‘Presumed Innocent’ Director Breaks Down Rusty and Tommy’s Face-Off in Episode 7: ‘They Both Think They Won’

Greg Yaitanes also tells TheWrap that the finale of Jake Gyllenhaal's Apple TV+ drama is "an extremely satisfying payoff"

The post ‘Presumed Innocent’ Director Breaks Down Rusty and Tommy’s Face-Off in Episode 7: ‘They Both Think They Won’ appeared first on TheWrap.

Note: This story contains spoilers from “Presumed Innocent” Episode 7.

Wednesday’s “The Witness” episode of “Presumed Innocent” — the last before next week’s finale — finds Rusty Sabich (Jake Gyllenhaal) taking over his own case after the dramatic mid-trial collapse of his lawyer Raymond (Bill Camp), a plot point that wasn’t in the original novel or the 1990 movie that starred Harrison Ford as Rusty.

“That was such a great twist. And that’s really credit to [writer and co-executive producer] David [E. Kelley] for constantly surprising us as we were shooting this,” said Greg Yaitanes, who directed this and four other installments of the Apple TV+ series.

He also guaranteed that we will find out who murdered Carolyn (Renate Reinsve), in the finale, unlike a certain AMC mystery series from 2011 that left viewers hanging. “I would not want anybody to think that somehow the case will not be resolved, like “The Killing” Season 1, or anything like that,” he said.

“You’ve invested time, you’ve hung on week to week, you’ve suffered the cliffhangers, and you’re going to get  what I feel is an extremely satisfying payoff to how all these pieces come together.”

Here’s more of our chat with Greg Yaitanes, who is also an executive producer on Season 1, along with Gyllenhaal and J.J. Abrams.

TheWrap: What was your approach to this episode and these plot twists?

Greg Yaitanes: When I heard what was going to happen. I was like, “I cannot wait to direct that episode.” Of the five I did, it was my favorite. It was such a great thing to have Raymond go down and then have Rusty step in [to defend] himself.

Did Rusty deliberately open the door during his cross so that he would have to take the stand, which the judge warned him could happen?

Jake and I talked about it and I really left it to what he felt Rusty was doing, and that it was a deliberate move on his part. You can see that in the elevator scene with Mya (Gabby Beans).

That’s why, I think, Mya loses it [when he takes over the case from her]. He pulled the rug out from under her, in terms of his strategy in that minute. I think it was something he decided to do in the moment. And whether or not that was the right decision, you can interpret who wins the showdown between [Rusty and Tommy].

They’ve always been rivals, so this is very personal. The interrogation is like a ball game, where they’re both trying to score points against the other.

Yeah, each actor felt they won that scene, which was really interesting. I think that’s what makes that scene so great: you can see that love and that trust in the work they’re doing on the stand and in terms of how they played it. 

Mya says it straight up, [the winning legal strategy] comes down to storytelling. Like we’re seeing in world events, the power of imagery and storytelling gets emblazoned in people’s minds. That’s what every lawyer that was consulting with us said. There’s the way they act, their gestures, all this stuff they do to try to get by the judge, to try to win the jury over and make them believe that they’re telling the truth.

Can you talk about the moment in the courtroom when we find out Rusty texted Carolyn that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, and that’s how his wife Barbara (Ruth Negga) finds that out?

I wanted to be nowhere else in the courtroom but on Barbara when that gets dropped like that. Whoever you suspect, there’s still the human element of   hearing your husband say that to somebody else, after all the other indignities she’s been through. I just wanted to be with her in that moment.

You’re doing an incredible job of making everyone look extremely plausible as the murderer.

That was the fun of doing the middle five, I got into this business wanting to direct thrillers in the ’90s, which was the heyday of thrillers for me, and to be able to finally exercise this muscle with the years of experience I have and craft that I’ve learned was such a pleasure.

Journalists were sent a list of spoilers not to write about early on, and one of them was, “don’t write about the fireplace poker being found in Tommy’s house.” So when I finally watched that episode, I thought we would see that he had stashed it away, that maybe he was the murderer, and it did not play out that way.

I’ve heard more from people about this than probably anything else I’ve made. People text me their theories and DMs on Instagram about other people’s theories. And Molto consistently comes up. And I think that is not an accident.

I was really fascinated by something that happens with any true crime case, which is the second you start scrutinizing somebody under the lens of them being [a suspect] in a murder or an assault or whatever, everything can be perceived as being creepy or weird, just the most mundane things.

And then to be able to rule him out in terms of him coming in and his place being ransacked, and the fire poker being there. I did shoot it where I didn’t put the note on the fire poker, just in case we wanted to keep that dream alive. But, I felt getting into what that does to the case is more interesting than wondering if Tommy’s still a suspect or not. 

So this definitely rules Tommy out as the murderer?

Yeah. I felt you could only do that if something much more interesting was coming. And I think that finale is pretty rich with that at every turn. I’m excited to see how everybody reacts.

Do we see whether Rusty and Barbara stay together in Episode 8 or is that not resolved?

Everything will be resolved in the finale. All the way through, I wanted to make something I wanted to watch, even though I didn’t direct the finale. If you go back to watch the show again, it’s all there for you to look through that lens once you know the answer.

Are you going to be involved in Season 2?

Season 2 will be an entirely different case and story, but it’s early. There’s nothing to really talk about [but] I am thrilled that this team is coming back together to make something great again. Who wouldn’t want to be part of that?

The finale of “Presumed Innocent” premieres on Apple TV+ on July 24. The first seven episodes are now streaming.

The post ‘Presumed Innocent’ Director Breaks Down Rusty and Tommy’s Face-Off in Episode 7: ‘They Both Think They Won’ appeared first on TheWrap.