Lacey is called upon to give the eulogy at Regina’s funeral and she does, citing her friend’s unique intelligence, comforting listening skills, and supportive nature. After the ceremony is over, she runs into Jo and the two share an awkward moment, made even more awkward by the presence of Kyle and Tess, the former of which reminding Lacey that she needs to give a statement about the night of the party. He then urges her to not associate herself with Danny, prompting a confrontation with Jo, who leaves to hang out with Rico and get away from her family. Unfortunately, she runs into the cold hard truth about Regina’s murder case – it’s become a sensation and therefore, the news media has staked out the funeral in hopes of getting a key sound bite or unfiltered reaction from her loved ones.
At the Desai home, Danny sees the huge front page article about the investigation and the blame that he’s had to deal with from people in Green Grove. This being Danny, he tries to make light of the situation, only to become more serious when he tells Karen that he’s not dragging Lacey into this and he’s working with Jo to help clear his name. The two meet at the diner and, along with Rico, begin talking out how they’re going to attack this case. They lay out the key suspects (Archie, Scott, Sarita, and Lacey) and Jo leaves with Danny, running into her father just as the exit the diner. He makes her get in the cat with him and warns Danny to stay away from her.
Of course, this doesn’t remotely work and only serves to drive a distance between him and Jo, since she fully believes in Danny’s innocence. She tells him that his only evidence is weak and circumstantial and says that he’s just on a major power trip right now, while her mother tries to get the two to find some sort of compromise. Back at school, Phoebe (a frenemy of Regina’s who made quite a scene at the funeral and, especially, outside the funeral with the reporters) finds Lacey and Sarita to talk about how they’re going to honor Regina’s memory; currently in the running are a memorial concert, a charity drive, and a chemistry lab dedication, the latter of which bemuses Lacey, since Regina’s favorite subject wasn’t chemistry but free period. Phoebe also invites the two to a group grief counseling session that evening, but considering that Sarita isn’t exactly letting herself grieve over Regina, it doesn’t look promising that the two of them will make an appearance.
Karen goes to the Masterson home and reunites with Tess after their time apart. After some small talk, she mentions how everything’s been so hard for Danny, especially now that he’s had unfair suspicion cast upon him by the greater Green Grove population. She wants Tess to try and talk to Kyle about her son and get him to back off; Tess, though, refuses to entertain the idea. Meanwhile, Danny sits with Jo at lunch where she informs him of her grand plan to soften her father up to him: a mom dinner. Jo thinks that getting Karen and Tess together for dinner, along with her and Danny, will break enough ice to where Kyle might be receptive enough to someone talking to him on Danny’s behalf. However, Danny calls the idea naïve and gets into a physical fight with Archie when Lacey’s boyfriend makes yet another comment toward him. Danny makes a comment back about how Archie’s likely peaking right now in high school and everything else for him will be downhill, Archie head butts him back, Danny punches him in the stomach, and the two end up rolling around on the floor, with Danny on top and looking like the aggressor.
Archie may have gotten the official punishment when he gets sentenced to attend the grief meeting that night, but Danny pays a price for his actions when Jo backs away from supporting him. She feels as if he won’t help himself and that she’d be wasting her time trying to prove his innocence. If the lack of explanation about Tara’s death and the refusal to use Lacey as his alibi wasn’t enough, Danny had to get in a very public fight the same day a major article was written about him being a murder suspect, so for now, she’s very done. That afternoon, Danny goes to the fort in the woods that he, Jo, and Lacey used to play in as kids, expecting to be alone with his thoughts and able to decompress after another bad day.
Only, Lacey’s already there. He assures her that he didn’t go back to Regina’s and asks how everything’s been going, how she’s handling the loss of her best friend. When she tries to brush off his concerns, he suggests that she go talk to someone professional about her grief over Regina, even though she’s already tried that tactic when he left five years ago. Danny then goes to Jo’s where she’s studying with Rico and apologizes for the fight before inviting her, Tess, and Rico over for dinner that night. Meanwhile, Karen goes to Kyle’s office where she tells him that Lacey spent the night with her son and tries to reason with him, as the only evidence he has against Danny is the text from Regina – and there’s no evidence that Regina was the one to send it in the first place. He responds by showing her a photo of Regina wearing the gold necklace, something she wore every day for 6-7 months, and freaking her out enough to where she leaves abruptly.
