Apple+'s latest addition Defending Jacob starts its season with a decent but slow first episode. While the plot is intriguing, it doesn't feel very original and adopts many of the same sort of tropes inherent with this genre without much in the way of originality or uniqueness. Episode 1 of Defending Jacob starts with a man walking in court as we hear a lawyer talking to the jury who will decide if an indictment can be granted. If it is, it means that the case will be taken to the supreme court. We then see a man taking his place on the stand, Andrew Stephen Barber, who's the former district attorney. The lawyer starts reading a newspaper article describing the Barber family as perfect and asks if it's an accurate description of them on the day that Ben Rifkin was murdered. We then cut to 10 months earlier as Andrew wakes his son, Jacob, up. His wife, Laurie, comes back from a run and they spend a normal family morning together. As they all leave to go about their days, Andrew arrives in court where he gets busy dealing with his different tasks. In school, an announcement from the head tells everyone that the school is in lockdown as we see Jacob and the rest of the students kneeling down in a corner of the class. We then cut to the scene of the crime, which is swarming with police. Lieutenant Duffy meets Andrew and tells him that a 14 year old boy, Benjamin Rifkin has been found stabbed. This shocks Andrew as he is in the same year as his son. As they reach the body, Andrew gets a call from Jacob wanting to know what is happening but his father tells him he can't talk about it. Jacob looks like he wants to say something but stops himself. The news then reaches his mum, who happens to work in a school for neglected and abused children. With no other leads, Andrew calls Duffy and tells her to bring Leonard in. He then receives an attachment leading him to Ben's Facebook pages full of messages and one from his son : "Ben is dead, Why are you writing him messages? Acting like his best friend." His friend Derek then replies: "Everyone knows you did it as you have a knife". This prompts him to look through his son's things where he ends up finding a knife, which is where the episode ends. Defending Jacob's main point of interest is that the murderer could be a 14 year old child who may have done it because he was being bullied. While this plot line isn't wholly original, it's still intriguing enough to keep you sticking around to find out what happens next and just who is responsible.
