Twisted 1.17 “You’re a Good Man, Charlie McBride” Recap

Danny speeds up to the curb and gets out of his car to confront Charlie about Jo finding out about him threatening his father in juvie. He feels like it was a deliberate move on Charlie’s part to reveal this piece of information, even though Charlie denies it, and Danny leaves him with a warning to not talk to Jo about him ever again. The following morning, Jack and Karen wake up in her bed after spending the night together and before he can head home, Whitney comes over to have breakfast. When Jack lets it slip that Danny and Lacey broke up, Danny takes Karen aside to tell her that he told Lacey about what happened with Vikram and how neither she nor Jo is in his corner right now. She then gives him an importance piece of advice; if you don’t want to be like Vik, don’t be like Vik.

Jo approaches Lacey at school to offer condolences over what happened with Danny, stating that they’re better off without him in their lives, while Andie is becoming more overwhelmed by her ambition and duties as student council president. As a result, Rico offers to take her to the town’s food truck night to get her mind off of everything and allow them a chance to bond, with a movie at his place to follow their food. Meanwhile, Danny finds his history teacher and argues his A down to an F; he didn’t feel right bribing his way into an A and though he lets the school keep the donated jerseys and equipment, he offers to take a makeup exam and do whatever extra credit work he needs to bring his grade up.

Charlie finds Jo in the hallways and she notices just how paranoid he’s being and gets him to admit what happened with Danny. He frames it as Danny threatening him and uses that as leverage to get Jo to agree to go out with him, leading to her confronting Danny in a classroom. She accuses him of using her to get to his father and tells him to stay away from both her and Charlie. Elsewhere, Kyle finds out that the adoption of Tess’ baby was private and there’s no paper trail that could lead them to the child, though he does get a bit of good news when Eddie informs him of Jack staying the night with Karen, something that gives him a lead in the murder cover-up case. At lunch, Whitney invites Lacey to go to the city with her that night to blow off some steam, which she accepts; later, she tells Jack that she’s getting a tour of the city that night and watches as Kyle comes to the boathouse to speak to her father. He mentions being interested in buying a boat, but he’s more interested in getting a piece of Jack’s DNA, which he does when he steals a water bottle from the man’s trash. Kyle hopes that he can match the DNA from the bottle to the hair at the crime scene and bring in Jack for questioning.

While Karen and Tess run into each other at the diner and Tess confesses to having another baby, something that Karen already knew from Vik, Danny finds Jo at her house and again denies that he premeditated the murder of his father, inadvertently confessing to a lurking Charlie. The trio go inside and Jo explains the situation before forcing Danny out of the house. At Green Grove Food Truck Night, Jo tells Charlie that she doesn’t want her friendship with Danny to impact the rest of her life and the two run into Rico and Andie, the latter making a point to mention to her sorta-boyfriend how many texts she’s receiving from members of the student council. Elsewhere, Karen and Tess head to Vik’s office to get the adoption papers he saved and as Karen retrieves the documents from his desk, she learns that Vik’s life might have been in danger from someone he worked with, thus pointing the finger at Jack.

Danny goes to the diner to try and talk to Lacey about his concerns of Charlie, but Lacey doesn’t want to engage with him, not on a night when she’s supposed to go out and not think about the baggage she has back at home. She leaves to go to the city with Whitney, while Danny heads to the stables to talk to the woman who runs them about her impressions of Charlie and the circumstances in which he came to town. She mentions that he’s a good worker who doesn’t say much and since he was 18 when he came to her, she didn’t think twice about giving him a place to stay. Danny’s allowed to go up to his room where he finds a photo of him, Lacey, and Jo from before Tara’s murder, the same photo he took with him to juvie and the same photo he lost the day he was supposed to go home. At the club, Whitney immediately signals Kevin, a Wall Street trader with money to burn, to come over and buy her and Lacey drinks, which he’s more than happy to do.

While Andie receives additional texts that she claims are from the student council, Jo brings up the past that Charlie hinted at and he tells her about being young, dumb, and angry when he stole the car that put him behind bars in the first place. His mother had just died and he was alone due to his father splitting when he was little, so he ended up in a bad foster home that forced him to act out. When he goes to get them something to drink, Jo spies Rico and goes to sit with him, where she learns about his fears over Andie’s mysterious texts. She reassures him, though, that Andie is head over heels for him. As Danny sends Charlie a text photo of him with the stolen photo, a drunk Kevin hits on Lacey and asks if she wanted to spend the night at a hotel in the city. Even when he learns she’s in high school, he’s not phased, but Lacey and Whitney blow him off and end up in the bathroom calling his wife. Tess learns that the baby was adopted out to Susan and Clyde Baxter of New jersey and although Kyle advises her to wait until the morning before pursuing this, she feels like she’s waited long enough and sets off to the find the child she gave up.

