S01.E12: What Took So Long

[Ina123]

26 minutes ago, ByTor said:

 My one nitpick...why did the governor give Nina her cup to do a DNA test?  Weren't they at the police station?  Don't police stations have cotton swabs?

Why swab when her DNA was on the cup? Just the same as doing a swab. I don't think there's any nefarious meaning. I just think they wanted it to be more dramatic. Kind of like a mic drop moment.

[ByTor]

4 minutes ago, Ina123 said:

Why swab when her DNA was on the cup? Just the same as doing a swab. I don't think there's any nefarious meaning. I just think they wanted it to be more dramatic. Kind of like a mic drop moment.

I didn't mean it was nefarious, I meant it was stupid :)

[iMonrey]

Quote

They couldn't prove Doug did this, because Clements never saw him?  The fact he was Jane's boyfriend and the #1 suspect means nothing?

Or the fact that he presumably owns that cabin?

Quote

I think Hank is pretty much doomed to give in to his "desires" at some point, because he has already decided to start skipping the "chemical castration" shots.

That's another thing I thought was silly. What doctor is going to call and leave a voice mail, or answering machine message anyone can hear, that says "Hey you need to keep taking your shots or your pedophile urges will return you pedophile you!" At best these days you get a robo-call reminding you that you have an appointment, or missed one. Not the actual doctor blabbing about your personal medical history.

[jhlipton]

38 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

Or the fact that he presumably owns that cabin?

That's another thing I thought was silly. What doctor is going to call and leave a voice mail, or answering machine message anyone can hear, that says "Hey you need to keep taking your shots or your pedophile urges will return you pedophile you!" At best these days you get a robo-call reminding you that you have an appointment, or missed one. Not the actual doctor blabbing about your personal medical history.

This is part of the convention of people reading books, letters and computer screens aloud, even if they're by themselves.  It's a trope to inform the audience, so it didn't bother me.

[theatremouse]

3 hours ago, jumper sage said:

About Ben - Didn't the reporter use the dna to find out that Ben is the husband's child and not the mothers?  Or was Willa using that ruse because the dna did not match the mother?

Other way around. The reporter told Willa the paternity test she did on Ben showed he wasn't her brother. Willa then told her (lying, to cover up Ben being Ben) that he was both her brother and not her father's son. She said her mother had an affair and Adam had a different father. They never suggested Claire wasn't the mother, and the whole story was a lie to try to get the reporter to stop digging on the "that's not Adam" front, which she didn't and by now we all know he wasn't anyway.

Edited May 17, 2016 by theatremouse

[KaveDweller]

11 hours ago, Major Bigtime said:

Yeah, I wondered the same thing. Unless he recognized Ben's voice, but that's a stretch. They didn't show him watching TV of his mom being elected governor, but anything can happen with this show.

I assumed Jane had filled him in. She must have asked his name when she found him, and then she'd respond by saying that Adam Warren has been all over the news. 

8 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Or the fact that he presumably owns that cabin?

That's another thing I thought was silly. What doctor is going to call and leave a voice mail, or answering machine message anyone can hear, that says "Hey you need to keep taking your shots or your pedophile urges will return you pedophile you!" At best these days you get a robo-call reminding you that you have an appointment, or missed one. Not the actual doctor blabbing about your personal medical history.

Maybe they are calling him because of the sensitive nature of the treatment? If you're giving injections to a pedophile to stop his urges, and he didn't show up, wouldn't you want to at least make a call about it. It's a little more important than getting a cavity filled.

But I have lots of doctor's offices that give me an in-person call to remind me of appointments. They don't mention personal info on a voicemail, but they do call.

The showrunner did an interview about what season 2 would have been like. She actually did it before she knew they were cancelled so it's very positive. It looks like the Bridey mystery would have been front and center.

https://tvline.com/2016/05/15/the-family-season-2-spoilers-cancelled-abc/

Edited May 18, 2016 by KaveDweller

[theatremouse]

2 hours ago, KaveDweller said:

Maybe they are calling him because of the sensitive nature of the treatment? If you're giving injections to a pedophile to stop his urges, and he didn't show up, wouldn't you want to at least make a call about it. It's a little more important than getting a cavity filled.

But I have lots of doctor's offices that give me an in-person call to remind me of appointments. They don't mention personal info on a voicemail, but they do call.

That's the issue. Sure they'd call, and I even believe they'd mention he missed an appointment. It's the "any personal info on a voicemail" that is problematic (for legal reasons) and thus makes the scene unrealistic and weird. It was conspicuous clunky exposition for the audience. If he'd answered the call it'd make sense they might say what they did, but to leave it in a voicemail where someone who isn't him could hear it is a no-no because you can't share his medical info with anyone else and a voicemail could be listened to by other people in the house if the voicemail is on a landline, which it was.

[Ina123]

One thing that bugged me when Hank drove the kid home. The kid runs from the car and Hank just drives off. What about the boy's bike. They should have shown Hank walking to the back to take it out and leave it.

Or...Hank deliberately takes it hoping the kid comes back for his bike.

[DFWGina]

On 5/17/2016 at 11:39 PM, theatremouse said:

It is 100% believable to me that a kid who was 8 in 2006 would have his home's landline phone number memorized and still remember it now. Mobile phones were not quite as ubiquitous and drilling the home phone into a small child's head is/was common. And he wouldn't have grown up in a culture where one no longer needs to remember phone numbers. So it'd stick. I buy it completely.

