S01.E12: A Tale of Two Families

[jewel21]

Quote

Flashbacks to the days right before and after Emily’s death and how the entire Walker family dealt with the sudden tragic loss.

Airdate: 05/20/2021

[Katy M]

I feel like calling Crystal's death Walker's fault is a bit of a stretch.  Maybe, and only maybe, would they not have done the job if he had voted the other way, but what's his name was pretty gung ho.  If it was just a tie between him and his wife, they were going for it.

9 times out of 10 if a parent dies on tv, at least one kid's last words were I hate you, so i'm glad that they didn't go that route with this show.  they have a nice, if somewhat mundane, last memory of their mother.

And, while I knew Walker was gone for a whole year, I really wanted to punch him all over again when i saw his family celebrating their first Emily-less Christmas.

Stella framed her dad.  that was kind of awesome.  But she should have said he fell asleep behind the wheel and then the truck crashed into the thing.  That would have been true.  More or less.

I would worry about Liam, but I'm 95% sure he'll be fine.

[thuganomics85]

I guess it was about that time for a flashback episode.  Basically showing a little bit of what went down right after Emily's death/Walker's undercover time and showing it lead up to the big showdown with Clint, I see.

So, Stella inadvertently pushed Walker into leaving town by making it look like he fell asleep behind the wheel of the truck and crash into the family hitching post (don't say that very often!)  I mean, she was right that Walker was spiraling and an intervention was needed, but that kind of end up backfiring on everyone.  To be fair, most probably would have looked at that incident and decided that it was time to get therapy or some kind of help, but leave it to Walker to go away from that with a "I'm clearly a danger to my family, so I'm just going to bail for a bit!" resolution.  Big whoops all around!

Seemed like Abeline and Bonham marriage was pretty much over for a while, but they just stayed together due to what went down.  Oh, and Bonham apparently has cancer.  This is likely going to go one of two ways, with varied results.  He'll either a) heroically beat it or b) will die beforehand: likely sacrificing himself to protect the family.  Just saying that it feels rare for someone on television to simply pass away from the actual cancer anymore.

Liam really did have to sacrifice a lot to pick up Walker's slack.  Nice seeing Bret again.

Micki's stuff was basically to show that, yes, her former boss was an ass.

I guess I can see why Walker has come guilt over Crystal/Trevor's mom's death, since he pushed Clint into continuing the final heist, but I still think the majority of the blame goes to both Clint and Crystal for even deciding to go down this path to begin with.  Plus, even if he sided with her, I suspect Clint would have still wanted to go through with it at the end.

Look like Liam got shot in the shoulder, so I don't think he's dead.  But I can see someone still getting killed by Clint when this is all said and done 

Spoiler

(next episode's previews show that Hoyt will get himself in the middle of this and Matt Barr is only a guest star...

 

[ukgirl71]

The one thing that’s puzzling me about the hitching post incident, unless I missed something, is that Walker stumbled out of the back seat?  Surely he wasn’t that far gone that he didn’t recall that? The whole incident just made me even more fed up with Stella as a character - she’s got to be the one character I’d like to see the back of (not that that will happen).  Liam is such a good brother and uncle - he’s definitely cut from the Bonham cloth.  There were a few too many of Jared’s acting tics for me in this episode, but I can overlook that, cos it’s Jared (sue me, I’m shallow 😆). Speaking of shallow, if anyone has to meet their Maker in the next episode, with all those unfriendly guns around, I suspect it’ll be my favourite eye candy - boo!  Shame we have to wait 3 weeks to find out (boy am I glad British TV doesn’t do hiatuses the way your networks do!)

[Katy M]

2 hours ago, ukgirl71 said:

The one thing that’s puzzling me about the hitching post incident, unless I missed something, is that Walker stumbled out of the back seat?  Surely he wasn’t that far gone that he didn’t recall that?

I was wondering about that, too.  But, I decided he just jumped out so fast, he forgot afterwards.  I also found it weird that he was in the back seat in the first place.  Surely, it would have been easier to just shove him over versus pull him out and put him back in.  But, then he would have been on the wrong side of the car which would have been more noticeable.

2 hours ago, ukgirl71 said:

The whole incident just made me even more fed up with Stella as a character - she’s got to be the one character I’d like to see the back of

Actually, I was kind of with her on that one.  their  mom just dies.  Their dad was neglecting them and drunk all the time.  She felt like nobody was going to do anything without some big catalyst, so she provided it.

