This week’s opening voiceover is Detective Clements! He says he wishes he could have been there to solve the case with Meyer and narrates as Doug and Jane smash his phone and otherwise dispose of the evidence.
Meyer, who is having an even worse day than she realizes, tries to roust Clements on his dead phone and then opens a confidential envelope. She starts watching Ben’s therapy sessions. Wait, can that happen?
Ben talks about what happened to him each day in the bunker and then accidentally says “we had school.” The therapist immediately leaps on the idea of Ben-Adam having an imaginary friend (which is weird, because school with Ben’s captor would also make that a “we”), but Meyer is more on her game. As Ben-Adam gives a few more details about his “friend,” Meyer starts taking notes on a foster kid named Ben.
Back home, Ben looks at the sock monkey closely and then lays it down on its back. Which screws up Claire’s view of him through the monkey cam she installed.
Early in the morning, Bad Reporter awakened by the sound of Willa working on her laptop. They’ve apparently had enough time to become a very comfortable couple.
Willa gets a call about a meeting that she totally forgot about. (So, wait, what time is it, then? If someone is already calling from work?) She lies that she can’t make it because Claire’s having a rough time since the affair story broke. Willa calls out to Imaginary Claire and says she needs to get Claire’s head in the game for the debate. Bad Reporter notes that that was a really good lie and Willa says she’s a really good liar. Bad Reporter is jealous of Willa’s superior lying ability, but also takes a minute to think “Yikes.”
At breakfast at the Warrens’, Ben brings down a box of Adam’s kid stuff to toss out— including the sock monkey. Willa comes in and claims an early morning (Seriously: WHAT TIME IS IT?) rather than a late night. Danny grumps that she probably had a lot to talk to God about, though his tone indicates that by “God,” he means Bad Reporter’s cervix.
Willa counters by going on the attack. She says she wants to make sure Danny isn’t buzzed for the big debate tonight and is in a proper suit. Then she says “Let’s talk about Dad’s affair.” So the lying is on point, yes, but she’s also no slouch at deflecting. Willa says women are loving the affair leak because their husbands all cheat on them too. Willa wants John to stand by Claire all contrite after the debate. Family values!
Doug is at Hank’s place, giving him a pedophile-to-pedophile breakdown of the work that needs to be done to fix the sticky drawers and cabinets. Is there a courtesy discount? Doug also uses his time on work breaks to take notes on the coming and going at the Warren place.
Ten years ago, Hank watches Adam in the park way too longingly. (It’s a well done moment, Andrew McCarthy, but holy crap.) He tells Adam they can’t be friends anymore because he’s older and Adam should play with kids his own age. Hank says that friends should want what’s best for each other, and what he wants isn’t best for Adam. That is some frank talk from Hank. He sends Adam away with ice cream money. Adam walks right Past Doug.
Meyer takes some grody harassment over the affair with John and pretty much snaps it off. She has things to do and a foster home to find.
Back at the Red Pines Tribune, Bad Reporter rants that Willa a pathological manipulative lying liar who lies. She’s pissed about the fact that she had the paternity test story ready to go, but Willa talked her out of it. Criminy, Bad Reporter. You’re just now figuring this out? And what exactly is stopping you from running with it now?
Editor Gus says whatever, she has a better story with the sister being complicit in Adam not being Adam anyway. Bad Reporter apparently had not figured that out.
Meyer calls Clements—no answer, of course—and goes straight to Ben’s foster home that we saw him visit last week. The foster dad says they’ve had a lot of kids go through—so many kids coming and going that he can’t say what happened to Ben. Meyer notes that Ben’s foster dad has multiple violations like right out in the open and way more than the number of kids he’s legally supposed to have, so she’s calling Social Services on him.
Bad Foster Dad’s memory suddenly improves. He says Ben just ran off one day and he couldn’t find him and didn’t want to lose his foster care license, so he just never called it in because he knows the follow-up is terrible. This must have been during one of the dimension shifts when Red Pines is a big city again.
Meyer announces that she already called Social Services on the creep. Meyer OUT. She goes straight to the Warrens.
Meyer wants to talk to Ben-Adam about the day Adam was kidnapped, which Willa and Claire are really, really not thrilled about. Ben says he can remember. He knows what Adam was wearing, because duh.
But Meyer’s not out of the game. Next she shows a picture of a girl from Adam’s third-grade class. Willa leaps in to say who she is. Meyer knows she’s close. She brings up a picture of Young Ben from the foster home. Ben starts to freak. John notices how cray Willa and Claire are being and wants to know what the hell.
Upstairs, Willa and Claire confer: They know that Meyer knows. Claire is freaking out. Willa says she’ll handle it, so focus on the debate. Claire doesn’t even know if she wants Ben around anymore. She doesn’t know him, and his being Adam’s friend isn’t good enough. Uh oh.
Back at Bar Everyone Always Goes To, Bad Reporter buys Danny a drink. She says he cleans up good. He’s cleaned up because he’s supposed to be at the debate. Bad Reporter says that behind every great politician is a great family. Danny asks how her boyfriend is.
Willa comes into Ben’s room and says it would be better if he stayed at home tonight, saying that Claire needs time to get used to him. Ben asks what happens if she never gets used to him and Willa ignores that and says she’ll leave him money for pizza. Damn, Willa, that is cold.
Doug works on Hank’s cabinets and offers condolences for Hank’s mom. He also offers to do the new cabinets for free. They’re only now negotiating on a price? Whatever, Hank says fine, because plot.
Claire drives away for the debate past Doug’s van, because Doug is totally normally working at night for free. And now he knows Ben is alone.
