This powerful thriller with Chris Evans and Michelle Dockery only has eight episodes and is among the most watched series

In the face of the possibility that their 14-year-old son may have been capable of killing someone, what will his parents do, everything possible to discover the truth or protect him from the consequences at all costs? This is the question posed by Defending Jacob, the exciting miniseries from Apple TV+ starring Chris Evans and Michelle Dockery.

In this legal thriller of eight episodes, the stars of Captain America and Downton Abbey play Andy and Laurie Barber, Jacob's parents, a teenager who becomes the main suspect in the murder of one of his classmates, a case that shocks the small town where they live, forcing Andy to choose between fulfilling his duty as an assistant district attorney and his unconditional love for his son.

Jaeden Martell, the actor we saw in It and Knives Out, is responsible for bringing Jacob to life and rises to the occasion of a role that demands ambiguity to sometimes seem like a sociopath, at other times a shy teenager who can explain his mistakes with inexperience, and in the rest a simple victim.

The rest of the cast is made up of actors of recognized skill, among whom stand out Cherry Jones (The Handmaid's Tale), in the role of the defense attorney, and who stars in one of the best scenes of the entire series during Jacob's trial preparation.

Mark Bomback (Logan) adapts for the screen the eponymous novel by William Landay and the direction of all the episodes is in charge of Oscar-nominated Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game).

Legal thriller and family drama

In Defending Jacob, the interrogatory questions in the trial scenes are used as a resource to advance the present plot and to reveal details about Jacob's life and the doubts that fall on him.

But the real success is that the mystery that interests the series is not so much to discover who the real culprit is, but to make a psychological study of how those parents react to that situation with the information they have at each moment.

As a parent, what do you do when your child's honor is questioned? As a lawyer, what do you do when you believe your client may be guilty? These are the dilemmas that Andy faces, for whom his future is just as at stake as his son's. He is constantly being judged as a father, husband, and lawyer for the actions that Jacob may have taken.

The series also examines the breakdown of the marriage between lawyer Andy Barber and his wife Laurie when the evidence against their son begins to accumulate, as she starts to doubt while he fights to defend Jacob's honor.

Andy is the father willing to do anything to protect his son, regardless of the consequences, and Chris Evans delivers one of the best performances of his career here, but the star who steals every scene is Michelle Dockery, whose character leads with her doubts a parallel series that at times resembles the magnificent We Need to Talk About Kevin, showing a much more complex, shady, and less conventional story.

With the twists that the genre requires to keep the viewer interested, a constant shadow of doubt about the innocence of the young suspect, and a closed story of only eight episodes, Defending Jacob is a perfect series to discover this summer.