Heck my parents have the same phone number (albeit a different area code since the early 2000s)  since 1974.  I knew my phone number and would have a hard time forgetting it.  I can still recall both sets of my grandparents' phone numbers which haven't been dialed in over 20 years.  Now please don't ask me something from last week.  Or even last night LOL....

[KaveDweller]

17 hours ago, theatremouse said:

That's the issue. Sure they'd call, and I even believe they'd mention he missed an appointment. It's the "any personal info on a voicemail" that is problematic (for legal reasons) and thus makes the scene unrealistic and weird. It was conspicuous clunky exposition for the audience. If he'd answered the call it'd make sense they might say what they did, but to leave it in a voicemail where someone who isn't him could hear it is a no-no because you can't share his medical info with anyone else and a voicemail could be listened to by other people in the house if the voicemail is on a landline, which it was.

Usually when I go to a doctor for the first time I have to fill out a form telling them if it's okay for them to talk to other people in my house, leave a voicemail about things, leave a message at work etc. So if Hank had signed off on that maybe they would have. 

[Dowel Jones]

The problem with Bridey's murder is that it really doesn't solve anything for the killer, although he/she probably doesn't realize it.  Her editor will realize she is missing come Monday morning, and she has already told him all, or at least most of the details of her story.  Perhaps he doesn't have the facts anymore to actually put out a story, but a search of Bridey's house might turn up enough background to restart the investigation, especially when her body is found.  I can't say her death was unexpected, though.  Just like EVERY single movie cliche', she goes to the main suspect alone, and confronts her with the evidence of her wrongdoing.  "What's the worst that could happen?  I'm a newspaper journalist, for cryin' out loud."

Quote

drilling the home phone into a small child's head is/was common.

I still remember my childhood number from 55 years ago.  TEmple 8-3094.  Just before all digital dialing.

[Glade]

23 hours ago, Dowel Jones said:

Her editor will realize she is missing come Monday morning.

She basically quit her job and told her editor to go f*ck himself, so no I don't think he will notice she's gone. 

[bmack]

This is a while back, and I assumed we'd get an answer in a later episode but, now that it's been cancelled I guess I just missed the answer. What was with the key that Doug left in the wall of the dungeon/cave and with Ben sneaking out at night to break into that house ( I assumed the key was for that house). Whose house was it and why was he going there?

Also,  maybe it was just me but did both of the boys (Ben & Adam) seem way too knowledgeable and advanced for little boys who had been locked in the cave for 10-plus years. They didn't seem confused by computers, or buses, or cell phones, or hotel rooms, not to mention that money Willa gave Ben would have seems like millions of dollars to a 10 year old.  Where did he learn about the true value of money?  I have to imagine it's like a coma patient who wakes up years later and has to be told who the president is and about everything that happened while he was in the coma.  

[atomationage]

11 hours ago, bmack said:

Whose house was it and why was he going there?

The house belonged to his foster parents.  I think we only saw the foster father. 

[theatremouse]

17 hours ago, bmack said:

This is a while back, and I assumed we'd get an answer in a later episode but, now that it's been cancelled I guess I just missed the answer. What was with the key that Doug left in the wall of the dungeon/cave and with Ben sneaking out at night to break into that house ( I assumed the key was for that house). Whose house was it and why was he going there?

Also,  maybe it was just me but did both of the boys (Ben & Adam) seem way too knowledgeable and advanced for little boys who had been locked in the cave for 10-plus years. They didn't seem confused by computers, or buses, or cell phones, or hotel rooms, not to mention that money Willa gave Ben would have seems like millions of dollars to a 10 year old.  Where did he learn about the true value of money?  I have to imagine it's like a coma patient who wakes up years later and has to be told who the president is and about everything that happened while he was in the coma.  

I don't think Doug hid the key there. I think Ben hid the key there himself and then retrieved it to go sneak into the former forster house (where he had been living when taken).

They were in there ten years, but the ten years in question were 2006-2016 I think. So computers, buses, cell phone and hotel rooms I think all should've been fairly comfortable/familiar things for 9 year olds in 2006? The first iphone was 2007, but Blackberries and whatnot existed before, so while smartphones may have been less familiar to them when they got kidnapped, it's not inconceivable they'd have at least passing familiarity with them. Also Ben mentioned "doing school". It's unclear to what extent Doug actually did try to educate them? Or if that just mean he threw books and/or newspapers down and the kids spent time daily reading?

Still, if they'd been there 1997-2007 it'd be a much bigger jump in terms of mobile phones, but in the established timeframe I don't think either of them looked too comfortable with something that should've been completely foreign.

Edited May 24, 2016 by theatremouse

[St. Claire]

On 5/18/2016 at 2:49 PM, DFWGina said:

Heck my parents have the same phone number (albeit a different area code since the early 2000s)  since 1974.  I knew my phone number and would have a hard time forgetting it.  I can still recall both sets of my grandparents' phone numbers which haven't been dialed in over 20 years.  Now please don't ask me something from last week.  Or even last night LOL....

I remember the phone number of the house we moved out of in 1977 (I was six at the time). Strangely, I don't remember the phone number of the townhouse I rented in college, even though I lived there for two years in the pre-mobile phone dark ages. I also remember my grandmother's phone number (she moved out of that house is 2010 and passed away in 2012; I don't remember her mobile phone number, since I always just looked it up in my phone when I needed to call her).