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“The Family” recap (1.4): Strange Little Girl

Claire is the voiceover intro/outro this week and about time, too, because Joan Allen has been slaying in this role, as she pretty much always does. We pan over debris and broken furniture and blood on the floor of a house. “If they cut you open,” Claire asks, “what would they find? Feathers or steel?” Claire leaves you no doubt that she’s filled to the brim with steel.

It’s eight years ago, and sad Christmas music is playing while Claire is visiting Hank in prison. No, she’s not on his list. She’s the friggin’ mayor. She just wants to know where Adam’s body is so she can have a funeral. Hank says he can’t help with that. (Because he didn’t murder Adam, except if Maybe-Adam isn’t Adam, then maybe he did.)

Present-day Hank wakes up. A window is smashed. He checks outside and sees “Monster” spray-painted on his garage door.

Willa comes home with armloads of papers from way out of state that are covering the Maine Governor’s race. OK, sure. Danny walks into breakfast with Bad Reporter, who the family is shocked to see he’s been sexing up. Really? He was living in a motel with Bad Slutty Ladies like a week and a half ago. Danny helpfully clarifies that Bad Reporter is not a hooker. She says yes to waffles, to the delight and comfort of no one. Dude.

Across the street, Maybe-Adam apologizes to Hank, who is scrubbing his garage even though it won’t come off. Maybe-Adam picks up a sponge that won’t be doing a damn thing because it has no rough side. Claire and John come out and are all what the hell, just build another ship in a bottle for chrissakes. Hank asks Maybe-Adam to please, please go.

Agent Clements approaches the ever-awesome Detective Nina Meyer. An eight-year-old boy was just snatched in a public park, with the same M.O. as Adam’s kidnapping. We’re looking for a white male in a white van. It’s on.

We learn that Craggy Man is named Doug, and his pregnant wife is setting up what looks like one of those themed yard parties the Brady Bunch used to throw. She can’t believe Doug is so late and wouldn’t answer his phone. Also? Doug has a secret trap door in the floor of his shed. Well, that can’t be good.

Meyer and Clements wonder if it’s a copycat or the same kidnapper looking for a replacement Adam. Doug gets a shovel.

Eight years ago, Claire is pissed off and wants a funeral for Adam, but not an empty coffin. She snarls at John about his damn grief book and he’s frustrated at her for not moving on.

Today, Willa brings Claire up the steps of the Governor’s Mansion. Willa says Claire won’t politicize the new boy’s disappearance and then Claire around to do exactly that, but real subtle Mama Bear-like. Governor Lang, the guy Claire is challenging, reassures an aide that sex offenders and microchips won’t fly for too long. The aide is all “Dude, you are toast. Old, dry, stale toast.”

Claire turns to the cameras to address the kidnapper directly and suddenly she’s all badass and is like I WILL FIND YOU and basically delivers Liam Neeson‘s speech from Taken, only scarier.

Governor Lang enters what is supposed to be his own press conference, and no one is there because all the reporters are writing Claire’s initials + their initials on their notebooks with hearts around them.

…And it’s all too politically perfect. My guess is one of the Warren women either jumped on a sudden opportunity real fast or hired Maybe-Adam to show up and impersonate their dead family member (eesh) so that Claire would have a fresh and heart-rending issue to rocket her into the Governor’s office. Adam’s return got leaked during Claire’s big speech, for one thing. I just can’t decide if it’s Claire or Willa. Claire’s more overtly bad-ass, but my money is on Willa. Remember that scene last week when she caught Maybe-Adam spying on her and she said, “You can’t do this. I’m your sister”? It totally could work as “I am supposed to be your sister,” said between conspirators. Plus, we know Willa likes to arrange things for her parents. If only she had channeled those impulses into croquet parties.

Back at the Tribune, Bad Reporter tells Editor Gus that Claire made her an almond-milk latte this morning. Gus is up-to-date on the fact that Danny is unsure, so he brought Bad Reporter in to help out. She tells Gus that she said she’d give Danny a heads-up before she ran with anything. Because that’s the kind of promise reporters make. Gus calls Danny her “bang boy” and points out that he didn’t make that promise.

