Twisted 1.16 “The Son Also Falls” Recap

Karen is stunned to learn that Danny was the one responsible for Vik’s death, but instead of being angry or wanting to turn him in, she assures him that he did the right thing. Vikram was coming after him and after everything that her husband put her son through with Tara’s murder, he got what he deserved. Since she claims to not have had a part in moving the body, suspicions turn to Jack, who she thinks would be willing to do anything for her. Meanwhile, Jo comes home from skipping stones on the water with Charlie and finds that Danny sneaked into her room while she was gone. He tells her about the conversation with Karen and how they might not have to worry anymore since neither she nor Jack would do anything to get them in trouble. As such, Jo tells Danny that she wants to take time to herself and focus on moving on from the accident without him.

The following morning, Karen urges Danny to focus on school and on Lacey; she wants him to withhold the truth from her like Jack is doing to them. Also turning her attention from recent events is Jo, who meets with guidance counselor Miss Tanaka because she wants to figure out a way to get more out of high school. However, Tanaka informs her that her sudden interest in extracurriculars might be too little, too late, as colleges tend to prefer self-starters and those with passion over those who panic about their applications looking a little thin. She gets the idea to run for student body president the day before the candidate speeches were to be given at a school assembly and Charlie seems excited to help her with her campaign. Not as excited are Rico and Andie, the latter running for president not out of urgency but out of desire to help those around her. She tells Jo that she’s very much okay with the move, just as Jo goes off with Charlie to work on the campaign.

While Karen pays a visit to Jack and learns that his daughter Whitney has returned from boarding school, Danny waits for Lacey in the parking lot before school, where he tries to get her to talk to him. When she rejects his advances, citing her annoyance with how secretive and distant he’s been since he returned home, he tells her that he saw Vik the night he died and that the two had a fight before the car accident. Lacey accepts this and hugs him, while Karen agrees to let Whitney borrow some clothes due to the girl’s mother being in Europe and Kyle expresses his anger to Tess about her deliberately keeping her first child a secret from him. She says that she wanted to have a perfect family and the two get interrupted by Jo and Charlie arriving with campaign supplies. Though Rico has no idea why she’s running, especially since it’s caused Andie to question whether she wants to run, Jo and Charlie work on the campaign in her room before he has to go to work, all the while he flirts with her and causes her to be embarrassed. Meanwhile, Danny falls asleep studying for his history exam and dreams that Vikram climbs in through his window and urges him to use the insurance money to keep the demons at bay.

Jo arrives early for school to put signs up and runs into Lacey, who can’t focus on her studying due to what Danny told her. Though she doesn’t think he’s telling her everything, Lacey’s worried about him, while Jo just thinks that he’s the same ol’ untrustworthy Danny that they’ve had to deal with since he’s been back. Back at the Desai home, Whitney tries on some of Karen’s clothes and confesses that her mother’s boyfriend made advances on her twice; Karen decides to go to Jack, who calls Whitney’s mother and tells her that Whitney will be staying with him for the time being. Meanwhile, Danny leaves most of his exam blank and bribes his history teacher, also the soccer coach, with the promise of new uniforms and equipment if he can get an A on the exam. Also at school, Rico confronts Jo about her selfish decision to run for president, which could get in the way of somebody who wants to make real change at Green Grove High, and Whitney gets enrolled before inadvertently running into Danny and Lacey, the latter getting assigned by Miss Tanaka to show her around school.

On the way to the bathroom before speeches are to begin, Jo blows up at Danny for putting her in an awkward position with Lacey, but the drama can’t last for too long, since she has a campaign to win. The first candidate, a redheaded jock whose platform is pizza, does well, while Andie’s scripted bits of humor fall flat with the crowd and her nerves get the better of her, causing the speech to end flatly rather than with a bang. Jo goes last and instead of vouching for herself and winning over the student body, she pleads Andie’s case and draws the biggest reaction of the three speeches. That night, Danny and Lacey go out on a date; he buys out an entire restaurant and orders oysters and caviar, but things get awkward when Lacey discovers that she got a B on the exam she studied a week for while Danny got an A with a blank answer sheet. Since she saw the after-class meeting with the teacher, she gets noticeably perturbed and when the two go to the lake after dinner, he tries giving her jewelry as a present. Lacey then confronts Danny about bribing the coach and throwing his money around in a bid to impress her and keep her mouth shut about what happened. When she presses him on what happened again, he finally confesses to killing Vikram, but Lacey is more upset at the fact that Jo knew before she did and that the two had been covering for each other since they returned from the woods. She thinks that his feelings for Jo have been there all along and that Jo is the one he’s always wanted to be with, so she leaves him in a lurch and refuses to accept the present.

