The Family Season Finale: Somebody’s Dead, Just Not Who You Thought

Remember back in “All the Livelong Day”, Episode 7 of The Family? Claire found out that Ben was not Adam and Willa exclaimed “Your son is dead.” Speculation that Adam might still be alive was put to rest by Jenna Bans, the show’s creator, in a 4/10/16 TV Guide article in which she said “Yes, he is dead. In the writers’ room, we knew for so long Adam was dead….” Well, in the season finale “What Took So Long”, it turns out that Adam is very much alive, he still knows his phone number and when he calls up the Warren house, he gets Ben on the phone and tells him: “You took my life. I’m coming to get it back”.

"Who is it, honey." #TheFamily pic.twitter.com/A57mAfPSlc

— The Family (@thefamily) May 16, 2016

Now, in a 5/15/16 TV Line article, Jenna Bans says that bringing Adam back “was always part of the pitch, and it was always a way for me to give the series longevity and not just make it about this central mystery.” She can’t remember if they had second thoughts about resurrecting Adam and apparently, doesn’t remember saying he was really dead in the other article.

So who is dead? Bridey Cruz! Bridey told Willa that she found Ben’s mom and was going to run her story. Predictably, Willa outlined how she was going to deal with that and was convincing enough to make Bridey ask her what she was offering to kill the story — all access to the Governor’s Mansion. Bridey quit her job and when Claire finally got around to making her acceptance speech, you got to see Bridey lying dead in the woods by the bunker as if it was part of Willa’s thoughts while standing on stage. Even if the show wasn’t cancelled, that would mean absolutely nothing.

Doug was planning on killing Gabe Clements before he hightailed it to Canada with Jane and the baby, but Doug was the one who got shot. He’s not dead though. Clements was rescued by Nina Meyer who was finally on a roll and also figured out that there were human remains buried at Doug’s house. They turned out to be those of Eric, the boy Jane told Clements about in “Fun Ways to Tell Your Boyfriend You’re Pregnant” (5-1-16).

After telling Danny that he wasn’t really Adam, Ben left an envelope with the kiss-off money Willa gave him when she got cold feet about going through with their identity-swap plan. Ben went off for parts unknown while Claire went to the bunker and had an imaginary encounter with 10-year-old Adam. Through this experience, she came to forgive Ben for killing Adam (something he didn’t do anyway). She and Willa went on a search, found Ben hitchhiking in the rain and took him home.

Jane and Adam left Doug in the woods and took off with her baby. There’s just no use going into all the huh’s and how comes of Jane knowing Adam was alive and somewhere on the premises the whole time, eating all those Cheerios and probably drinking protein shakes. We’ll never know…. unless all the disgruntled fans on Twitter get their wish and the series gets picked up by NetFlix.

To whom do I send a vicious tweet about canceling @thefamily Step up, please @netflix #TheFamily pic.twitter.com/zBqgVxkp2r

— Ton-Mic-Zee (@tonyamic) May 16, 2016

Even if that happens, we probably will never find out what happened to Devan’s bike. Hank almost gave into temptation by giving a 6th grader a lift home but not wanting to be “the monster”, he kicked the kid out of the car and drove off with his bike and scarf. Later, he put the scarf in a box full of “trophies” under his bed.