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“The Family” recap (1.8): Atta Girl, Willa

We’re back with the opener/closer voiceover convention, which is fine. Today it’s Hank, talking about the masks we all wear. OK, sure. Ten years ago, Hank is evasive with his mom after a date with a lady. Mom Asher, thinking she’s figured it out, says it’s OK if Hank’s gay; he says that’s not it. Hank’s mom also announces that she lost her spot at the rec center, so she’ll be teaching piano to kids at home. Uh oh.

Hank voiceovers that if you take your mask off, you risk being seen. Do you ever feel like sometimes this show is worried that we won’t get stuff?

Present day, Claire awkwards with Ben, who doesn’t know she knows he’s not Adam. Be careful, show. We are teetering on the edge of a Three’s Company plot. Ben tries an “I love you” and gets a “goodnight” in return. Ouch.

Willa is in church and another woman comes in. She introduces herself as Governor Lang’s wife, Patty. How would Willa not know this when Maine politics are on the national news all the time? Patty Lang threatens Willa with some excellent high-res photos of Claire definitely drinking too much and maybe driving drunk and falling asleep on a bench. Willa did, for the record, warn Claire that she might get seen if she went out. Patty tells Willa that if Claire drops out now to “get some experience” and waits four years for Lang to be out of office, these pictures don’t have to come out.

First off, since we’ve established that one of Claire’s big gotchas against the Governor is his affairs, I think it’s safe to say that the Langs have a complex and interesting marriage. I may want to see a show about that. Second, is Patty Governor Lang’s Willa? Does every Maine political candidate have one family member who goes rogue? Third, who the hell took these pictures and then brought them to the governor instead of releasing them and either a) getting a giant story or b) stopping Claire’s campaign right there? Did an ordinary citizen take the pictures and not know where to go with them? Red Pines has more newspapers and TV stations than it has grains of sand. Since the Governor himself has already had a humiliating dogfight with Claire, he would presumably just release the photos. Does Patty have her own private spy photographer out tailing Claire at all hours of the night and day? It feels like a bit much for the early stages of the Maine governor’s race.

It doesn’t really matter, since this show glosses over everything to do with reality when it needs a plot point. There need to be damning photos of Claire, so POOF, there are production-quality photos of Claire out late at night in a completely unpredictable spot. Fine.

Anyway, Patty says hey, sure, a male candidate could get away with a night of crazy drinking, but a woman candidate can’t, so it’s time for Claire to drop the hell out of the race if she doesn’t want those pictures fed to the ravenous Red Pines media maw.

Detective Meyer talks to Craggy Doug’s girlfriend Jane, who she randomly spotted on mall security footage after the Terrible Plan went down. Meyer says that Adam’s abductor was at the mall when Jane was. Jane thinks back to Craggy Doug getting her out of the mall right quick and casual and it starts to click in for her. (After ten freaking years of other little clues didn’t?) Jane lies that she didn’t see anyone from the refinery at the mall. We’re all hoping that she goes home and straight-up murders Doug, but no such luck.

Jane does go home and tears the place apart looking for Doug’s blue jacket. Which is not there to find, because he ditched it at the mall.

Late at night, Ben turns off the alarm and takes a key—the one he pulled out from between the bricks at the bunker—and leaves the Warren house. Hank watches from a window.

Ten years ago, a boy about Adam’s age shows up at Hank’s house for a piano lesson. Mrs. Asher isn’t there and it’s raining. Hank, crying, hides to keep from letting him in. Claire spots Hank skulking inside the house and not letting the kid in and wonders what the hell.

OK, this is one of the areas where I’m hitting my limit with this show. This whole Sympathy for Hank thing had better be a long con. The show seems to be making the case, over and over, that Hank has never really done anything wrong and has been trying his best not to hurt kids. It has even been pointedly vague about Hank’s exposing-himself-in-the-park rap to allow the audience to think that maybe we’ll find out it was some sort of mistake or no big deal.