[Hana Chan]

The Dumbass of the Week award goes to Bonham Walker for being a stoic, macho idiot. Prostate cancer is quite treatable and didn't warrant him just blowing off the doctor and walking out like some western hero striding off into the sunset. After losing my mom this year to a cancer that wasn't diagnosed until it was late stage, I'm especially sensitive to this kind of stupid. Man up, get your radioactive beads and get on with your life.

Runner up goes to Stella (who would have won Worst Person if it weren't for the remnants of the Rodeo gang). Yes, her father was spiraling and needed help. Framing him for putting her and August into danger and then lying at the intervention did nothing but push Cordell into taking that undercover job since he clearly wasn't good to be around his family. Way to break what was already broken.

Really not liking Abby over her affair. Yes, it hints that her relationship with her husband was on the rocks for awhile, but it's still a shitty thing to do. Glad that she broke it off but I don't see any evidence that she and Bonham are working on their issues. They're just leading parallel lives that intersect every now and then because of the kids. Not a healthy situation for anyone.

Liam's behavior is more understandable now and he did give up a lot in order to be there for Stella and Augie. He still can be something of a high-handed idiot because he tries to manage everyone rather than just being supportive, but he clearly loves his family more than anything else in the world.

It was good to see the real depths of Cordell's grief in the immediate days after Emily's murder and it makes his behavior more understandable. I liked the structure of the episode, showing how everyone (including Micki) were circling around one another until everything came together in the pilot. Now that the whole thing has come to a head, I'm excited to see how it all plays out. 

[Hana Chan]

7 minutes ago, Katy M said:

Their dad was neglecting them and drunk all the time.  She felt like nobody was going to do anything without some big catalyst, so she provided it.

I didn't see evidence that Walker was drinking. Stella talked about her father working all the time and not sleeping - she didn't mention anything about him drinking. Just that they sometimes would see him in the previous night's clothes. Yes, an intervention was needed but making it seem like he'd put his kids in danger when all he'd done at that moment was fall asleep while waiting to pick up his kids from school was beyond cruel. It make Cordell look like he was disregarding his kids safety (no evidence of that) and rather than focusing on what really was going on, the intervention was accusatory rather than helpful. Cordell needed a lifeline and instead Stella's impulsive action tied an anchor around his neck.

[Katy M]

58 minutes ago, Hana Chan said:

Cordell needed a lifeline and instead Stella's impulsive action tied an anchor around his neck.

She needed a lifeline, too, and she's the kid in this situation.

 

1 hour ago, Hana Chan said:

unner up goes to Stella (who would have won Worst Person if it weren't for the remnants of the Rodeo gang). Yes, her father was spiraling and needed help. Framing him for putting her and August into danger and then lying at the intervention did nothing but push Cordell into taking that undercover job since he clearly wasn't good to be around his family. Way to break what was already broken.

But, that response didn't make any sense even if he had been the one driving.  

[Coleyb]

1 hour ago, Katy M said:

She needed a lifeline, too, and she's the kid in this situation.

 

But, that response didn't make any sense even if he had been the one driving.  

Both were mourning we get that, but what Stella did was BIG FAT NO FROM ME, IT WAS WRONG. Yes Cordell wasn’t there mentally with his family but that is  realistic when someone looses a loved one, especially a significant other they’ll  bury themselves into their work, drink or do other things to stave off the pain and clearly Cordell wasn’t okay because he was taking medication from the bottle of pills we saw. 
 

I don’t care if you’re an adult or a teenager you don’t FRAME someone in order to get them the help they need, Stella or Augie said that it was a week or so since Emily’s funeral and Cordell forgot the kids ONCE in that time frame. Stella then LIED to her entire family that Cordell fell asleep while driving and then Cordell felt guilty over something he didn’t do which then caused him to undercover as Duke. 

[Coleyb]

2 hours ago, Hana Chan said:

I didn't see evidence that Walker was drinking. Stella talked about her father working all the time and not sleeping - she didn't mention anything about him drinking. Just that they sometimes would see him in the previous night's clothes. Yes, an intervention was needed but making it seem like he'd put his kids in danger when all he'd done at that moment was fall asleep while waiting to pick up his kids from school was beyond cruel. It make Cordell look like he was disregarding his kids safety (no evidence of that) and rather than focusing on what really was going on, the intervention was accusatory rather than helpful. Cordell needed a lifeline and instead Stella's impulsive action tied an anchor around his neck.