Hank is taping cardboard over his broken window. He has a scar that looks a lot like it’s from getting shanked. A police officer arrives and suggests a pressure washer for the garage door and hands Hank a restraining order. He has to stay 100 yards away from the Warrens, who are just across the street. Hank can’t go past the tree in his front yard.

Meyer and Clements lament over how the tip line is flooded after Claire’s press conference—almost like Claire doesn’t give a rat about finding any kidnapper?—but Cements has a surveillance photo of a dude by a white van that matches the kidnapper’s description. They show it to Maybe-Adam, and he quietly freaks. Myer wants to know if that’s the guy who took him and Maybe-Adam nods and Danny is so not sure about anything anymore.

Eight years ago, Claire asks the former assistant warden from Hank’s prison to head her security detail. He wonders if there’s anything else he can do for her to help get Hank to talk. Back in prison, Hank gets served what seems to be a glass-and-razor-blade sandwich. He’s bleeding from every possible surface in his mouth as a fellow prisoner walks up with a shiv.

Today, Hank checks every part of his sandwich before digging in. Might be time to form a support group with Piper Chapman. Hank tells a lawyer he wants to sue the Warrens for slander and defamation. The lawyer says Hank already got paid a bunch of money for the wrongful conviction, and he’d be suing Wounded Family Values Mom and oh, yes he’s a convicted sex offender, so good luck with that, Sparky. The lawyer also brings up the really good point of maybe take that $300,000 and move somewhere else and have a quiet life.

Back at the Tribune, Danny says he thinks Maybe-Adam is real now because he freaked out so hard after seeing his maybe-kidnapper and he couldn’t fake that. (He could totally fake that.) Bad Reporter tries to distract Danny, who she’s pretty sure is an alcoholic, with a drink. Charming. Danny is hoping Bad Reporter didn’t tell anyone about the not-really-being-Adam thing. Um. She says no, of course, she didn’t because she’s his friend. Are we clear on the fact that Bad Reporter is a bad reporter who lies yet? Also sneaky! I’m so glad she’s straight!

Craggy Doug’s pregnant wife says it’s a couples’ baby shower. That they’re throwing for themselves? She announces that she’s going to go get the sherbet from the deep freeze and he’s all NO THERE ARE RAT TRAPS DOWN THERE AND ALSO PROBABLY GILA MONSTERS. How did this man keep something hidden for a decade?

The Warrens have a tense lunch. OK, but there’s no glass in it, so be grateful for what you have, Warrens. Willa, all over her phone, says CNN says the Bad Man is in custody, then says that they have reversed on that. CNN is following this? John sees that this is stressful and takes Maybe-Adam out for some air.

Meyer and Clements are driving around investigating, and he calls her out because she only eats food in bar form, which is a line from The Simpsons. Really, show? Clements says Meyer needs to de-stress and his husband used to be an air-traffic controller, but he quit, and they bought some land and some bees and got rid of his stress ulcers and now the two of them “make honey.” Well, no. Bees make the honey unless Clements and his husband are putting in a lot of extra effort. OH, WAIT— HE’S GAY. Damn, did this show just blow your mind, or what?

No. No, it did not blow your mind, because this is not 1982. And also, if you’re on this site, you know that LGBT people lead real, complex lives and some of them do not, in fact, spend all day grinding in red Speedos aboard the Altoids float at the Pride parade. I know the show is trying to be all “Look how freaking enlightened and cool we are!” with this moment, but it just illustrates how badly The Family has done with Bad Reporter.

Clements being gay was supposed to be a surprise reveal, so they wrote a likable and complex character who acts just like straight people. They wrote a character who “seems straight”—in other words, a real person—and then turned him gay and look how much more fun he is to watch and follow. I haven’t wanted to put my fist through a wall because of Clements even once. With Bad Reporter, they seem to have started with the idea that she’s somewhere on the non-straight spectrum—and why specify? Lesbian lifestyle blogger, bisexual, aren’t all those people the same?—and then that’s all they’ve given her. She’s called “omnisexual” in the promo materials, which isn’t a thing. The writers could have used bi, fluid, or pansexual, which are terms that are actually in use, but they didn’t want that, they wanted “omnisexual.” They reverse engineered the phrase “Dude, she’ll fuck anything!” And that’s all they’ve given her. She’s the same lying, sneaky bisexual (or whatever) that we’ve seen in a thousand shows and movies before. I enjoy Clements a lot, but no, this does not make up for Bad Reporter, who is a walking stereotype. Well, I guess “walking” isn’t really the verb.

