Twisted Episode 8 Recap: Sexy Date Music and The Evils of Alcohol

While making out with Lacey on her bed, Danny pulls away, needing to go. He puts some clothes back on and she asks him about what Karen could possibly know that would help him; Danny bristles at the topic of his father being brought up but agrees with Lacey that they shouldn’t tell Jo about their relationship right now, lest she feel like a third wheel. She goes on to comfort him after he mentions how he’s afraid that people will always be on edge around him, agreeing to a secret date at McNally Park as long as he stays an extra five minutes that night with her.

At the diner, Jo is busy thinking about Danny, to the detriment of her school work. Rico tries to get her to realize that she made the safe move by choosing not to tell him about her feelings, saying that she’s the total package and deserves someone wonderful, but she goes ahead and texts Danny that they need to talk. Rationalizing it, she tells Rico that she’ll never be able to get over Danny if not allowed to see if he feels the same. The following morning, Danny talks to Karen over breakfast and starts in on a line of questioning about Regina and Vik. She grows noticeably upset at the insinuation that her husband was having an affair with someone underage, yet doesn’t know how the necklace got into the young girl’s possession, considering that the estate lawyer couldn’t find it. Karen then opens the door to leave, only to find her yard littered with red jump ropes.

Green Grove becomes abuzz with talk of the prank, with pictures being passed around and the likes. One of the few not amused is Lacey, who makes Sarita feel bad for gleefully showing her a picture by invoking the fact that Tara’s murder was the worst day of her life. For his part, Danny seems to be dealing with what happened, having cleaned up the yard himself, though Tyler comes up to him and asks for an interview for a documentary he’s doing about Danny’s return from juvie. Despite the promise of being able to spin public perception to his favor, Danny declines the invitation, as does Jo, who also rejects Tyler’s offer to go out. When asked about the possibility of the two of them hooking up, Danny says that Jo is just like a sister and that there’s nothing there for Tyler to be worried about.

It’s been three days since the necklace was retrieved from the pond and Kyle hasn’t yet closed in on Karen and put pressure on her to give up information. He’s ran out of options, though, since the paint found on Regina’s head wound doesn’t point anywhere; the necklace is the only lead he has now and he promises a co-worker that he’ll follow it that evening by getting Karen out for a cup of coffee. Meanwhile, Danny and Lacey are having their secret date at the park, complete with sparkling apple cider and sexy date music. Until, that is, they hear someone in the distance, who turns out to be dressed in a Danny Desai mask and wearing a red jump rope around their neck. Before they know it, several others in the same costume emerge from the shadows and Danny scares them away by destroying the cider bottle behind them.

At the meeting between Karen and Kyle, the two have some pleasant small talk about her first days working for inappropriate Ray Bickner and Danny quitting the soccer team over not being able to fit in. Talk quickly turns to Fall Fest and where she was the night of the festivities; he tells her that if she has anything to tell him, now’s the time to do it. Karen decides to hold her tongue and wait until tomorrow to come into the office – with her lawyer. While at school, Lacey meets Danny in a film closet and suggests that they cool down their relationship for now, since they don’t know who else knows about their time together. She thinks that this will give people more time to get over what he did, but he knows better and quickly goes to hang out with Jo, who he encourages to go for it with Tyler. Rico had been encouraging her to keep her head up and to hold out for the guy who would be worth her time; the only problem is, he couldn’t tell her that he thinks that’s him before Danny came.

Jo walks over to accept Tyler’s offer and the two agree to hang out that evening. Danny, however, uses something Rico said as motivation to have a party of his own, which he invites Tyler to and agrees to an interview in exchange for the popular boy inviting his friends to the festivities. At the police station, Karen’s lawyer is initially very verbose about Kyle not having much of a case – until he hears (for the first time) about the necklace being found and there being a witness. While Karen thinks that there’s a chance the person they have is unreliable, her lawyer suggests that maybe the best way to go about this is to be honest with Kyle and hope he goes easy on her.

The evening Jo spends with Tyler turns out to be pretty okay, as they giggle over bad first date stories and their nervous habits. Meanwhile, Lacey has decided not to go to the party that Danny’s throwing due to being scared at what her friends would say. He thinks that while the party itself may not cure everything bad that his peers think about him, it’s a start and better than hiding away and hoping that things magically get better. He goes on to suggest that this anxiety isn’t based on her friends but on the bad memories that the jump ropes and masked men are bringing up in her.