Karen goes to Jack’s and gets him to confess that he saw Vikram once after he was fired but that nothing came from it. He knew that Vik was cheating on her and in the heat of the moment, he blurted out the history of his affair with Karen; however, Karen is upset to learn that this happened six months ago, around the time that Vik disappeared and within the time frame that makes Jack a feasible suspect. She gets a surprise, though, when she learns that Jack wasn’t the one who moved the body after all. Elsewhere, Andie attempts to leave Rico’s before the movie even begins and when he draws her attention to how distracted she’s been the entire night, something he thinks is the result of her losing interest, she confesses to being a virgin and being scared when he mentioned going back to his place to watch a movie. Rico’s a virgin, too, though, and he assures her that all he wanted to do was watch a movie – nothing more. Meanwhile, Danny meets Charlie out with the photo and asks why exactly he came to Green Grove in the first place if the photo he took was just a photo. Charlie grows more nervous and lashes out at Danny, warning him that if he doesn’t back off from Jo, the police would know about his involvement in Vikram’s murder.

On the way home from the city, Whitney and Lacey talk about what happened with Kevin and the topic of divorce comes up, which the two have in common. Whitney doesn’t remember a time when her parents were married and when Lacey admits that she’s over the lying and secrecy she’s encountered from guys, she gets pulled in for a kiss by her new friend. However, their moment gets interrupted when Jack calls from the police station, having been brought in by Kyle after some sort of match was found between the bottle and the hair. While Tess sits outside the house of the girl she thinks is her daughter, Charlie goes to Jo’s and tells her that he’s living in the stables rather than staying with a friend’s family. She kisses him for being honest with her.

Additional thoughts and observations:
-So, Andie is a virgin and was nervous about being alone with Rico. Okay, I get that. But that still doesn’t explain the barrage of texts she was receiving. Maybe I’ve watched too much Pretty Little Liars, but I don’t think the other shoe has dropped when it comes to Andie.
-I will bet all the money in the galaxy that the house Tess is outside isn’t the house of her biological daughter. Either Vik forged the documents to keep her away from her real daughter or the little girl was adopted into another family, but this just feels like a twist that’s been set up for the past few episodes. If Tess’ biological daughter isn’t Whitney, I’ll be genuinely surprised, particularly since there’s no other prominent female characters it could be.
-The creepy look at the end of the episode: just how crazy is Charlie? Is the winter season of Twisted basically Single White Male? I think we’re all in agreement that since Charlie was the one to bring up the car accident this episode, it’s a strong possibility that he’s the one who set everything up; he’s shown a willingness to play psychological mind games with Danny and Jo and it would at least make his character more purposeful.
-While I do like that Lacey got a little bit of a storyline and has expanded her social circle away from Danny and Jo, the kiss with Whitney was grossly exploitative and felt less like a genuine gesture of someone who has feelings for her and more like an “edgy” twist from a manipulative character whose motives are yet unclear. As with Charlie, we know Whitney is more than willing to lie and to put on airs in order to get what she wants (see: her confession to Karen of the molestation), so this is just her trying to win Lacey over or, at the very least, get her so off balance that the real reason for the initial interest can be revealed.
-Good for the show for having Danny walk back the soccer bribery. In an already off winter season, that might have been the most egregious thing the show tried and I can buy his reasoning for listening to Karen and wanting to prove himself to both Lacey and Jo.
-Indignant Jo is my least favorite Jo in the world. I’m beyond exhausted from her and Danny having literally the same conversation all season and frankly, the way they’re writing her willful ignorance about Charlie’s nefariousness makes me think less of the character’s intelligence. Plus, there’s the fact that saying you want to kill someone and actually planning to kill someone are completely different, so her whole martyr act with Danny is all for naught. Learn about colloquialisms, Jo! They’re fun!
-This episode was a step up for past few in that there was actual dramatic tension, progress in the central mystery, and interesting questions about various characters’ motives. It certainly wasn’t perfect, but I can take this version of the show ahead of what we’ve been getting.
-I like how Charlie was like “you can trust me!” when it came to the knowledge of Vikram’s death when he just got finished ratting out Danny to Jo. And Jo never connected that.
-Crossing my elbows, shoulders, knees, and toes that we get a crack in the Regina Crane case sometime in the next two episodes. I initially liked that the show wrapped it up so soon into the winter premiere, but that was much more compelling than what the show is currently doing and it feels like a twist in the making, that Marilyn either wasn’t the one who killed Regina or that she wasn’t acting alone when she did kill her. Plus, it’d connect both halves of the season and keep the winter season from feeling like a totally different show than what we got in the summer.
-What if it with ABC Family and storylines about older men hitting on/getting into a relationship with/banging underage girls? Because this wasn’t the first, second, third, or fourth time they’ve done it and I bet it won’t be the last.
-Also, nice use of texting (Pretty Little Liars) and foster homes (The Fosters), show.
-Next week on Twisted: Danny seeks help from an old confidante, while Lacey tries to be supportive of Whitney and Tess receives shocking information.