Exactly. And we only saw Cordell drink ONCE in pilot when Micki drove him home, but that’s it. 

[Hana Chan]

1 hour ago, Katy M said:

She needed a lifeline, too, and she's the kid in this situation.

She's not a small child who doesn't know that lying can send things spiraling out of control. It had only been a short period since Cordell's wife died and the idea that he might be struggling is to be expected. He lost the love of his life under terrible circumstances,  was trying to manage in a high pressure job and raise two young teens who were also in mourning. Coming to grips with grief doesn't happen immediately after the funeral is over. It takes weeks and months.

This is something that I'm deeply intimate with at the moment. Since my mom's diagnosis, I hadn't gotten a good night's sleep. I spent weeks getting only a few hours of uninterrupted rest before waking up in the middle of the night and crying. I've had to compartmentalize in order to be a support for my father and there were times when I felt like I was going to fall apart at the seams. The idea that a week or two after losing his wife that Cordell would be barely holding things together is not exactly a surprise. And to be a little sympathetic towards Stella, she and Augie lost their mother so neither of them are expected to respond in rational manners. 

That in no way excuses Stella framing her father and painting him as neglectful, putting her in danger when he did no such thing. Stella wanted to scare of her father into changing his behavior and when the whole family gathered to call Cordell out on the carpet for something that he didn't do, she didn't come clean. Instead she repeated the lie, empathizing that she was scared when instead she was angered and put her father in a terrible position at a time when he was very vulnerable. It was a shitty thing for her to do and she's old enough to know better. Especially when Cordell didn't respond the way that she expected and ended up taking an undercover assignment when he was in no fit mental state to do so. She could have come clean at any time and she hasn't. Instead she continued to rake her father over the coals for not managing his grief well enough immediately after his wife's murder.

Everyone in that room failed Cordell. Stella because she lied and Augie because he didn't clear things up. Addy, Bonham and Liam because they didn't see what was really going on and Cordell's boss and partner because they didn't pull the plug on the idiocy of sending a new widower on an undercover assignment. Even Liam's efforts to gain custody of the kids while Cordell was undercover now make sense since Stella painted such a vivid picture of him being so neglectful that he would thoughtlessly endanger his children. That is not something I could get past.

[Katy M]

17 minutes ago, Coleyb said:

Both were mourning we get that, but what Stella did was BIG FAT NO FROM ME, IT WAS WRONG. Yes Cordell wasn’t there mentally with his family but that is  realistic when someone looses a loved one, especially a significant other they’ll  bury themselves into their work, drink or do other things to stave off the pain and clearly Cordell wasn’t okay because he was taking medication from the bottle of pills we saw. 
 

I don’t care if you’re an adult or a teenager you don’t FRAME someone in order to get them the help they need, Stella or Augie said that it was a week or so since Emily’s funeral and Cordell forgot the kids ONCE in that time frame. Stella then LIED to her entire family that Cordell fell asleep while driving and then Cordell felt guilty over something he didn’t do which then caused him to undercover as Duke. 

I'm not saying it wasn't wrong, but of all the stupid stuff STella has done this was the most understandable.  And, no this isn't what caused him to go undercover as Duke.  That was his own, and his boss's, stupidity.  He had no business being undercover in the frame of mind he was in. If he didn't even think he could drive, how did he think he was going to keep it together enough to convince bad guys he was who he said he was.  The whole thing was ridiculous.

The kids' mom has just died and the dad thinks it's a good idea to abandon them for a year at the same time. And their grandfather potentially thinks this is also the best time to kill himself via cancer.  I'm actually hoping that after he found out his wife wasn't leaving,he went back to the doctor and is getting treated and just hasn't mentioned it to his family.  BUt, that's probably too much to ask for.

For crying out loud, Stella's emergency contact is someone who lived 2,000 miles (give or take, geography isn't my strongsuit) away.  She's a minor. That's not OK.

[Katy M]

4 minutes ago, Hana Chan said:

Everyone in that room failed Cordell. Stella because she lied and Augie because he didn't clear things up. Addy, Bonham and Liam because they didn't see what was really going on and Cordell's boss and partner because they didn't pull the plug on the idiocy of sending a new widower on an undercover assignment. Even Liam's efforts to gain custody of the kids while Cordell was undercover now make sense since Stella painted such a vivid picture of him being so neglectful that he would thoughtlessly endanger his children. That is not something I could get past.

