [Daniel] deals with trying to put the pieces together and his own sense of loss.”

Smith-Cameron did say, however, that we can look forward to an ending that won’t disappoint. “I think the way it ends will be very satisfying,” she confirmed.

Even though Rectify is ending, there will still be plenty of chances to see J. Smith Cameron both on screen and on the stage.

“I have a film that just opened in New York called Christine, which stars Rebecca Hall. [It] is about a real person who was a television reporter on a local news channel in Sarasota in the 70s who shot herself on air,” she explained. Hall plays Christine Chubbuck, and Smith-Cameron plays her mother in the film.

“I’m really proud of it. It’s a very good indie movie. It’s by Antonio Campos and written by Craig Shilowich.”

Smith-Cameron said she’s also going to do an off broadway play by Tracy Letts called The Man From Nebraska, and she can be seen toward the end of this season on the HBO comedy, Divorce.

You can bet that she’s going to miss filming Rectify, though, (even more than we’ll miss watching).

“Every time it dawns on me that I’m not going back to Griffin to shoot more, I just, my heart sinks,” she said. Of course, she’s also excited for new opportunities and just spending time with her family, but she maintained that there would probably never be anything else like this.

“It’s never gonna get any better than that,” Smith-Cameron admitted. “It’s such good writing and such a good group of people.”

The final season of Rectify premieres tonight at 10/9c on SundanceTV.

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