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“The Family” recap (1.2): Exciting Writing with One Very Tired Trope

Well, I want to give this show a fair shot, but this is highly disappointing, to say the least. The Family‘s writing team are clearly very talented and very invested in making the show something that’s genuinely unusual and special …Except for relying on the age-old Lying Ruthless Voracious Bisexual trope. Which is pretty gross in general and, oh, yes, causes active harm to an entire class of human beings.

It’s honestly baffling that a team that is clearly invested in trying to travel more interesting ground than the average suspense drama has managed to plump for such an easy stereotype. Even if they’re just using Bridey’s broad sketch as a place marker until they get around to making her interesting, even if they’re planning on a Big Surprise to make her innovative or, at least, a real, rounded character, it’s pretty obnoxious to reinforce this nonsense in the short run. And that goes double when Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is treating male bisexuality so well right next door on Monday nights.

Anyway, we’re going to take a pretty quick tour through this episode. They get more words when they deserve them.

Previously: Dead kid back—maybe! DNA test suspect!

We start off with an interesting juxtaposition (see how much fun it is to be different and interesting, show?) as Maybe-Adam and Hank, in split-screen shots, both roam around their pre-abduction homes as new/old residents Hank finds himself a thin scraping tool and Maybe-Adam memorizes the kitchen, so he knows where stuff is.

Maybe-Adam looks at sleeping parents while Hank pries open his ceiling and pulls a canister out of a hidey hole. Maybe-Adam, this week’s intro/outro voiceover, says he came back, but he didn’t come home.

Ten years ago, the family is at breakfast, and Young Adam obsesses over his not-done ship in a bottle. He runs out to catch the bus and Willa wonders how he keeps missing it when the stop is right there. Ew ew ew. He keeps missing it because Hank, who we will recall had child porn on his computer and was busted for indecent exposure in a park, is the one teaching Adam about ships in bottles.

Willa sees Adam coming out of Hank’s garage.

Now Claire is saying she was totally going tell John she was running for governor—whoopsie!—before the press announcement and then dumps out one million treats for Adam to make up for the last 10 years.

Nina talks to the family about wanting to catch the Bad Man. Adam asks if she’ll hurt the Bad Man when they catch him. Claire is freaked and says they’ll keep Adam safe. This would be a great moment if ABC’s marketing department hadn’t already ruined the upcoming surprise moment where Adam says he’s not worried for the Bad Man; he wants them to kill him.

Back at the Tribune, Gus tells the reporters to make him cry. Bridey doesn’t quite have the same scoop she had last week about the doctor who verified the DNA test not existing Bridey says the DNA test was outsourced to a genetics lab and then the guy who verified it threw himself in front of a train. Well, at least she’s doing some solid reporting legwork in between the other kind of leg work.

Claire tells Danny to take Maybe-Adam to the mall and have fun and buy him shoes and see a movie JUST LIKE BROTHERS HAVE FUN, DAMMIT AND BE BROTHERS. Adam looks at Danny’s old car and remarks on him finally getting his tail light fixed. Adam makes eye contact with Hank at his mailbox, and Hank says “Remember me? I’m the guy that killed you.”

Back at his place, Hank opens a $300,000 check from the state of Maine to make up for 10 years of his life being spent in prison. Before you feel too bad for him, inside that canister are mittens with Adam’s name on them.

Ten years ago, Hank is creeping creepily as Claire is running badly for city council. We go forward to Willa post-abduction telling Meyer that Adam talked to Hank before he disappeared. Meyer comes by to ask Hank if he was at the rally. His mom totally vouches for him and says he was home all night watching movies. But she can’t tell Meyer which movie was on.

Present Meyer is running a search area and smacks down a detective for getting smart with her. Why can’t Meyer be our queer character? Can we draft her? A CRAGGY FACED HUNTER is watching the search effort with too much interest. He looks like the police artist poster.

Maybe-Adam looks at sneakers. He asks Danny about football and remembers his old sneakers and Danny’s broken arm. Hank shops for mattresses. Danny quizzes Maybe-Adam about Alex, his best friend. Whoops! Maybe-Adam gets Alex’s gender wrong and can’t remember her. OK, show, we’re clear on this. Hank buys a $10,000 mattress.

Willa tells a Campaign Media Guy that she doesn’t drink or date. He asks “Men?” and she says “People.” Media guy says the public think maybe Claire isn’t handling Adam’s return well, and the family isn’t healing. Willa immediately tells him to book a family interview.

Claire gets up during the night to look at Maybe-Adam (yeesh) and he’s gone. She looks for him, and he’s sleeping in the closet. He says he can’t sleep in a bed. He needs to touch both the walls.

The next morning, Claire is immediately talking a shrink, who says this was normal and that the kidnapper, screwed up though that is, was Adam’s family while he was growing up and he’s going to have some adjusting to do and Claire is all FIX HIM MAKE IT OK FIX HIM.

Meyer asks for more time to search for Adam’s captor, and her boss wants his police back policing the present. He says pull them back but tell John they’re doing everything they can.

John and Meyer talk, and she says they’re “refocusing the search.” John tells her he’s having dreams about killing everyone Adam’s abductor loves.

Meyer goes to search mountain roads and woods on her own because of course she does, and a Craggy Man watches Meyer in the woods with binoculars.