So, Walker, a grown man gets to spin out of control due to grief (I agree, he does), but Stella, a teenager, has to keep it together and make no mistakes?

[Hana Chan]

3 minutes ago, Katy M said:

The kids' mom has just died and the dad thinks it's a good idea to abandon them for a year at the same time.

The reason that Cordell ended up leaving was because he had his entire family gathered there to tell him that he was being a bad parent. That he had thoughtlessly endangered his children. The intervention wasn't "Cordell, you're driving yourself into the ground and worrying all of us because the kids can't stand to lose you too." It was "This can't happen again." That's not at all fair to Cordell and it's not a total surprise that he decided that since he was being a shitty parent that the kids would be better staying with their grandparents until he was able to get his head screwed on straight again.

2 minutes ago, Katy M said:

So, Walker, a grown man gets to spin out of control due to grief (I agree, he does), but Stella, a teenager, has to keep it together and make no mistakes?

She had a year to own up to her lie. Instead she continued to make things as difficult for her father as she could when he came back. She continued to punish him for not not managing his grief to her satisfaction, including throwing how Liam was there for her in Cordell's face just to hurt him. Cordell has bent over backwards trying to make things right and she fought him every inch of the way. Before we knew about this, I could understand her behavior, but now that we see that her lies pushed her father into taking a dangerous assignment, she lost any right to be judgmental about anything Cordell did. 

[Katy M]

2 minutes ago, Hana Chan said:

but now that we see that her lies pushed her father into taking a dangerous assignment, she lost any right to be judgmental about anything Cordell did. 

He would have gone anyway.  He was looking for an excuse to bail and run away from his grief.  Again, understandable, but let's not pin all his bad choices on Stella.  

[Hana Chan]

16 minutes ago, Katy M said:

For crying out loud, Stella's emergency contact is someone who lived 2,000 miles (give or take, geography isn't my strongsuit) away.  She's a minor. That's not OK.

Liam didn't become her emergency contact until he moved back to Texas. Cordell had left his parents with custody. 

I get that Stella is a minor but she is still ultimately responsible for causing her father, her brother and herself a lot of additional pain that they didn't have to endure. Instead of being able to come together to mourn, she all but drove her father away and then continued to drive him away when he finished his assignment. 

2 minutes ago, Katy M said:

He would have gone anyway.  He was looking for an excuse to bail and run away from his grief.

There is no evidence of this. After Cordell had all of his failures as a parent, real and imagined, painted so clearly he looked to his boss and offered to take the undercover assignment. He hadn't agreed to it until that moment. And he made it clear that protecting his kids meant leaving them with those who could care of them since he couldn't. 

[Coleyb]

1 hour ago, Hana Chan said:

She's not a small child who doesn't know that lying can send things spiraling out of control. It had only been a short period since Cordell's wife died and the idea that he might be struggling is to be expected. He lost the love of his life under terrible circumstances,  was trying to manage in a high pressure job and raise two young teens who were also in mourning. Coming to grips with grief doesn't happen immediately after the funeral is over. It takes weeks and months.

This is something that I'm deeply intimate with at the moment. Since my mom's diagnosis, I hadn't gotten a good night's sleep. I spent weeks getting only a few hours of uninterrupted rest before waking up in the middle of the night and crying. I've had to compartmentalize in order to be a support for my father and there were times when I felt like I was going to fall apart at the seams. The idea that a week or two after losing his wife that Cordell would be barely holding things together is not exactly a surprise. And to be a little sympathetic towards Stella, she and Augie lost their mother so neither of them are expected to respond in rational manners. 

That in no way excuses Stella framing her father and painting him as neglectful, putting her in danger when he did no such thing. Stella wanted to scare of her father into changing his behavior and when the whole family gathered to call Cordell out on the carpet for something that he didn't do, she didn't come clean. Instead she repeated the lie, empathizing that she was scared when instead she was angered and put her father in a terrible position at a time when he was very vulnerable. It was a shitty thing for her to do and she's old enough to know better. Especially when Cordell didn't respond the way that she expected and ended up taking an undercover assignment when he was in no fit mental state to do so. She could have come clean at any time and she hasn't. Instead she continued to rake her father over the coals for not managing his grief well enough immediately after his wife's murder.