WAIT, THERE’S THE KIDNAPPER VAN! Meyer executes a perfect screaming U-turn. Possibly related: Doug is not at the couples’ shower.

John teaches Maybe-Adam some baseball in the yard in front of the giant, giant house that they somehow could afford before John wrote books and Claire became mayor. What jobs did they give up for those things?

Meyer and Clements search a seedy hotel, probably the one Danny used to stay in. If this show had a better sense of humor, the cops would burst in on the Bad Ladies from the pilot. Meyer finds a boy tied to a hotel bed. Gah. There’s a gun on the nightstand. Meyer silently moves in.

Maybe-Adam sucks at baseball. Claire happily remembers Young Adam sucking at baseball.

Doug comes into the couples’ shower late.

Meyer shoots the hell out of an unarmed man who is not Craggy Doug. Just straight-up kills him.

Claire puts linens away and sees something in her closet. Probably Willa. Nope! It’s a little heart pin with diamonds on it. Flash back to Christmas (Or Christmas Eve?) eight years ago. Claire gets a sweater, but she’s too sad about Adam to enjoy it. She gets upset and walks out crying. The sweater is a little tacky. Later, she drives by Meyer’s places and watches John and Nina decorating on her Christmas tree (Now?) and making out.

Whoopsie! The guy Meyer shot was not the guy who kidnapped Maybe-Adam—he was in prison when Adam was taken. Doug is back in play! John wants much too urgently to know if Nina is hurt and Claire is done with this. Back at the station, another cop takes Meyer’s gun away and talks about the shooting. Meyer lies like she’s Bad Reporter and says she identified herself as a cop when she walked in (nope!) and that the boy was in immediate danger (also, nope!) and the man pointed his gun at her (Nosiree!) and didn’t drop it when he was ordered to. (A thousand times no!) IS NO ONE GOOD AT HER JOB ON THIS SHOW? (Yes: Probably Willa.)

Back in time at the hotel, Clements helps Meyer move the gun and set the scene, so she’s in the clear. Well, at least they have a friendly partnership.

Maybe-Adam asks John how the alarm panel works. John tells him the code. John, what the hell are you doing? John is basically a fountain of terrible decisions. Adam goes to his room and writes down the Alarm code “05-22 “and wraps the key in the paper and puts it in his secret hidey desk drawer.

Mayor Warren is at Governor Lang’s giant mansion, and he pulls high status and wants to dictate what issues the race is to be run on so Claire won’t stomp him. He suggests Red Pines is a backwater, which is weird because it has a huge newspaper with a lesbian lifestyle blogger and everything. Also, he suggests that Clair can’t handle tough, smart things like budgets and negotiating with labor unions. He quizzes her on how many freshmen are in this year’s state legislature. Does she know their names? She says yes and Lang thinks he has her for a minute, because there aren’t any, but then Claire tells him it’s true that there are none in the Senate, but there are two in the House, and she knows their damn names. This is supposed to be a wicked triumph for Claire, but it makes no sense. Why the hell would Lang—Governor Lang—assume “the legislature” covered only one of the two houses? There’s just no way he would do that. Nevertheless, Claire looks him dead in the eye and basically gives the Taken speech again, only she’s coming for his votes.

Claire tells Lang not to worry: She’s only going to microchip the sex offenders, not the adulterers. Claire calmly digs into her delicious lunch as Lang covers his entire body in burn ointment and wonders when his testicles will descend again.

Bad Reporter shows up at the Warrens and says she left her phone in Danny’s room. Willa lets her in and does not follow her, which is the least Willa thing I can think of. Rookie move, Willa. Bad Reporter rifles Adam’s room, and finally his trash and—yucko—pulls out a DNA-rich Q-Tip. OK, no, I’m calling foul. Maybe-Adam did not get a Q-Tip the shared bathroom and then wander around the hallways cleaning his ears and then bring it back to his own room to throw away. OK, fine, maybe he keeps a Q-Tip supply in his own room, because of all the meticulous ear-cleaning he must have done when he lived in a darkened tunnel.

