This Guide to Episode FOUR of Presumed Innocent: The Burden on Apple TV will include an episode summary, and my thoughts about this Apple TV adaptation compared to the 1987 book and the 1990 movie adaptation. Spoilers will be marked or protected!
Episode Four of Presumed Innocent: The Burden
Are you joining me mid-series? Here are links to my prior Presumed Innocent Episode Guides in order:
Introduction to Presumed Innocent on Apple TV
Spoilers and Plot Summary for the book Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow
Episode One of Presumed Innocent on Apple TV: Bases Loaded
Episode Two of Presumed Innocent on Apple: People vs. Rozat Sabich
Episode Three of Presumed Innocent on Apple: Discovery
- Character List is here
- Summary of Presumed Innocent Episode Four
- My Thoughts on Presumed Innocent Episode Four
- Comparison of Presumed Innocent Episode Four to the 1987 book and 1990 movie
Summary of Episode Four of Presumed Innocent: The Burden
- Rusty and Barbara try to talk to Kyle about what he was doing near Carolyn’s house. It does not go well, with Kyle lashing out and then Rusty.
- Rusty back to Carolyn practicing for the Bunny Davis trial. She’s amazing.
- Barbara tells Rusty that Kyle had been riding by Carolyn’s house and wants him in therapy. Rusty hates this idea and basically suggests Barbara is partly to blame for his cheating. Yikes.
- Molto and “Painless” Kumagai practice for his testimony, and Molto suggests he’s been a bad witness in the past.
- Raymond suggests that the jury will hate Rusty. That he kind of hates him and so does Lorraine.
- Eugenia, who is Rusty’s assistant in the book, asks Molto why she’s on the witness list. Charming as ever, he suggests she should have reported Rusty and Carolyn to HR.
- Molto interviews Michael, Carolyn’s son, about the photos he took. Michael has two important pieces of information: only Rusty was there that night, and Carolyn told him a man she worked cases with was beginning to scare her.
- Ruth goes back to day drinking and flirting with the bartender
- Rigo tells Rusty that she got a hit on the second Bunny Davis DNA sample. It’s a guy named Brian Ratzer, and the two of them go and talk to him. THAT doesn’t go well either, as Rusty threatens to tell the guy’s wife that he’s a creeper.
- Rusty finds Barbara frantically scrubbing Kyle’s bike. When Rusty tells her Kyle is not a suspect, she shoots back, ” sometimes you forget our son is Black.” Is she protecting him?
- Mya Winslow talks to Rusty about what he remembers on the night of Carolyn’s murder, which isn’t much. Just some yelling and chaos. He claims to have been really drunk. Mya points out to Raymond that Rusty was there a full 51 minutes.
- Raymond asks the prosecution for a meeting, at which he tells them their case is weak. They reply by handing him a copy of a forensic report that says that Rusty’s DNA was under Carolyn’s fingernails.
- Rusty’s response to this is that he’s being framed. Okay… Then someone is pounding on Rusty’s front door, and it’s Brian Ratzer. Rusty proceeds to pound on Brian.
My Thoughts on Episode Four of Presumed Innocent
This adaptation is doing a good job of giving us plenty of suspects.
- Rusty is a cheater, a liar, a stalker, drinks too much, and blames other people for his failings. Which probably means he didn’t do it.
- Raymond was more shady in the book, and I was side-eyeing him in prior episodes, but I’m wondering if he’s just meant to stand in for the reader and our outrage at what a terrible person Rusty seems to be
- Rusty and Barbara’s son Kyle seems like a red herring to me. Though I feel like he (and/or Carolyn’s son Michael) could be a witness to something.
- Barbara and her bike scrubbing was interesting. Was she trying to protect her son? Why does she stay with Rusty? That makes me wonder if she is hiding something
- Lorraine was my early guess, but she’s been hiding out as of late.
Book vs 1990 movie vs 2024 adaptation
At this point, the show has veered away from everything but the characters and the main premise, so it’s hard to compare.
Some people on Reddit are saying that Tommy Molto is their main suspect, but that would be disappointing to me. He’s a much more compelling character in this show than the book, where he’s more of a flunky, and I can see why Peter Saarsgard took the role.
I’m wondering if “Kyle” wasn’t really Kyle in the grainy night-time photo. Rusty saw his son’s hoodie and bike and assumed it was him. But what if it was Barbara, who is also slight, resembles her son in features and skin tone, and could have borrowed his bike and hoodie?
My main questions at this point:
- Was Michael telling the truth when he said that Rusty was the only person at the house that night?
- Who was this “person at work” that Carolyn was afraid of? It could be Raymond, Rusty, or Tommy. Nico Della Guardia doesn’t seem like the type to get his hands dirty. Painless Kumagai could be an option, but I feel like (as in the book) his role might be to mess up the evidence somehow.
- Are Rusty’s “flashbacks” accurate?
- What does Brian Ratzer have to do with this?
Give me all your questions and theories in the comments!