Everyone in that room failed Cordell. Stella because she lied and Augie because he didn't clear things up. Addy, Bonham and Liam because they didn't see what was really going on and Cordell's boss and partner because they didn't pull the plug on the idiocy of sending a new widower on an undercover assignment. Even Liam's efforts to gain custody of the kids while Cordell was undercover now make sense since Stella painted such a vivid picture of him being so neglectful that he would thoughtlessly endanger his children. That is not something I could get past.

well said! 

[Katy M]

1 hour ago, Hana Chan said:

Liam didn't become her emergency contact until he moved back to Texas. Cordell had left his parents with custody. 

Nope.  He was at the airport on his way back to New York when he was called from the hospital. Stella expressed surprised that he was back.  It was then that he said he was coming back for good.

 

1 hour ago, Hana Chan said:

There is no evidence of this. After Cordell had all of his failures as a parent, real and imagined, painted so clearly he looked to his boss and offered to take the undercover assignment. He hadn't agreed to it until that moment. And he made it clear that protecting his kids meant leaving them with those who could care of them since he couldn't. 

If it's because of "all of his failures," Stella only added one.  Which very well could have happened for reals anyway.  The reason she was driving was because she was afraid that he would fall asleep and I don't think that fear was that unfounded.  Again, I'm not saying she wasn't wrong.  but, while yes, she's not a small child, neither is her father.  And as the actual adult, he bears more responsibility in helping the family make it through their grief.

[Hana Chan]

3 hours ago, Katy M said:

Which very well could have happened for reals anyway.

But it didn't. The kids could have very easily waken him up and if he wasn't up to driving could have called the grandparents to come get them.  Or Stella could have driven with Cordell supervising. There was zero justification to deliberately drive into the hitching post and then lie to everyone that Cordell had been behind the wheel.

There were plenty of things that the family could have intervened on (though a bare week or two following Emily's death is really not giving Cordell any time to grieve). They could have kept it to worrying about his well being, that he wasn't taking care of himself (and he wouldn't be able to take care of the kids if he wasn't well) and that it would be only a matter of time before he fell apart or made a mistake at work that could get him injured or killed. The fact that Cordell was barely holding himself together should have been the grounds for that family gathering and not Stella's made up accusation that Cordell had put his children in real physical danger. Cordell took the undercover job specifically because he felt that he couldn't be a good father. That they were better off without him around. I get that it wasn't what Stella intended to happen, but that doesn't change the fact that Cordell might not have taken the assignment if she hadn't tried to manipulate him.

And I'm not forgetting everything that happened since then. How Liam sought custody of the children while Cordell was away because the assignment ended running longer than expected and that Stella seemed all right with that idea. Or how Stella was getting in trouble and using Cordell has her justification. She drove him away (inadvertently) and then went on to continue punishing him. I get that she's a teenager and was also grieving, but her behavior was abominable. She had plenty of time to let the family know that Cordell hadn't been the one driving and that she crashed into the post deliberately in order to try to scare him straight. She didn't and it's not too much of a stretch to say that a lot of the bad things that happened since can be linked to her behavior.

Edited May 21, 2021 by Hana Chan

[Katy M]

48 minutes ago, Hana Chan said:

But it didn't. The kids could have very easily waken him up and if he wasn't up to driving either called the grandparents to come get them.  Or Stella could have driven with Cordell supervising. There was zero justification to deliberately drive into the hitching post and then lie to everyone that Cordell had been behind the wheel.

there was 0 justtification (except for grief) for a grown man to abandon his family after their mother's death.  And there was 0 justification (except for grief) for what a teenager girl impulsively did. I don't understand why you're giving so much more understanding to a grieving grown ass man than you are to a grieving teenager.

And, even though, i agree that she shouldn't have done it, she didn't force Walker to take that undercover job any more than WAlker forced that couple to rob that bank.

[ZeeEnnui]

9 hours ago, Hana Chan said:

But it didn't. The kids could have very easily waken him up and if he wasn't up to driving could have called the grandparents to come get them.  Or Stella could have driven with Cordell supervising. There was zero justification to deliberately drive into the hitching post and then lie to everyone that Cordell had been behind the wheel.

