The Phone
The mystery deepens in this week’s episode of Defending Jacob as another suspect is revealed. As both his best friends have hidden some crucial information from him, Jacob is feeling betrayed while his mother carries on having doubts. This little revelation helps the show remains interesting even if the story continues being a little slow. Episode 5 of Defending Jacob starts with graduation day for Jacob’s class as we see the choir perform a song. Ben’s mother Joan gives an emotional speech about her son and thanks everyone for their support. At the same time, Andy drives to the prison to visit his father. However, he doesn’t want to comply though as he berated his son for abandoning him all these years and didn’t try to get him out. Andy tells him his grandchild is in trouble and needs a DNA swab from him. His father then tells him he wants Andy to ask nicely but when he doesn’t, he walks away. After this difficult encounter, Andy meets with Joanna to relay what happened. She tells him she can get a court order but Andy doesn’t think it is a good idea. Joanna then shows him an article that Janine the reporter wrote about Laurie. Back home, Andy confronts his wife about the article. She tells him she was very emotional that night just as Sarah arrives to spend more time with Jacob. We then cut to the trial in the present as Neal talks to Andy about the article and asks if at that time, either him or Laurie had any doubts about Jacob’s guilt. He replies that they never did before we flashback to the past. In the supermarket, Laurie does her shopping and decides to buy food and decorations to celebrate the 4th of July. Suddenly, she comes face to face with Joan who advances towards her and when she sees what is in her trolley, she spits in Laurie’s face in disgust while Andy meets with Duffy. He asks her if Derek is a suspect and who tipped the police off. Duffy refuses to say anything and leaves. Andy decides to follow Derek and then his mother. After bursting her tyre, Andy heads back to Derek, knowing his mother could be a while. He asks him how the police interview went and why he was so quick to accuse Jacob. After mentioning Sarah’s name, Derek tells Andy that Jacob has a dark side and visits some very creepy “cutter” websites. Meanwhile, Laurie decides to visit Dr Vogel to talk about Jacob. She mentions the bowling incident when Jacob was five involving him nearly smashing his friend with a bowling ball. Since then, she had doubts whether he was willingly going to hurt the boy or not. The doctor explains that it can be normal to feel that way as she can have two radically different perspectives of her son. Later in the day, Andy visits Sarah at her work and asks to speak with her. As they talk about Jacob, Sarah first admits to being the one who tipped the police about Derek as he is the one who had Ben’s phone. She then reveals that her and Ben used to have a thing and one day, he asked her to send a nude picture. The next day, Derek overheard Ben tell his friends that Sarah was going to give him oral sex. Derek then spoke to Sarah who told him what happened and that Ben was blackmailing her. She then explains that Derek went quiet and said he would deal with it. He later came to her house with Ben’s phone but Sarah sent him away as she didn’t want to get in trouble. Back home, he relays his findings to Laurie, Joanna and Jacob. They speculate that Derek may have had a thing for Sarah then confronted Ben about it and they could have fought. They then wonder if Derek gave Ben’s phone to the police so Andy decides to speak to Duffy the next day. After Joanna leaves, Jacob gets angry about Sarah because she lied to him and only came to see him because she felt bad. The next day, Andy takes Jacob fishing. As they sit by a lake, Jacob mentions Andy going to see his father and how he feels guilty he had to go through it. Andy assures him that he would do anything for him and does his best to stop him being too scared about the upcoming trial. As they leave, Joanna calls Andy to tell him that the police have Ben’s phone and that they will be allowed to look at what is in it. She also reveals that his father called from prison as he has agreed to the DNA test. In the evening after watching a movie, Andy asks his wife if she went to see his father in prison. She confirms that she has and mentions that he wasn’t as scary as she thought. The episode ends with Andy’s phone ringing from an unknown number during the night. As he picks up, we see that it is Matthew calling but he is unable to say anything. Defending Jacob gives us more suspects this week as we see Derek could have been the killer after Sarah reveals just what happened between her and Ben. It shows yet again that Ben was quite the bully and I am wondering just what he did to Jacob. As his mother starts wondering more and more about her son’s past behaviour, his guilt remains possible. This episode ends with the usual cliffhanger and this time, we see Leonard’s previous victim wanting to come forward. Just what he wanted to reveal remains to be seen and whether this will incriminate Leonard may or may not affect the case. While the show’s pace remains quite slow, it is still an easy to watch crime thriller. I just hope we find out before the end just who the murderer is!
