Summary
Defending Jacob season 1, episode 5, “Visitors” sees the truth come too close to home as Jacob, Andy and Laurie adjust to their new, temporary world.
This recap of Apple TV+ series Defending Jacob season 1, episode 5, “Visitors” contains significant spoilers.
How does Defending Jacob season 1, episode 5, “Visitors” begin?
It starts by showing how much emotion there is in the community, opening up with the assembly at school. Ben’s mother says a few touching and emotional words. It’s easy to see why when this kind of tragedy happens, a community wants someone to immediately blame.
Does Andy meet his father?
Defending Jacob season 1, episode 5, “Visitors” introduces J.K. Simmons who is Andy’s father. Andy goes to see him in prison and his father immediately scolds him for not seeing him for years. Andy tries to change the conversation to discuss the swab test but his father wants strings to be pulled to get an earlier release if he decides to do it.
Andy evidently does not want that so his father asks him to request a swab nicely before walking off. This was a failed visit and shows how torn Andy is when he sees his father.
What does the grand jury scenes tell us in episode 5?
At the grand jury, Neal asks if Andy had any doubt of his son’s innocence and whether or not Laurie felt the same. Andy claims both believe Jacob is innocent.
The scene then flits to the core story. Ben’s mother sees Laurie in the supermarket and spits on her. This was an awful scene, with Laurie struggling to keep it together.
Is Laurie still having doubts?
Yes, she is, actually.
She meets the biological psychiatrist as she’s struggling. Laurie tells of the time when Jacob was younger and she took him bowling and he had a disagreement with another kid. Laurie caught Jacob about to smash a bowling ball over this kid but she stopped him in time; his face had no fear, no shame… nothing. Laurie wishes she knew what was real.
You really feel for her in this scene — it must be difficult to have doubts over your own child in a case like this.
Is Andy still doing his investigative work in episode 5?
Andy is still snooping around in Defending Jacob season 1, episode 5, “Visitors”. First of all, he approaches Derek at school and asks him how his interview went with the detective; he wants to know why he was so quick to point at Jacob. Andy plays out this theory that Derek was trying to deflect the attention away from him and onto Jacob.
Derek reveals that Jacob has a dark side and watches creepy p*rn called ‘cutter p*rn”.
Andy showed very little emotion towards this claim.
And then Andy speaks to Sarah while she’s on a break at work. She was the one that shared the Facebook post to Andy at the start of the series — Sarah was looking out for the family. Sarah then tells her version of events leading up to Ben’s death:
Sarah reveals that she and Ben had a little thing going on and one night Ben asked her to send a nude. Derek heard about this nude in the changing rooms at school and wouldn’t let it go. Ben threatened Sarah to share the nude if she doesn’t give him a b*****b. The next day, Derek stole Ben’s phone and she was annoyed that he did that for her. Two days later, Ben was dead.
There’s a motive here so Andy raises to Joanna who agrees and says she will look into it. When Jacob heads upstairs after hearing the story, Sarah texts him nicely and Jacob replies with “sl*t”.
All things considered, Jacob seems to be handling this pretty well in comparison to his parents.
It looks like it on the surface but when Andy and Jacob go out fishing, Jacob reveals that he is scared — Andy tells him to leave all the worrying to him.
How does Defending Jacob season 1, episode 5, “Visitors” end?
It actually ends more positively than usual. Joanna rings Andy and says they have Derek’s phone and that his father has agreed to do the swab test.
Andy suspects Laurie visits his father and confronts her about it. Laurie insists she had to do it — “You have his eyes”.
Andy gets a call in the middle of the night but they keep putting the phone down — it’s Matt.
What does he know?
Other points
- Sarah comes over again to hang out with Jacob. On social media Jacob sends a meme of himself to Sarah of what people think of him — it’s him with an axe.
- Joanna tells Andy that Derek has an alibi and is not a suspect yet.
- Joanna tells Andy his father was trying to ensure another visit.
- An article has been released on the Barber family and Andy is annoyed at Laurie for being careless by disclosing information to a journalist.
- Jacob gets upset with his mother, saying Sarah only hangs out with him because she feels bad about the situation.
- In the grand jury they bring up Jacob’s interest in p*rn called cutter but Andy couldn’t find it on his son’s computer. He reveals he did not tell Laurie about it or bring it up with Jacob.