It’s true that there are pedophiles out there who have never given into their impulses and have never harmed a child, and they should be have better access to help. But Hank is NOT one of them. The show has made it clear that Hank had child porn on his computer, and child porn isn’t made in a vacuum. Kids get abused and abducted to make it, in fact, so let’s quit fucking suggesting that Hank’s only crime is a victimless one. Hank hasn’t abducted any kids, but he’s the market for people who do. Hank is how people a lot like Doug get paid. If the show’s writing team, in all its desperate, flailing attempts at blow-your-mind hipness, has lost sight of that, it’s reprehensible. So let’s hope this vile pretension gets blown up with all speed.

Ten years ago, Claire asks John about Hank. He only knows that Hank got laid off and moved in with Mom a few months ago. Hmmmm. Claire hies herself to The Google.

In the present, Ben and John play catch while Claire watches. Willa moves in to confront Claire about the photos because Jesus Christ, why can’t people just do what Willa says? Claire just snaps at Willa to fix it—after all, she’s covered up much worse.

A real estate agent comes in to assess Hank’s house. All OK except for a dated look to the wooden cabinets and a stuck kitchen drawer. Also she says she’ll check for sex offenders in the neighborhood. Hank assures her that there is one.

Clements has a DNA report from the blue jacket. We’ve got fur from a yellow lab. They’re going to check registrations from shelters. A uniformed officer interrupts and says he has late-night footage of Ben-Adam on an ATM camera downtown. Meyer, in a discreet baseball cap, tails Ben on a bus as he left-handedly writes down more notes about Adam’s habits and personality traits. (Why now?) Ben uses the key he took from the bunker to go into a house. Meyer lingers on the bus so as not to be seen and loses him.

Inside the house, Ben looks at a ton of photos on the mantel. He picks one up of a boy. A dog (terrier, not yellow lab) barks, but then welcomes him. Ben cuddles on the couch with the dog.

Ten years ago, Hank’s mom comes over to the Warren place. Claire breaks the news that her kids won’t be taking piano lessons anymore. Hank’s mom doesn’t get it. Claire says to ask Hank what it is and who he is.

Present day, Hank comes over to the Warren place. Claire is about to flip out when he says he saw Ben-Adam walking at 2:00 in the morning and she’s not paying attention. Hank then just starts twisting the knife. He tells her that Young Adam was over at his place every day and he never did a thing to him. (Again, let’s talk about the child porn, Mr. Righteous.)

Hank says that Adam didn’t disappear because of him, which is a fair point. He says Adam disappeared because Claire was a bad mom who wasn’t watching and never paid attention. And just like that, the show is back in 1957, when a mom gets blamed for everything that happens to her kids, even during an instance when she’s specifically instructed two teenage siblings to keep an eye on him. It sure is awful of Claire to have been interested in running for city council. Anyway, after his first rant lands, Hank yells that Ben is gone for hours every night and Claire should be a better mom and keep an eye on her son. And then he goes to yell at John. Ha ha, no. Dads don’t need to think about their kids!

Back in the same bar everyone goes to all the time even though Red Pines has a positively shimmering lesbian bar scene, Bad Reporter is also being bad at the claw machine game. Danny sees her, because why would she avoid the bar she knows he frequents? This show’s refusal to decide whether Red Pines is a small town or a bustling metropolis is baffling. Maybe it’s kind of like Brigadoon, only instead of appearing and disappearing it gets larger and smaller?

Danny takes over Bad Reporter’s claw machine game and she tells him she gave up on reporting on his family because they’re “too slippery.” That’s one bad reporter!

As Danny flirts and claw games, Bad Reporter gets a rapid-fire series of texts from someone. Danny wonders if it’s her “boyfriend” and also wonders if her dog likes him. Have we seen Bad Reporter having a dog? I guess they suddenly needed her to have a dog. Look forward to the dog driving an important plot point next week! Danny claws up a big pink penguin and gives it to Bad Reporter. Nice try, but I think Willa has a better prize to offer.

Willa gets into Bad Reporter’s car and says the barrage of texts is work-related. Then they kiss.

Willa says she’s handing Bad Reporter her story and Bad Reporter is shocked at whatever tasty evidence she’s handing over. Bad Reporter says “I now I’m being manipulated, but I don’t know how,” and Willa replies “That’s why they call it ‘manipulation.’ Cute penguin.”