Danny ends up throwing a decent party and Jo seems to be in a good mood when she brings Tyler by, her disposition much better than how she felt after being referred to as Danny’s sister. The interview, though, goes sour very quickly; Tyler makes the fatal mistake of referring to the pranks that Danny had been dealing with, a sign that he was either directly involved in the mask attack or knew who did it. Danny ends the interview quickly, while across town, Lacey hears from Phoebe that Tyler’s e-mail to his friends said that something big was going to happen tonight, something that would have everybody talking. Out of fear of the harm that could come to Danny, she decides to go to the party with Phoebe. That turns out to be the best move for him, since Jo is stubbornly refusing to buy into Danny’s worries about Tyler and Rico is too busy getting drunk to be of any help.

Karen arrives home to find the party being very loud, flashing lights and all, and heads upstairs rather than talking to Danny. She (mostly) misses the return of the masked men that found Danny at the park, as they stage a reenactment of Tara’s murder to the shock of everyone at the party. Well, except Tyler, who gleefully films the entire thing. Karen saw enough (and the stunned reaction of Danny) to where she kicks them all out. Jo finds Tyler and confronts him about the recent incidents; he confesses to being behind them, but he maintains that they were only to spice up the documentary and wring more sympathy for Danny. She doesn’t care, though, and makes him leave. Later, she joins Lacey out on the swing set and they reminisce about the day that Tara died, with Lacey still mad at herself for wanting to go back in the house after Danny came out asking them to go get help. The talk turns to dating and the difficulties the two are having in finding someone. While Lacey’s confused in her post-Archie world, Jo is disappointed that Tyler turned out to be a creep, since it felt nice to have someone look at her differently. Before they go inside, Lacey reassures her former friend that she’s pretty, funny, and smart, completely deserving of someone actually worth her time.

Jo comes into the living room with Danny and Rico and takes the latter home after he had too much alcohol. Meanwhile, the former stays in to talk to Lacey where they make up for the argument earlier and end up making out on the couch, all the while someone outside films it on their phone.

They thought that Karen had went outside for a walk to clear her mind, but she actually went down to the police station to talk to Kyle.

And confess to the murder of Regina Crane.

Additional thoughts and observations:
-In case you didn’t know, Twisted received 10 additional episodes today, which will debut this January alongside Pretty Little Liars.
-I’m pretty sure that the show wants me to think that it’s Sarita doing the filming outside of Danny’s house, with the close-up of the phone, her admiration of Archie’s backside, and the joy she had about the jump rope prank, but I don’t know if I quite believe that. If it does turn out to be her, she’s firmly at the top of my suspect list for Regina’s murder and someone who we should watch out for during the last few episodes of the summer season.
-We’re all in agreement that some of the masked Dannys were members of the soccer team? The away tournament excuse was a bit too convenient for me to buy into them having no part in it, particularly due to just how viscerally Archie and Scott hate Danny. I could believe that Tyler recruited them based on said hatred in order to help his movie, since his status around Green Grove would make it “acceptable” to fraternize with people like the soccer team.
-You’d think that Karen would realize that she could protect Danny by laying all of her cards out on the table about Vik. By chucking the necklace in the water, she only harmed both her son and herself in the eyes of the Green Grove police.
-I hope that the show doesn’t shy away from stuff like the masked Dannys and the yard full of jump ropes. Although I don’t want this show to turn into Pretty Little Liars, that show knows how to craft a striking image or two and make a mystery stylish as well as interesting on a basic level. Embracing gray morality, in addition to darker images, could help the show grow even more than it has.
-Why can’t Lacey just get a new social group? I know that this is high school and that she’s had a rough time with the social side of her life post-murder, but she’s bending over backwards trying to please Sarita and Archie when by all accounts, Lacey is a pretty popular girl. I mean, Phoebe wouldn’t care if she knew Lacey was with Danny, so why not go ahead and put it out there? Could Lacey be afraid of the repercussions?
-For the record, I don’t think Karen killed Regina, as cool as her confession was. I think it’s what she thinks is her last line of defense against Kyle.
-Next week on Twisted: Jo and Lacey contemplate revealing a major piece of evidence to help Danny, while Rico is alerted to the existence of the video taken of Danny and Lacey.