Presumed Innocent Season 1 Episodes 1 and 2 Review: Bases Loaded / People vs. Rozat Sabich

Presumed Innocent Season 1 Episode 1, “Bases Loaded,” and Episode 2, “People vs. Rozat Sabich,” start the series on a high note. Everything we believe to be true in the beginning turns upside down on “Bases Loaded” when we discover Rusty is the prime suspect.

The first part of the episode paints him in an innocent light. A colleague who had an affair with another colleague and is now working on her murder. But nothing is as it seems.

The moment Tommy and Della Guardia sit down with Rusty and Raymond to discuss Carolyn’s murder and her pregnancy, we know everything is about to change. “People vs. Rozat Sabich” proves exactly that as we learn more about Rusty’s obsession with Carolyn.

These first two episodes of Presumed Innocent focus heavily on inserting flashbacks to make us better understand the show and its characters. The first flashbacks are of Carolyn alive and intertwine with the crime scene photos.

They are there to help us understand who Carolyn was and the kind of work she did as a lawyer alongside Rusty. The flashbacks of her in the courtroom are essential to Rusty’s defense, claiming that someone else connected to the Reynolds case murdered her.

By giving viewers a look into that case, Rusty can hold on to his innocence. Even though Carolyn and Bunny weren’t murdered in the same manner, they were both tied the same way. This is the reasonable doubt Rusty will use to claim he is not guilty.

But those flashbacks also help us better understand Reynolds. At the end of his trial, when he is found guilty, he lashes out against Carolyn. Could it truly be that he hired someone to kill her?

The flashbacks of Rusty and Carolyn’s affair, combined with his comments in therapy, help us understand how their relationship worked. It is through those that we can see the undertones of violence and aggression in their relationship that might be used to claim he is guilty.

These flashbacks also occur while he swims. This helps us understand Rusty’s character better, as we learn that his place of peace and thinking is in the pool. But are we seeing flashbacks of the truth?

Presumed Innocent Season 1 Episode 1, “Bases Loaded,” first makes us believe Rusty is completely innocent. However, certain moments lead us to think that maybe Tommy and Della Guardia are onto something.

Rusty wants to take the lead on the case despite his personal relationship, making us wonder if he is trying to hide something. Afterward, we see him hide an envelope with the lab report.

After the conversation with Tommy and Della Guardian, viewers are inclined to believe that he hides it because it says Carolyn is pregnant and his fingerprints were found in her bedroom. But does he do this because he wants to keep the affair a secret?

Or is he trying to hide the fact that she murdered him? The answers to that are unclear so far, but Presumed Innocent Season 1 Episode 2, “People vs. Rozat Sabich,” leads to his arrest, making us second-guess his innocence.

Even then, Rusty continues to look into the Bunny case and talk to Reynolds, trying to make us believe the killer could be the second sperm sample found at the crime scene or Reynolds hiring someone to kill Carolyn.

This doubt and second-guessing will keep us wondering who the real killer is throughout the season.

Three key points on the show make us lean toward Rusty being the killer. The first one is Carolyn’s pregnancy.

Could he have killed her because she was pregnant? 

The second one is when he admits he was obsessed with and stalking her. This makes us understand Carolyn might have ended the relationship and Rusty hadn’t taken it well.

Could he have killed her because she ended the relationship?

Lastly, the final text message he gets on Presumed Innocent Season 1 Episode 2, “People vs. Rozat Sabich.” Someone anonymously tells him they saw him the night of Carolyn’s murder at her apartment.

Could he have gone there to kill her? Or had the relationship picked back up?

The first two episodes of the Presumed Innocent do a great job of introducing the characters to the audience and helping us understand the situation.

Even though Rusty is first introduced as not guilty, we begin to second-guess this knowledge and wonder if there is more to his character than we have seen so far. It will definitely be interesting to see what happens with the anonymous text he receives.

Is there someone out there who actually knows the truth?

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Presumed Innocent streams Wednesdays on Apple TV+.

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