OK, bad-ass Willa is great, but that is literally the entire extent of the thinking that Bad Reporter does over being handed an explosive story from a source who has very good reasons to hide it and no apparent reasons to release it. She will indeed be keeping this nickname for a while. Unless we need to start calling her Bisexual Plot Device.

Clements spots Meyer staking out for Ben and scolds her for getting distracted from their real mission on a hunch. He tells her to go home and get some sleep and he’s going home to his angry husband.

Claire waits up and busts Ben going out at 2:00 a.m. She tells him he can’t live there anymore. She says they’ll find him a good “facility.” Sorry, how is the gubernatorial candidate in the race that keeps getting covered by the national media going to pull that off? Ben tries sentimentality with “Mom! Mom!” and then goes practical with “I’ll be on the news!” Claire says they’ll spin it. To be clear: She says they will “spin” the story of her kicking out the abducted boy that she spent days pretending was her long-lost abducted son. I would genuinely like to see that spin. In one last desperate swing, Ben says he’ll tell Claire all about Adam and who he grew up to be.

Ten years ago, Claire warns John that Hank exposed himself in a park. John downplays it, saying maybe Hank was just taking a pee at the wrong time or something. Thin ice, show. John doesn’t want to warn Young Adam about the sex offender across the street because he doesn’t want his son to know yet that the world is scary enough to have sex offenders in it. This show should just be called Terrible Plans.

Back in the present, Ben tells Claire all about Adam. What he liked to read, and that he made funny voices. He says Adam came up with really good escape plans. “Really good” is a tricky term, because apparently none of them worked. (Though is there any chance Adam’s escape plan involved faking getting deathly ill and only getting himself out of there?)

Hours later, apparently, Claire asks Ben, all tucked into bed now, how Adam died. Ben says one day Adam just got sick. (Hmm.) Ben falls asleep and Claire strokes his shoulder.

The next day, Claire goes next door to where Hank is hammering up a Lang yard sign and says thank you. If this is seriously a redemption arc for Hank I am going to tear some shit up.

Clements, normally a charming character, orders breakfast in a completely persnickety fashion (firm whites, runny yolks, hollandaise on the side…) that all servers hate. Then Clements sees a dog adoption record for a yellow lab with Jane’s number on it. Clements phones Meyer, leaves a way-too-cryptic message, and appears to skip out on his order. Everyone pour some orange juice on the floor for that poor waitress.

Clements is interviewing Jane at home. He asks if she’s married. No, just her boyfriend. (Jesus, Doug.) She says they’ve been together since high school. And now Clements is the second person in law enforcement to ask Jane if Doug was at the mall the day they were looking for Adam’s abductor. She says yes. Jane is having a bit of a challenging day. …And there’s the yellow lab. Clements asks Jane to come with him right now because she may be in danger. Jane says she needs to get her purse and turn off the stove. Everyone cringes because we’re worried that Jane is in fact going to get a gun. Clements collects fur evidence from the dog as Jane walks up real quiet and nails him with a frying pan. Well, we knew she was going to do something like that. This show has a bad habit of telegraphing its punches. It’s too bad. That moment could have been a bone-chiller.

Ten years ago, Hank comes home and Mom asks him what the hell Claire was talking about and what is going on. Hank says he didn’t let the kid in “because he was safer out in the rain than alone with me.”

Detective Meyer meets John and asks how Ben-Adam is adjusting. John says that “Adam’s” pitching arm is finally getting as good as when Adam was seven years old. It hits Meyer. She flashes back to Ben doing a bunch of things left-handed. That is an impressive photographic memory. Or completely farfetched. One of those. Anyway, after searching through old pictures to confirm that the real Adam was right handed, Meyer knows.

As Meyer comes back to the police station, everyone is staring at her. We cut to the Warren’s bedroom, where the news is on and all over them again. A lot of hungry Red Pines reporters have been eating this month. Turns out that Willa’s big leak was “decade-old graphic texts” between John and Detective Meyer about their affair—whatever texts we didn’t already see Willa obsessively deleting, apparently.

