"Grief is a 5 Letter Word": Twisted Recap/Review

Alicia Carroll ’16/ Emertainment Monthly Writer
ABC Family’s Twisted served up another plate of mystery and suspense for us this week, and all the drama comes down to one family dinner. For those of you that missed the fun, here is a not-so-quick recap of what happened.  Trust me…a lot happened.
Last week, we left off with many questions as to whether or not Danny Desai murdered the neighborhood party girl, Regina. They revealed that Danny couldn’t tell anyone why he murdered his aunt, for their own protection.  On the night Regina was killed, after her party, she texted Danny to tell him she knows why he killed his aunt. He noticed the necklace Regina wore at her party, and the necklace was the only thing missing after she was killed.  We later see Danny with a picture of his Aunt Tara wearing the same necklace. We were left in suspense when he pulls out the necklace.  This would give the audience a way to jump to conclusions, but the night Regina was killed, Danny was with Lacey at his house. She slept over, giving him an alibi, but he refuses to use it. Because she was asleep there is no way she can verify that he never left his room that night.
Jo’s dad, Kyle, is heading the investigation of Regina’s murder. Kyle is having some issues separating his work from his personal life. He believes that Danny murdered Regina and is trying very hard to keep Jo away from him, but Jo is not exactly cooperating. When he asked Danny about the necklace, he claimed he had never seen it before. The police are trying to find ways to pin the murder on Danny, but they have no way of connecting him to the crime scene or motive. All of the evidence is circumstantial, and Jo is trying to make her dad realize that Danny is an easy target, and that’s the only reason why the cops are trying so hard to make the evidence stick. She believes Danny didn’t do it.
Jo, Danny, and Rico are trying to figure out how to prove to her father that someone else committed the murder.  They decide to start with Regina’s closest friends, including Lacey, to see if they had motive. They don’t get very far because Archie, Lacey’s jock boyfriend, continues to make snide comments towards Danny at school. When Danny serves it back to him, they get into a fight.  They avoid expulsion, but Danny is told to go to the school psychologist, and Archie is forced to go to a grief session.
Danny’s mother, Karen, visits Jo’s mother, Tess to see if she could convince Kyle to stop scapegoating her son. Tess refuses and Karen storms out. Karen goes to the police station and tells Kyle that Danny was with Lacey the night of the murder, even though Danny asked her not to say anything about it. Kyle shows her the same photograph with the necklace and she looks startled-a dead giveaway that she recognizes it-but then tells him she has never seen it before.
Jo gets angry with Danny because getting into fights at school in the middle of a murder investigation is not helping his case.  Later that evening, Danny goes to her house to apologize and invites Jo and her mom over for dinner. Her mother was reluctant, but willing to give it a chance.  After Karen’s visit to the station, Kyle invites himself to the dinner.
Surprisingly, everything seems to be fine until Danny notices a photo of his family and his Aunt Tara, wearing the necklace. He quickly removes it from the shelf before Kyle sees it. Danny catches Kyle poking around in his room, and they exchange an intimidating, yet incredibly awkward conversation before Kyle leaves for the dinner table. He knows Danny is hiding something, and Danny knows that Kyle is up to something.
At the dinner table, Jo suggests they go to the park that weekend. Kyle says it “wouldn’t be safe.” Karen gets offended and comments start becoming more and more pointed as things get heated. Karen has been holding a grudge against Tess and Kyle for refusing to ask Jo to be a character witness five years ago at Danny’s trial. After dinner, Danny explains to her that it’s his own fault that he went to Juvenile Detention for 5 years. He is the one that committed the crime, not Kyle, Tess, or Jo.
Later that evening, Danny goes to an old fort that he used to go to with Jo and Lacey. He set up the fire pit and burned all the photos of his Aunt Tara wearing the necklace. He considered destroying the necklace with a rock, but decided not to.
I enjoyed the second episode. They are doing a very good job of withholding information and keeping the audience on their toes. There is a new piece to this puzzle revealed every moment, but the final image still seems unclear. Every “detail” they give you is so vague, much is left up to interpretation, but I do have a few theories.
Danny and Karen seem especially responsive when Tess mentions sexual predators hang around the park at night. Does this have to do with the murder of his Aunt? His motive for murdering his Aunt would make sense, if she were hurting him. But then why would he not be able to tell Jo about it “for her own protection” if it was something like that?
Also, when Tess talked about Karen losing her husband and how hard that must have been, Karen’s response didn’t seem like it was that heartfelt. It didn’t even look like she was upset or cared, but again that might be me misinterpreting, or just bad acting.  I don’t think Danny’s father is really dead, but that is just my theory.
The other question left was regarding the necklace. Yes, we see him pull out a necklace identical to the one in the photo of both Regina and Aunt Tara, but could it be possible there are two identical necklaces? For some reason, he couldn’t bare to part with it.
The end of the episode was especially intriguing, the last shot is from the outside window of the fort, looking in on him, and then the camera pulls back. Maybe it’s the film school in me, or maybe I just watch too much Criminal Minds, but it makes me wonder if someone was watching him while he was in there…hmmm we shall see next week!
MVP: Karen (Denise Richards). We are starting to see a different side of her character. She isn’t the victim, pariah mother we thought she was in the last episode. I like seeing multidimensional characters. Good Job, Denise.
Tune into ABC Family, Tuesdays at 9pm EST for Twisted.