Claire is being HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY TOTALLY NORMAL EVERYTHING FINE HERE about cleaning up Adam’s room and getting posters and new clothes and it’s all fine now, right? She gets Willa out of the room and then locks the closet so Maybe-Adam can’t sleep in it.

Meyer is alone in the woods at night searching because of course she is. She finds a hatch and at the very least she runs to her car and calls for backup because Craggy Binocular Man is still watching. And now Meyer is calling for fire department because someone is burning the whole thing down. Which is weird, because that hatch seemed to be made of non-flammable materials, but something in the background is definitely on fire, so OK.

10 years ago Hank is working on a model plane and his mom tells him to go to the Warrens’ place and “make things right” and he’s all “God, Mom, this is not about somebody failing to send a thank-you note,” but somehow minutes later he’s on their front porch. He thrusts a tray of muffins at Claire and says he’s sorry for what they’re going through. Claire wants to know what the hell with his relationship with Adam. Hank says Adam was nice to him and was a good boy. And Claire says he is a good boy and then she slams the door and punches those muffins until they’re just atoms.

Present-day Danny is drinking in his usual bar, and Bridey shows up. He apologizes because he washed her number in his jeans and then proves it by taking out the tattered napkin that he for some reason put right back into his jeans pocket. They play pool, and he asks her what she does for a living. Bridey lies her ass off—because that is what sneaky bisexuals do when they want something—about working at Kinko’s and Danny decides she’s an underachiever and starts to feel comfortable.

Danny actually refuses another round of drinks to try no to be a sad alcoholic and says he’ll walk her home and kiss her. Danny heads to the bathroom and Bridey orders another round of drinks and says to make Danny’s a double. So she’s also preying on his addiction. Gosh, is it too early to nominate this show for a GLAAD Award?

Late at night John hears Maybe-Adam trying to get into his closet. Claire hears it too, and she’s already awake and crying. John goes into Maybe-Adam’s room and unlocks the closet so Adam can sleep in it. And then because what the hell, he’s up, John goes over to Hank’s house to ask why he confessed when he didn’t actually murder anyone. Hank says they had stuff on him and threatened him.

John is not real keen on Hank in the victim role here, pointing out that everyone stopped looking for Adam because Hank said he had killed him. Hank, who has a way of sidestepping responsibility, says he didn’t put Adam in the basement room. No, John says, you just made sure he stayed there.

Cops and firefighters in the woods. There’s the door and the tunnel and a long shaft. Whatever Maybe-Adam is lying about, it’s probably not about being kept there. Meyer explores the tunnel and lies down on what may have been Adam’s sleeping spot. This is maybe not great for evidence protocol? But when she’s in that spot, she can touch both walls, and she can see the dragon on the hill in the form of those oil refinery flames.

Ten years ago at a candlelight vigil, Claire begs the crowd for information. OK, now Adam was eight when he was taken. (We said nine last week, yes?) Claire spots Hank at the vigil, and she starts screaming at him “What did you do with my son?” It’s meant to look like she’s too out of control, but my mom would totally do that too. She’d have had Hank’s face clean off by now.

Hank frantically cleans and bleaches his garage. Just because he’s worried about trace evidence from Adam coming over to talk about ships in bottles, or because of something else?

Present-day Claire chugs coffee, and Willa suggests doing their first interview with a woman they can make cry and getting the whole family in on it. Willa is supposed to get Dad on board because she always says the right thing.

Meyer’s boss tells her she’s going to get torn apart by a good defense attorney because she put the wrong guy away before. For the good of the case, he’s putting someone else on the lead.

Adam asks Danny why he quit football. He avoids saying because drinking, and we have a dual-meaning scene about not being the same person you were 10 years ago.

Gus smells the deceit and alcohol on Bridey. She spills that Danny has doubts about Maybe-Adam, and we cut to them making out in a bathroom stall, making everyone’s Boilerplate Bisexual Bingo card complete.

That was fast! I hope they go for bonus points and have Bridey murder someone with an ice pick. Gus says he wants a “Cain and Abel, prodigal son” angle on the stories with the two brothers. I don’t think Gus has read the Bible very extensively.

Danny looks at photographs in the living room and realizes that the sneakers and tail light and football and broken arm are all there. Maybe-Adam could have gotten them all from studying.

Danny hits a pediatric dentist office to pick up Adam’s his dental records for a scrapbook. The nurse buys this. Oh, but Willa already picked them up. Willa’s got a lot of subterfuge going on.

Speaking of that, Willa tries to get John to join with the photo ops for the campaign. She points out that she has his back by letting him know that she knows about him and Meyer and has since she was 13, when she started erasing his incriminating e-mails and texts. John never noticed that they disappeared?

Willa did some growing up fast with covering up Dad’s affair and erasing his explicit texts, so now it’s payback time. She’s not threatening him, exactly. She’s asking her dad not to make her threaten him. See? Complex, intriguing female characters are a thing that can be done. You can do better, show.

Also, we’re all agreed that Willa is Bridey’s next target, yes? Fine.

Claire joins Adam in the closet to go to sleep. Nina looks at a big board for the Adam case, because of course he does. Craggy man refills his giant gas can. Hank sleeps on his mattress, looking at the hole in the ceiling.

Adam, in his sleep, says “My name is Adam,” Claire is creeped the hell out.

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