Presumed Innocent Season 1 Episode 8 Finale Recap: The Verdict 

Critic’s Rating: 4 / 5.0

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The Presumed Innocent finale is here. At this point, we’ll likely get the answers to two questions: Who killed Carolyn, and what will be the result of Rusty’s murder trial? 

(Spoilers ahead for the Presumed Innocent finale.)

The episode begins immediately after the previous one, as the presumed murder weapon, a fire poker, has been found at Tommy’s home. We now see the police examining the scene, with Nico there with him, and asking Tommy if he’s okay. 

No, Tommy says, although he seems more worried that his cat is “freaking out.” 

The question of the poker

At the Sabich’s house, Rusty seems unable to sleep, although sleep seems less of a challenge for his wife. Rusty receives a phone call, presumably to let him know about the found murder weapon. 

In the next scene, the lawyers argue with Rusty about what to do with the new evidence—should the jury see it? The judge once again offers to declare a mistrial before the scene collapses into arguments. 

Related: Presumed Innocent Season 1 Episode 7 Recap: The Witness

While they go through the possibilities, Raymond tells Rusty that if the jury finds out about the weapon, “they’ll think you” since Rusty is somehow free and able to sleep in his own house during his own murder trial. So the resolution, it appears, is that the trial will go forward, but the jury will not learn about the poker. 

At home, Rusty admits to Barbara that he knows the poker is Carolyn’s because he once used it to make a fire at her house. 

The last witness

Back in the courtroom, the show introduces a familiar face: Mary Lynn Rajskub, of 24, and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, as an expert defense witness on the unlikely subject of stomach digestion.

Raymond questions her about the food delivery Carolyn received on the night of the murder, and because of the timing of that digestion, the witness states that Dr. Kumigai had misstated the time of death. 

On cross-examination, Tommy questions whether Carolyn could have been killed before she had a chance to eat her food. The witness then admits that she can’t state to a “medical certainty” that Carolyn didn’t eat Chinese food, after which the lawyer tries to impeach her credibility as a “professional defense witness.” 

Related: Presumed Innocent Season 1 Episode 6 Recap: The Elements 

At the Sabichs’ home, the lawyers try to establish that if Carolyn was killed at 10 p.m., Rusty was already home by that time, and therefore, he could not have killed her. This raises the possibility that Barbara could testify. 

Preparing to close

Mya then starts interrogating Barbara as a lawyer would in court, including mentioning Clifton, the bartender. After Mya admits that they hired a private investigator, Rusty declares that they should rest their case. 

Then, he makes another demand: That he make his own closing argument, an idea that Raymond dismisses out of hand. 

Related: Presumed Innocent Episode 5 Review: Pregame

In the next scene, Raymond’s wife asks Raymond to withdraw from the case. After all, his client isn’t listening to him, and “this trial almost killed you once.” He then promises her, possibly jokingly, that he will retire once the trial ends. 

Next, we see Rusty practicing a closing argument by himself, at which point his daughter interrupts him. She tries to talk him out of giving his own closing argument and then hugs him. 

Rusty’s son, meanwhile, throws a baseball at high velocity at the family’s garage. 

Back in court, as Rusty is preparing to give his argument, he daydreams about being in bed with Carolyn.

Closing arguments

He introduces himself as both the prosecutor and the accused.

He then admits that he betrayed his family. But he forcefully denies that he killed Carolyn and points out that there’s no real physical evidence pointing to his guilt.

And while circumstantial evidence points to him, it also points to other people, including Michael Caldwell and his father. 

Rusty goes on to accuse Tommy of being out to get him. “I accept your contempt,” he tells the jury. “I deserve your contempt.” He then tells them, “I am not honorable, but I hope that you are.” 

Tommy’s turn

In this case, unlike most, the prosecution speaks after the defense. Tommy heavily relies on Rusty’s actions in the early days of the case, including hiding evidence and striking people, as well as his many texts to Carolyn. Tommy also makes it personal, especially pointing out the things Rusty had said about him. 

Related: Presumed Innocent Episode 4 Review: The Burden

We see a flashback to Rusty and Carolyn, who were in a similar situation, waiting for a jury verdict. 

In the prosecution office, Nico tells Tommy to go home since the jury could be out for a a while. Tommy speculates that the poker left at his home was an “insurance policy. Then he asks, “What did she ever see in him?” 

Nico then asks Tommy, “How much did you love her?”

Before he can answer, they’re told that the verdict is in. We see a montage of the characters, including Rusty and the judge, putting on their ties. 

The verdict is in

As dramatic music swells, the jury comes in, indicating that a verdict is here, even with almost 20 minutes left in the episode. 