There were plenty of things that the family could have intervened on (though a bare week or two following Emily's death is really not giving Cordell any time to grieve). They could have kept it to worrying about his well being, that he wasn't taking care of himself (and he wouldn't be able to take care of the kids if he wasn't well) and that it would be only a matter of time before he fell apart or made a mistake at work that could get him injured or killed. The fact that Cordell was barely holding himself together should have been the grounds for that family gathering and not Stella's made up accusation that Cordell had put his children in real physical danger. Cordell took the undercover job specifically because he felt that he couldn't be a good father. That they were better off without him around. I get that it wasn't what Stella intended to happen, but that doesn't change the fact that Cordell might not have taken the assignment if she hadn't tried to manipulate him.

 

ALL of this. Every week it's as if Stella has to top herself in the asshat department. As I was watching this, my first thought was park the truck and go get Grandma and Grandpa. Never underestimate the power of being a tattletale when you're a kid. Walker would still have to sit through an intervention but at least it wouldn't have been based on a lie. Was it the sole reason that Walker was driven away? Nah. But, maybe things would have worked out differently if the intervention was honest. This doesn't excuse Walker being an absentee parent. It's a good thing he's hot...

The whole lonesome cowboy act with Bonham keeping a treatable cancer a secret from his family for reasons -- Season 2 Mid-Season Cliffhanger Dramz -- was an eye-roller. 

I sort of hate these slowed down flashback episodes where poor Liam is going to have to bleed out for a week while we wait for next week. 

I'm shocked that Augie didn't rat Stella out at one point. What kind of younger sibling is he anyway?

[Josh371982]

On 5/21/2021 at 6:45 AM, Katy M said:

I was wondering about that, too.  But, I decided he just jumped out so fast, he forgot afterwards.  I also found it weird that he was in the back seat in the first place.  Surely, it would have been easier to just shove him over versus pull him out and put him back in.  But, then he would have been on the wrong side of the car which would have been more noticeable.

Actually, I was kind of with her on that one.  their  mom just dies.  Their dad was neglecting them and drunk all the time.  She felt like nobody was going to do anything without some big catalyst, so she provided it.

Not me. She does that then gets all uber pissed when Walker leaves town cause of something she set up. Screw her 

[Badsamaritan]

I think there's plenty of blame to go around between Walker and Stella. However Walker is still the adult here, the onus was on him. And there were a few things that didn't break in his favor:

In the scene when Stella and Augie are waiting to be picked up, the siblings talk about Walker forgetting about them, again. There was also mention of how many times he had been late. So, a pattern is established that Walker is neglecting his responsibilities as a parent. When Bonham shows up and Walker is asleep on the couch, there is a shot of a bottle of alcohol on the table next to him. The implication in TV writing 101 states we are to assume that Walker is actually passed out. So, he has been drinking and again, neglecting his responsibilities as a parent. Before Emily died, it was also established she did the heavy lifting while Walker was on assignments, a lot. I believe his grief was already too much for him to handle, and Stella's stupid, awful lie gave him the cover to get out of his own skin and avoid dealing with his pain. He went with the familiar. He left others to do the heavy lifting, because that's what he does. 

His boss should never have let him go, if he was really his friend. His parents and brother should have refused to go along with it. If they really wanted to intervene they should have all told him they wouldn't help him raise his children until he learned how to do it himself and left. The higher ups should MOST certainly NOT have signed on to him doing the assignment. There's a lot of failure and blame to go around. If everyone had done the right and sensible thing, we wouldn't be waiting for the next episode to see if all the hostages make it through. 😉

[Josh371982]

On 5/20/2021 at 9:09 PM, Katy M said:

I feel like calling Crystal's death Walker's fault is a bit of a stretch.  Maybe, and only maybe, would they not have done the job if he had voted the other way, but what's his name was pretty gung ho.  If it was just a tie between him and his wife, they were going for it.

9 times out of 10 if a parent dies on tv, at least one kid's last words were I hate you, so i'm glad that they didn't go that route with this show.  they have a nice, if somewhat mundane, last memory of their mother.

And, while I knew Walker was gone for a whole year, I really wanted to punch him all over again when i saw his family celebrating their first Emily-less Christmas.

Stella framed her dad.  that was kind of awesome.  But she should have said he fell asleep behind the wheel and then the truck crashed into the thing.  That would have been true.  More or less.

I would worry about Liam, but I'm 95% sure he'll be fine.

fuck Stella. Shes a huge reason Walker took the assignment then rakes him over the coals like she did when he came back when SHE LIED and made him look worse. It was a shitty thing to do not awesome. Looks like no remorse on her part. Has no right to be judgemental.