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Defending Jacob writer explains the reason behind the tweaked open ending in the Chris Evans series
Defending Jacob, which had its series finale air a few days back, had certain changes made in its ending as compared to William Landay's 2012 novel ending, which the source material is based upon. Writer Mark Bomback explains the reasoning behind these creative liberties taken in the storyline.
Defending Jacob aired its last episode, a few days back, and has proved to be one of Chris Evans' finest performances to date as an assistant district attorney, Andy Barber, who has to prove the innocence of his teenage son, Jacob (Jaeden Martell) being framed for the murder of his classmate, Ben Rifkin (Liam Kilbreth). An equally important role is played by Michelle Dockery, who plays Andy's wife, Laurie Barber. The Apple TV+ series is based on William Landay's 2012 novel with the same name. Writer Mark Bomback took some creative liberties in tweaking two essential key moments towards the end of the show as the audience was left with a numbing open ending.
"SPOILER ALERT* In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Mark explained how he wanted to leave the audience watching Defending Jacob with the same sensation as the Barbers have on the fact that they will never know if their son was a murderer or not. When Andy comes to know that it was his father Billy Barber (J. K. Simmons) was the one, who ordered an acquaintance to blackmail Leonard Patz (Daniel Henshall) and confess to being the murderer in a suicide note, is when all hell breaks loose. Andy and Laurie are back to square one as to whether they believe their son or not.
One tweak different from the novel was how the character of Hope, who the Barbers meet during a vacation, is still alive taking away the notion that Jacob may have done something to her. "The book has one or two clues that suggest that Jacob might've done something to [Hope], and then we're really talking about someone who was a burgeoning serial killer. He finally got away with this one crime, and now he's going to quickly, within the matter of six months, kill somebody else," Bomback explained to EW for his reasoning behind the change.
Another major change from the novel is that Jacob doesn't die in the car crash purposely orchestrated by his mother, Laurie, who is convinced that her son is a murderer. Instead, Jacob is fighting for his life while Laurie insists to Andy that it was an accident.
"Now we have this new thing that they're both going to live with, which is: 'When [Jacob] wakes up, what will he think? Will he think that I tried to kill him or not?' In fact, he's going to now be having the same doubts about his mom that she's been harboring about him throughout the entire story," the writer reasoned.
What did you think of Defending Jacob's ending? Let us know your views in the comments section below.
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