While Andie wins the presidency, which is celebrated at the diner as Jo watches from outside, Kyle informs Tess that he’s willing to help her find her first child, something he thinks could bring them closer together, and Jo runs into Charlie in town. She realizes she got into the campaign for the wrong reason and when she brings up Danny, Charlie confesses how the two knew each other and that Danny told him that when he was released, he was going to kill his father. Whitney meets Lacey at the diner, where she assures her that she still cares about Danny because she’s human, while Jack tells Karen that he’s in love with her and Danny climbs into Jo’s window to tell her that he told Lacey what happened. He also brings up that Lacey thinks there’s something between he and Jo, only for Jo to tell him that he’s just like his father and kick him out. Angry, Danny gets in his car and speeds away, nearly driving off Cutler’s Ridge in the process.

Additional thoughts and observations:
-Thank God, Buddha, Allah, Saint Christopher, and TV Jesus that Danny finally told Lacey the truth about why he’s been Captain Broods-a-lot since he came back home. And that Lacey basically told him to go take a long walk off a short pier, because he’s been a painful character to watch since he came back from the woods. I can only imagine what it’s like to be around him for more than 42 minutes a week. You deserve better, Lacey!
-I get the emotional underpinning of Jo running for student president (she wants to distance herself from Danny, she feels lonely without Rico, she wants to impress Charlie, she wants the normalcy that she hasn’t had since Danny left), but this was kind of ridiculous, no? It made her especially unlikable, with the delusions that this would be a magic fix-it for her Danny-related stress and the stepping all over Andie in the process, and the fact that she thought she could whip up a campaign in 12 hours was ridiculous. Also, what school allows people to sign up for the president’s race that close to when speeches are made?
-That being said, Charlie is so obviously playing Jo that it hurts. He picked the more insecure of Danny’s two friends to try and wear down (see: how Jo reacts to his flirting) and he knows he can fill her head with whatever now that she’s trying to separate herself from Danny. And she’s so ready to believe anything he says, because she thinks that if she turns against Danny, other people will accept her and she’ll no longer be the social outcast that she’s been for the past five years. Which is sad and frustrating, as Jo’s willing to sell out somebody she loves for a little bit of popularity.
-Keiko Agena! I thought her character was A) left in the dust with Archie, Scott, and the like and B) a grief counselor, not a guidance counselor. Let’s hope we’re in for a second Kathy Najimy appearance before the end of the season.
-I don’t believe for an instant that Whitney was molested by her mother’s boyfriend. But I’m still unsure as to why she’s so desperate to hang on to Green Grove or become friends with Lacey. Could this be a roundabout way of gathering information on/getting closer to Danny?
-The waitress that Rico talked to is my favorite character on this show. Someone get her a spin-off, please.
-Danny acting like a jackass with his money: his desperate attempt to drive Lacey away to keep her safe or him internalizing his dream as a way of making amends with his father? I kind of love them having him become not a 100% good guy again, but I don’t expect this to last. As much as I loved the dream with Vik, it just made me question my love for the winter premiere; I figured that Vik’s death was the type of shocking development that would give the show a jolt in the arm, but after the past several episodes amounted to a narrative black hole, I think they should have kept him alive.
-Good for Rico for calling Jo on how dumb she was for entering into the race in the first place. Now, can someone please call her on how awful of a friend she is to Danny? Because someone needs to and it might have to be me.
-Can we talk about how this no longer feels like a mystery? Yes, there’s the identity of the body mover, but that’s literally it. It’s become much closer to a prototypical teen drama and even though I’m a grown man who loves teen dramas, I’m not a fan of the transition. For dealing with these big themes and complex emotions, Twisted has no sense of urgency to its narrative, doesn’t buy into the gray morality that it set up in the summer, and doesn’t have the type of mood/atmosphere that a show like this should have. This should be a distinctive, intense part of the ABC Family schedule, a psychologically interesting look at a complex leading character that’s anchored by a twisty (heh) friendship and atmosphere to spare. Instead, it’s just kind of there.
-In case anyone didn’t hear, Twisted was left off the ABC Family summer schedule, where it will be replaced by new series Chasing Life. It’s not 100% that the show will be cancelled, but with Chasing Life already having a 20-episode order, the earliest the show could come back is spring 2015. At best, it’s looking at a Lying Game-esque year-long hiatus; at worst, we have a few episodes left.
-Next week on Twisted: Jo learns more about Danny’s past through Charlie, while Whitney proves to be a bad influence on Lacey, Tess gets assistance in her search for her first child from Karen, and Kyle grows more suspicious of Jack.