Ray McKinnon’s ‘Rectify’

You may know Ray McKinnon as the doomed preacher from HBO’s Deadwood, or from his roles in FX’s Sons of Anarchy and films like Mud and The Blind Side.

He’s also a writer and director. A decade ago he had idea for a TV show, based on several real-life cases where prisoners were exonerated on DNA evidence. He wrote a script that was picked up quickly, but languished for years.

Now that idea has finally become a reality with the SundanceTV show Rectify. The show is what’s known as slow TV--thoughtful, almost meditative. The first season covers just one week in the life of Daniel Holden, play by Aden Young, released after 19 years on death row.

The show is now in its second season, and McKinnon is in the home stretch of the editing. As he explains to Kim Masters, putting the finishing touches on the final episodes is the last step in what is, for him, an all-consuming process.