Ten years ago, Hank looks at Doug’s birdhouses. Doug is not at his stand because he’s busy abducting Adam. Hank buys a birdhouse and leaves money with the next vendor. Doug returns and brings Adam’s ship in a bottle, an extremely distinctive piece of evidence, back to his stand for no fucking reason whatsoever. Sometimes this show drives me so far up the walls I could high-five King Kong.
The gubernatorial debate! Willa and family watch as Lang talks about balancing the budget and reducing class size. Claire fires back and says he has fallen asleep at the wheel and hits him on family values.
Drinks left on the bar show that Bad Reporter and Danny are at it again, and the we see that this time up against a wall in an alley behind the bar. THANKS AGAIN FOR YOUR NUANCED PORTRAYAL OF BISEXUALS, SHOW. Please enjoy the lovely edible arrangement of dicks I’m sending over.
I can’t believe reporters aren’t at least a little offended too. Literally the only idea Bad Reporter has is to go back to schtupping Danny? Doesn’t the million-strong Red Pines Reporter-Blogger Alliance have enough might to stop this sort of thing?
Hank watches the debate as Doug has him sign for the free work. (What?) Doug says thanks and leaves. Ben watches on an iPad and gets pizza, pepperoni and pineapple as Willa coached earlier.
Lang calls Claire a one-issue candidate. He’s maybe not wrong? He says victims of crime don’t automatically deserve votes and she doesn’t have his experience. He says she’s using her son as a political prop—she used him to get elected mayor when he disappeared and now she’s using him to get elected governor now she has him back. Claire says she didn’t get her son back. It’s meant to be a huge moment of tension, but it’s just another one of the show’s many whiffed fakeouts that you can see coming from miles away, like a herd of Red Pines reporters across an open plain.
Claire talks about how she didn’t get her son back, that it’s not the same boy and she has a stranger in her house, but even though Ben gets the message, she obviously doesn’t blow it for the rest of the world and makes it about how the abduction changed him.
Claire goes back on the attack and charges Lang with running on his apparently famous last name, which, OK, we haven’t heard about before, but sure.
Meanwhile, Doug heads to the Warren house. Ben has left the door unlocked, as a kidnap victim who knows for sure that his abductor is still out there and sending him flowers and postcards would certainly do. Or maybe the family that’s hiding eleventy-million secrets while being constantly harried by reporters left the door unlocked. Either way, it totally works as a plot point.
Doug walks through the dark house and watches Adam through the doorway. “Hey, Ben,” he says, “Time to have a talk.”
Which would be a super creepy moment if we hadn’t blown it in the goddamned previews last week. Is Bad Reporter putting this all together or something?
We hear the Warrens come home as Willa exults that Claire wiped the floor with Lang. John agrees it was a blowout. Ben says he watched at home and Claire was great and what she said made sense. Willa notices that Ben is freaked out. He says he’s tired and pizza is in the fridge.
Meyer watches another session and hears a knock. It’s Jonah Clements, Gabe’s husband. Meyer finally knows that Clements never came home. He hasn’t been seen and his credit and debit cards haven’t been used in 36 hours. Meyer puts the police on full search.
Back at the Warren place, Claire asks Ben his name. He says Ben Murphy. She wants to know if he’s Irish and wonders where he was born. She wants to know if he really likes the tacos she’s been making for him every week. (No, they’re too spicy.) Ben apologizes for not being Adam. And says Claire doesn’t have to spy on him.
Hank putters around his kitchen, trying the newly unstuck drawers. He finds the seal Doug used to sign his work and realizes something. Suddenly Hank is pawing through the storage for that birdhouse. Yes, it has the same mark as the drawer. Now Hank knows who took Adam.
Danny comes in late/early and Willa asks who he was out with. He says “A friend.” Willa notes that Mom killed it. Danny says he messed up and he’s sorry. He almost says for banging Bad Reporter, but then says “about the debate.” Oh, Willa. We knew this was coming.
Hank Asher walks into the police station with a birdhouse-sized paper bag in his hands. He wants to talk to Meyer, who is busy getting her search party on. He says he’ll wait — it’s worth it.
Meyer tries her messages again, trying to figure out what happened to Clements. His sweet husband is freaking out and rightly so.
Jane, with trembling hands, makes a nice breakfast and takes it to Doug’s creepy shed, softly chanting “I’m so sorry.” And there is tied-up Clements, bleeding but alive. Jane says she’s sorry directly now.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: This show should be called Terrible Plans.
Claire has a Betty Crocker cookbook out. She tells Willa it’s Ben’s birthday next week—Ben’s not Adam’s—so he should have something special. Looks like someone’s about to creep out the entire goddamned family by parroting “I want a big piece! I want the frosting!” Claire says it’s the least she can do, then mentions Adam’s illness.
Willa charges outside to Ben. He told Willa a different story about Adam dying—he’d told her that Adam fell and hit his head. Willa, an accomplished liar herself, wants to know which it was. Ben says both: Adam fell and hit his head and then he got sick. He was sweating and he was burning up. Willa believes that… Maybe. Frankly, Willa, I think you have some other problems on deck.
In session, Ben-Adam asks why the therapist’s fighting fish have to be separated. She says because they’re both boys. If you left two boys together, one of them would kill the other.
Uh oh.
Well, once again, this show was an absolute mess of sloppy plot points, potential great moments stepped on by clumsy treatment, and a fucking appalling characterization in the shape of Bad Reporter. There had better be a hell of a lot more Willa next week.
See you then.