Led by April Tanaka, the grief meeting that evening is filled with people who barely knew, weren’t close to, and/or didn’t care for Regina, which gets under Lacey’s skin. After hearing her deceased friend’s “nerd pet” go on and on, her boyfriend struggle to come up with a story about Regina giving him raisins, and Phoebe turning on the drama, she snaps and dresses the latter down; Regina and Phoebe hated one another and one of their last interactions was Phoebe putting a fish in Regina’s glove compartment. She apologizes after the meeting and hears the real story of why Regina and Phoebe fell out. Phoebe liked a guy named Craig Bentley and before she could tell him how she felt, Regina “claimed him” by saying that she liked him first and spread a rumor that Phoebe had an anal STD to scare him off for good. The two bond over the triviality of some of their conflicts with Regina and seem to be on good terms once again.
The Mastersons, along with Rico, show up outside the Desai home for the pasta dinner that Danny invited them to. While Jo is off getting him more wine, Kyle sneaks off under the pretense of going to the bathroom and ends up in Danny’s room looking for evidence to implicate him in the murder of Regina. Before he can find anything, Danny shows up in the doorway and the two walk back out to the dining room, where the dinner begins and the tension only thickens. In refusing to okay a potential outing between Jo and Danny, Kyle can’t keep himself from making a sly comment about Green Grove’s murder rate, causing Karen to bring up the fact that they prevented Jo from testifying as a character witness in Danny’s trial. It might not have made much difference, but still, the lack of a strong character witness left him without much of a defense and contributed to the five-year term in juvie, which Kyle thinks Danny was lucky to get.
While Kyle and Tess take Rico home, Jo hears from Danny about the run-in he had with Lacey at the fort and she tells him that she didn’t know about the offer to be a character witness at the trial. Vowing to prove to her dad that Danny didn’t kill Regina, she goes home and reminds him that she believes in Danny’s innocence. Later, Tess mentions to him the photo of Tara that she saw in the Desai home, which wasn’t in the same place when they left that it was when they arrived.
Where exactly did the photo go? After hiding the potentially incriminating evidence before anyone could draw attention to it, Danny goes to the fort and burns every photo he has of Tara in the necklace. He goes to smash the necklace and hesitates.
Is there a reason he won’t go through with breaking the piece of jewelry?
Additional thoughts and observations:
-“Menacing really works for my complexion, don’t you think?”
-Regina wanted to be Al Roker when she grew up – only white and female. Also, she loved the Jonas Brothers (when they were relevant).
-I don’t remember the exact wording, but Lacey’s “she literally told Regina to go to hell” after Phoebe’s dramatic talk of Regina in heaven in a cute outfit was very funny.
-Adding to my suspicion that she might be the killer, Sarita is not having any of this grieving stuff. It’s obvious that she’s a fairly closed off individual, but even the toughest, most hard-edged person sheds a tear or is noticeably upset when their best friend suddenly dies, no?
-Considering that he couldn’t come up with a remotely sentimental story about Regina during the grief session, I don’t buy that Archie’s vehement opposition to Danny is out of some love for a fallen friend or allegiance to his school. Could he think Danny’s a threat to his relationship with Lacey, maybe? Or is he just a giant douche?
-I’m glad that they gave Karen more to do this episode, but Principal Tang smelling her hairbrush was a little much, especially with the comical music on top of the action. I assumed they were going to hook up at some point, not that she already had him wrapped around her finger to that extent.
-On the other hand, Rico was pretty much on fire the entire episode – his attraction to Jessica Fletcher from Murder She Wrote, his impression of Danny, and the shot of him pigging out on spaghetti during the fight between Karen and Kyle, in particular.
-Favorite shot of the night: Danny in the doorway, hidden by shadows, right before he confronted Kyle. I figured something like that was coming and it didn’t disappoint.
-Going off of that, the final shot of the episode (the pan away from the fort) made me think that somebody was watching him burning the photos. Intentional misdirect/stylistic choice or clue? Also, why in the world wouldn’t he smash the necklace?
-Next week on Twisted: Jo disappoints Rico with her new attitude at school, while Danny tries to reconnect with Lacey and Kyle is determined to find the evidence needed to incriminate Danny in Regina’s murder.