Claire knows exactly who sprung a leak and can’t believe that Willa would throw her father to the wolves. Willa says this will erase the problem of Claire going on a bender, because who wouldn’t after she found out her husband has been cheating? Willa says it’ll save Claire with women—they’ll even be on her side. So there’s no point in Lang releasing his dumb old photos. Claire understands another terrifying little piece of what she’s raised.

“Where did I go wrong with you?” Claire asks, “Did I miss a recital?”

Willa fires back that if she had gone to college or had friends or moved out into her own place, Claire would be a puddle of uselessness right now, assuming she hadn’t killed herself. Willa says everything Claire has is because Willa stayed and held her up and p.s. you’re welcome.

Goddamn, Willa.

Doug comes home to Jane furiously scrubbing the frying pan. Jane asks Doug, in a tone that suggests he’d better have a good fucking answer, who the extra Cheerios that they bought every week were for. And then the show does one of those baffling crazymaking slapdash things it does every now and then. In this case, Jane makes a big point of how there was an extra box of Cheerios on the shopping list every week even though the two of them didn’t eat that many Cheerios. Which is an insane point to stick on because just last week the show made a big deal of the boys eating those mini single-serving boxes of cereal. Does the cereal shrink and grow too? And were there no other shopping anomalies?

And then, in another moment of hair-tearing-out sloppiness, Jane says “You said it would never happen again,” which means she knew before that Doug had done something like this, so HOW ABOUT NOTICING AND QUESTIONING THE CHEERIOS TEN YEARS AGO, JANE? Is the character stupid or not? Is she in denial or not?

Jane says she knows Doug took Adam and she scrubs even harder. As she repeats “How could you take that boy? How could you?” Doug steps forward and sees like a gallon of blood in the sink and the pan, so I guess we all have secrets to keep now, don’t we?

Also, either Clements was extremely understanding about that first pan swat and concocted an elaborate sting plot with Jane, or this show seems to have—shocker of all shockers!—killed off a gay side character. And how kind of them to have him mention his husband and remind us that he was gay before knocking him off. It’s too bad. I thought they’d let Clements be. Bad Reporter’s odds of surviving the season drop to 7%.

Ten years ago, Mom Asher is making juice and Hank offers to leave. She says no more parks, no more kids, never ever again, and she’ll help him. I guess this week’s theme is Ladies Enable Shit. Hank asks why and Mom says because he’s her son.

Present day, Hank is unsticking the stuck drawer and finds a card for a woodworker. There’s a note on the back, presumably in Mom’s handwriting, that says “Pleasant man, hard worker. Would use again.”

Willa is leaving the house dressed all demurely and turns down Danny for drinks so she can meet a “friend from church,” the church presumably being Our Lady of Repeated Bliss. Danny gently mocks her for being all churchy and then turns to see the pink penguin on Willa’s bed.

Oh, symbolic pink penguin. Long may you be with us.

Also? There’s a lot wrong with this show, but I do like Willa as the player in her relationship with Bad Reporter instead of the one who gets played.

Claire comes in to say goodnight to Ben. She’s not really acting like a mom, but she’s friendlier. She puts the stuffed sock monkey back on his/Adam’s shelf, telling him it made it through the dryer. Ben tries an “I love you” and gets one back.

Jane looks out the window at Doug dragging what is presumably Clements’ wrapped body to the shed. Claire monitors Adam on a nannycam that she’s hidden inside the monkey. Well, Hank told her to watch him.

There’s a knock on Hank’s door. The woodworker Hank’s mom called in ten years ago was Doug. So now we know how Doug first spotted young Adam.

Also, Doug clearly know where this is, because he’s sent postcards to Ben at the Warrens’ address. And Doug knows the investigation is heating up because they just tried to bait him into showing himself at the mall and an FBI agent showed up at his house. Would you show up across the street to make some cabinets if you were Doug? I would not.

Still, that’s a tense situation, isn’t it? Makes you wonder what will happen, right? Well, you don’t need to, because right there in the goddamned previews for next week we see Doug sneak into the Warren house and say hello to Ben.

Way to give up a scare for almost no payoff. I bet someone in ABC’s marketing department is getting threatened with a frying pan right about now too.

See you next week. May you all gain control of the penguin in the meantime.

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