The Family: We’re Still Pretending

The 10th episode of The Family was called “Fun Ways to Tell Boyfriend You’re Pregnant” (5-1-16). That was just a line about how Jane went about telling Doug he was about to become a Daddy, but before we get to that, can we complain about the flashbacks and how dark it was in most of the scenes? The flashbacks in this episode were mainly about the effect of Adam’s disappearance on Danny and Willa, more so on Danny feeling like his and Willa’s lives were “screwed” because their parents weren’t there for them anymore. Sad but at this point, it really serves no useful purpose. Uh, Agent Clements needs to be rescued.

Agent Clements’ car was found crashed into a tree. A bottle of Old Grand-Dad whiskey was in the car so Agent Davis thought Clements got drunk, crashed his car and went off into the woods. Nina insisted there was no way Clements would be drinking cheap whiskey and he was kidnapped by the same guy who took Adam Warren. Even she seemed to know how ridiculous that sounded, especially when she identified the man as “Pocky.” Davis replied, “Detective, have you heard the saying ‘when you hear hoofbeats, think horses’?

Hank waited for Nina all night at the police station

Hank told Chief of Police Buckley that the reason he had to see only Nina Meyer was “irony.” When she returned to the station, she tried to brush off Hank’s request for a minute of her time. “5,000,260,” Hank replied, “the number of minutes in the 10 years you owe me. I’ll take just one.” He got it and told Nina how he is going to help her catch her monster and she is going to make him a hero because he wants a world where “good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people.”

Jane tended to Clements as best as she could with her Girl Scout skills after he told her that she was in bigger trouble than she thought: “The only thing worse than having a live FBI Agent on your hands,” he says, “is having a dead one.” Jane told Clements about another boy named Eric that something happened to 12 years ago. Doug swore he didn’t do it and she said she believed him.

Now that Nina had a name and a warrant, the FBI SWAT team closed in on Doug’s home but found absolutely nothing because Doug was a step ahead of them. He had already relocated his wife and prisoner. Agent Davis dropped another “bombshell” on poor Nina: Agent Clements is an alcoholic. “He fell off the wagon last year and disappeared for days. His husband found him holed up in some hotel room in Atlantic City with his gun and an empty minibar.” Talk about irony. When Nina is wrong, everyone believes her. When she’s right, no one does.

Jane did think about letting Clements go, at least we think that’s why she had the key out on the table but Doug came home. Tending to her bleeding hand, Doug said that about a year ago, he realized that he had kept “the boy” down there so long, he didn’t know how to end it so he was going to kill himself after Jane went to sleep. That was the night she gave him a onesie that said “I Love Daddy.” She got the idea from googling the episode title. Doug claimed he was going to take the rap for Clements who was going to be dead so he couldn’t tell anyone Jane hurt him. Doug was going to save Jane and the baby if she could just hang on a little longer. Jane told Doug she’d like him to burn in hell.

Doug and Ben meet in the park

It was probably supposed to be shocking when Ben met Doug in the park, but it really wasn’t. Ben never said a word about Doug being at the Warren home during the Gubernatorial Debate so it seemed natural to conclude that Doug still had some power over him. And there he was telling Doug that Nina Meyer knew his name and God knows what else.

Back at the scene of the crime, Jane’s water broke and she can’t let Clements loose to help her because Doug took that key. Chains and wounds notwithstanding, Clements talked her through childbirth and said he was sorry that the baby was boy.

Pocky turns himself in

At the police station, Nina showed Agent Davis the lab report from the shed. The bee pollen didn’t set off any alarms for Davis but it proved to Nina that Clements was there. She stalked off to do something about that when in waltzed Doug. He went straight up to the wanted poster on the wall and dramatically said “I’m him” — just like Ben walked up to the “missing” picture of Adam at the start of the show and said the same thing. The major difference can only be described as laughable. In the first instance, there was a time gap of 10 years and a big change in physical appearance. In Doug’s case, “no kidding? I can see that” wouldn’t be an inappropriate reply.

Other developments in this episode:

Tailing Willa, Bridey got a photo of her cozying up with the Biotechnics guy. So she’s on to the fake DNA test connection now and later copied files from Willa’s hard drive. Willa admitted to Claire all the political favors she had promised in return for the fake DNA test.

Nina demanded to know Ben’s true identity from Claire, claiming she would be obstructing a Federal investigation if it had any bearing on Agent Clements’ whereabouts. Claire laughed in her face, compared her “delusional theories” to playing Wack-a-Mole and threatened to have her reduced to a crossing guard!

Ben told Willa that he hurt Adam. How, he didn’t say. Willa was all like “I thought you loved, Adam.” Ben said he hated him too. Does Ben have Stockholm Syndrome? He has already assured Claire and Willa that Doug won’t tell the police he’s not Adam because he would have to admit he had two boys down there and only one came out alive.