Also, why did Bad Reporter not do this earlier this morning, when Danny was still on board with this project, and she and Danny were upstairs, and everyone was downstairs, and she had Danny for cover? Bad reporter! Bad!

Willa busts Bad Reporter, but not nearly hard enough. The statement is not “This is Adam’s room,” Willa. You should be saying “You know this is not Danny’s room because you’ve already slept in there, so what the hell are you doing?” Seriously, why is Willa not going a little more ballistic?

Bad Reporter says that Willa doesn’t like her much, and Willa says she doesn’t know her much. But Bad reporter remembers Willa from high school.

Willa sends Bad Reporter across the hall to Danny’s room and pretty much sniffs the air to try to figure out what she was up to. Well, Willa, maybe you shouldn’t have let her roam around the house unescorted in the first place.

Meyer’s boss knows damn well that Meyer lied about the shooting and he demands she take a psych evaluation. I love her, but I can’t argue with that.

Clements and the rescued kid and his mom are all at the hospital pulling it back together, and Clements is being super sweet with the kid because Clements is a real character. Claire takes Meyer aside to tell her how grateful the Warrens are for Nina’s dedication to the case and oh, Claire would also like Meyer to stop fucking her husband immediately. Because this is Claire’s day for getting things done, she makes sure to tell Meyer that she’s far from the only one and John has been getting plenty of grief-author tail on the side.

Which is not to suggest that Claire won’t hold a press conference to laud Meyer and Clements as heroes because she totally does. Meyer is juuuuust a tad uncomfortable. Claire gives her a big, happy side-hug.

Back in the past, Claire finds the box for that pin she’ll find in the closet in eight years. John is giving Claire her Christmas present a tad late, on account of all the holly jolly yuletide sex he was having. He’s going to confess the affair (too late!), and Claire tells him she wants to have a funeral for Adam and move on, body or no. She says she’ll open the gift tomorrow.

Tonight, Claire cooked. HAHA, CAREER WOMEN COOKING! GET IT? Danny is there for Dinner and Willa has totally Googled Bad Reporter and also drops a dime on her for being in Adam’s room. She asks Danny to tell her they’ll mail back any future panties he finds.

Doug’s wife is nervous about that deep freeze. Good for you, Doug’s wife. She goes into The Shed of Dark Portents… But Doug has been building her a crib. He says that’s the big thing he was hiding from her. He says what, you thought I was doing something shady? And then he agrees with her that he’s a terrible liar. At least this bit is authentic. Pro tip: All serial liars will find a reason to casually mention what terrible liars they are. Hyuk-hyuk, they just can’t hide a thing! For real: Put it down as a red flag and thank me later.

Danny is at Bad Reporter’s place because he broke in because he’s all mad now that she’s still pursuing the story he got nervous about pursuing. She points out that this is a tad naïve. Danny wants her to give back whatever she took, but she says it’s too late. Danny calls her a lying bitch and she calls him a stupid drunk. I believe the bloom is off the rose of this relationship. Bad Reporter says, “This obviously isn’t going to end in sex, so why don’t you just go?” Because omnisexual, bro! [Sexy guitar riff]

Willa kneels by her bed, praying hard. No, wait. That one hand is no longer in the praying position. YES, SHE IS THINKING ABOUT LADYSEX.

I will not gloat over having clocked Willa’s orientation in the pilot. That would be unseemly. I will simply take a small, tasteful victory lap around my apartment as Willa thinks about a whole lot more ladysex with someone who is wearing a ton of silver rings and is bad at reporting.

Clements brings Meyer a jar of honey that he and his husband chewed up and barfed out all by themselves. She wonders if The Bad Man will take another kid. Meyer says they always do.

Doug is back in the Scary Shed. He moves the decoy crib and heads down through the trap door. OK, he’s a creep, but credit where credit is due: A handmade wooden decoy crib is a hell of a lot of prep.

Hank violates his restraining order and walks out to the end of his yard and stands less than 100 feet from the Warrens’ house.

…And we’re back to the debris and blood we saw at the beginning of the show. A battered Hank is lying in it.

Next week, we find out if Maybe-Adam is really Adam, which I’m sure will be very nice, but who gives a rat? Just tell us what’s up with Willa.

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