The verdict is… not guilty. The prosecution charged with an obstruction count earlier, but Nico and Tommy dropped that in Episode 3, so he walks free. 

Rusty decides to go outside and talk to reporters as we see various people involved in the case, including Michael and his father and Tommy and his cat, watching the interview on television. 

Tommy looks depressed, although Nico tells him he “tried a magnificent case. But he lost, because that the set of facts they had was circumstantial. Tommy believes that Carolyn’s death “will go unavenged because I wasn’t good enough.” Nico tells him to move on both from the case and his vengeance against Rusty. 

The truth at last

At the Sabichs’ house, Rusty sees that his wife has packed a suitcase. He goes to the garage, where he sees Barbara on the exercise bike. 

“Should there be a next time,” she says. “Should you ever again impulsively strike to destroy this family.” 

Rusty then says, “I knew at the beginning, and then I didn’t know…” coming around to accusing Barbara of killing Carolyn. He adds that “it was somebody in your body, kind of like how it was somebody else in my body who tied her up… to cover for you.” 

We see a flashback, where Rusty returns to Carolyn’s to see she’s already dead. At which point he realizes that Barbara must have killed her- so he tied her up to keep suspicion from his wife. 

Barbara, though, denies it through some very intense acting from Ruth Negga. But then Rusty admits he had been tracking her car and knew she planted the poker at Tommy’s house. 

However…

But the final twist is that their daughter Jaden (Chase Infiniti) interrupts to say, “No, she didn’t — I did.” So Jaden drives her mother’s car, after Rusty’s testimony, to plant the poker.

Jaden admits she had gone to Carolyn’s to confront her and tell her to leave the family alone. After that, Carolyn revealed her pregnancy- and Jaden killed her with the poker. 

In doing this, Jaden somehow produced no DNA or physical evidence of her guilt and got away with it through an entire trial, despite presumably being a completely novice criminal, much less a murderer. 

Rusty turns lawyer, telling Jaden never to speak of any of this again and swearing that “we will survive as a family.” 

The season ends with another montage of Chicago, followed by Raymond gardening, implicitly following through on his promise to retire.

We see Jaden resting on a blanket, looking guilty, and Tommy watching a Chicago Bears game alone. We see the Sabichs, still an intact family, eating Thanksgiving dinner. The assumption is that the other three of them kept the truth about the murder secret from Kyle. 

The biggest differences between the movie and the series

The producers have made quite a few differences between the 1990 Presumed Innocent movie and the Apple series, starting with the resolutions of both the trial and the murder mystery. 

In the movie, the trial ended in a mistrial after a piece of evidence involving a contraceptive device. This was incompatible with the revelation that Carolyn underwent a tubal ligation. Some associated with the show have stated that this ending wouldn’t work in a world with modern DNA technology. 

And then, after some misdirection that makes Rusty briefly look guilty… it turns out the murderer was Barbara (played in the movie by Bonnie Bedelia).

She killed Carolyn herself and framed her husband. The Apple version hints strongly at using a version of that ending before pivoting to Jaden’s confession. 

Instead of two children, the couple in the movie had one (played by future Swimfan star Jesse Bradford), who was much younger and had nothing to do with the murder. And while the movie kept the geography anonymous, the show is Chicago all the way, including various interstitialal skyline shots. 

The two Rustys

Those are the big differences, but there are smaller ones. While Rusty in both versions is an adulterer and something of a dishonest man, the Apple show depicts him as more of a rage case. Barbara is given much more depth and characterization, including having an affair of her own. 

Carolyn (Greta Scacchi) is treated worse by the movie. She has affairs with numerous men besides Rusty (including the judge and Raymond.) The movie includes a judicial bribery plot left out of the show, and Tommy’s obsession with Carolyn is an invention of the show. 

Harrison Ford, the Rusty of the movie, now stars on Shrinking, another Apple TV+ show.

Numerous male characters in the movie, including the judge, the second defense lawyer, and the police detective who helps Rusty, have been switched to female for the show.

And while Raymond Horgan existed in the movie and was played by Brian Dennehy, he was Rusty’s boss early on. He never served as his lawyer. That was Sandy Stern (Raul Julia), mentioned on the show but not featured as a character. Also, the movie never had Rusty acting as his own attorney or pushing to do so.

What’s next? 

Presumed Innocent, somewhat surprisingly for such a self-contained story, has been renewed for a second season. Apple has yet to say exactly what format future show seasons will take on.

Still, it’s easy to imagine it becoming an anthology show, possibly always set in Chicago, always about a different combination of a murder trial and mystery, with affairs and obsession thrown in, possibly with David E. Kelley supervising different A-list actors each time. 

Either that or each season will feature a new mistress of Rusty’s getting murdered and Rusty repeatedly accused of each crime.