General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Presumed Innocent

Presumed Innocent is an American legal thriller television series that premiered on Apple TV+ on June 12, 2024. An eight-episode limited series starring and executive produced by Jake Gyllenhaal, it was created by David E. Kelley with executive producer J.J. Abrams and is based on Scott Turow's 1987 bestselling novel of the same name, which had earlier been adapted as a 1990 film starring Harrison Ford.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Format	Eight-episode limited series on Apple TV+, rated TV-MA thriller¹
Premiere	June 12, 2024¹
Source	Scott Turow's 1987 novel, previously adapted as the 1990 Harrison Ford film¹^•²
Lead	Jake Gyllenhaal as Chicago chief deputy prosecutor Rusty Sabich, his first television role¹^•³
Reception	79% Tomatometer (81 reviews) and 78% Popcornmeter on Rotten Tomatoes; Metascore 64 from 34 critic reviews on Metacritic⁴^•⁵
Renewal	Second season announced July 12, 2024, built around a new case, moving toward an anthology format⁶
Season 2 source	Jo Murray's novel Dissection of a Murder, with Rachel Brosnahan as the new lead⁷

Spoilers

Premise and cast

The story follows Rusty Sabich (Jake Gyllenhaal), chief deputy prosecutor in the Chicago Prosecuting Attorney's office, whose life is upended when his colleague and secret lover Carolyn Polhemus (Renate Reinsve) is murdered and he becomes the prime suspect. As the accused fights to keep his family together, the series explores obsession, sex, politics, and the power and limits of love.¹^•⁵

The ensemble cast includes Ruth Negga as Barbara Sabich, Rusty's wife; Bill Camp as Raymond Horgan; Peter Sarsgaard as prosecutor Tommy Molto, Rusty's courtroom adversary; O-T Fagbenle as Nico Della Guardia; Elizabeth Marvel as Lorraine Horgan; and Lily Rabe as Dr. Liz Rush.¹^•⁵ Sarsgaard is Gyllenhaal's real-life brother-in-law, married to Jake's sister Maggie, and the series marked the first time the two played adversaries; Gyllenhaal's first television role came in this show.²^•³ Early scripts did not pit Sabich and Molto against each other as antagonistically, but Kelley adjusted the writing after seeing the two actors' chemistry together.²

Season 2

Apple TV+ renewed the series on July 12, 2024, two weeks before the first season concluded, announcing that the second season would unfold around a suspenseful, brand-new case.⁶ In October 2024, TVLine reported that the new season would feature a female lead and take inspiration from Jo Murray's then-upcoming novel Dissection of a Murder, in which a young defense attorney named Leila Reynolds handles her first murder case while her husband serves as the prosecutor; the book was due out in Spring 2026.⁷ The shift makes the series an anthology, with Gyllenhaal returning as an executive producer alongside Kelley and Abrams.⁷

Rachel Brosnahan was cast as the new lead, playing attorney Leila Reynolds, and also serves as an executive producer; the supporting ensemble includes Jack Reynor, Matthew Rhys, Fiona Shaw, Courtney B. Vance, and Lesley-Ann Brandt.¹⁷ Fiona Shaw was reported as a series regular for the second season.¹⁸ Production on the second season wrapped in mid-2026, with no release date announced as of that point.¹⁷

Production and creative team

David E. Kelley, a former lawyer and the creator of earlier courtroom dramas including Boston Legal and The Lincoln Lawyer, wrote the series and served as executive producer alongside J.J. Abrams, Gyllenhaal, Dustin Thomason, Rachel Rusch Rich, and Matthew Tinker; Anne Sewitsky directed and also executive produced.¹^•⁸^•⁶ Author Scott Turow served as co-executive producer on the second season.⁶

Kelley treated Turow's book as his creative North Star, though the miniseries eventually veers into its own direction, expanding the twentieth-century story with added characters, possible suspects, and lines of inquiry to fill eight episodes.⁹^•¹⁰ Reviewers noted that only seven of the eight episodes were provided for review, so whether the solution differed from the book and the film remained unknown to critics before the finale.¹⁰

The source novel and earlier adaptations

Scott Turow, himself a lawyer, published Presumed Innocent in 1987 as his first novel. It received the Silver Dagger Award from the Crime Writers' Association in 1988, remained a best seller for forty-three weeks, and sold four million paperback copies.¹¹ Farrar, Straus & Giroux paid $200,000 for the debut novel, its highest advance to date at the time.¹²

The first screen adaptation was Alan Pakula's 1990 film starring Harrison Ford as Sabich, with Raul Julia as defense attorney Sandy Stern. The film condensed Turow's plot but kept its outlines and the identity of the killer, and it ranked among the ten top-grossing films of 1990.¹³^•¹¹ Filming took place in Detroit, chosen for the story's unnamed Midwestern locale because it would go unrecognized by most viewers, and Ford prepared for the role by observing murder trials at Detroit's Recorder's Court.¹² Turow later wrote a sequel novel, Innocent (2010), continuing Rusty Sabich's story.¹⁴

Reception

Season 1 holds a 79% Tomatometer from 81 reviews and a 78% Popcornmeter from more than 500 ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, with the critics consensus reading, "Enlivened by an outstanding ensemble, Presumed Innocent isn't guilty of upstaging the original movie but acquits itself well as an entertaining courtroom drama."⁴ On Metacritic it scored 64 from 34 critic reviews, categorized as generally favorable, with a 6.8 user score from 124 ratings.⁵ Individual reviews were largely positive: Paste Magazine scored it 92, TVLine 91, and The Daily Beast 90, with TVLine crediting the performances and Kelley's courtroom expertise.¹⁵ The Los Angeles Times was more reserved, calling it a stretched-out courtroom drama while praising Reinsve's performance.¹⁰

According to Apple TV+, season 1 ranks as the platform's most viewed drama series of all time.⁷ The series received four Emmy nominations.¹⁶

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Scripted television and comedy series › Drama and prestige series (individual series) › Crime and thriller series › Psychological and domestic thrillers

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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