Tonight on the ABC The Family airs with an all new Friday March 3, season 1 premiere called “Pilot.” On tonight’s episode, in the premiere, Maine politician Claire Warren’s (Joan Allen) presumed-dead son Adam (Liam James) returns home a decade after he disappeared; and while he’s welcomed with a mixture of joy and astonishment.
A family is shaken to the core when a politician’s presumed dead son suddenly returns. After disappearing a decade earlier, Adam Warren’s homecoming to Red Pines, ME, is initially met with astonishment and joy, but suspicions soon begin to emerge. Is he really who he says he is? The boy’s shocking reappearance forces the entire family to re-examine who they are and unearths long-buried secrets, betrayals and heartache, in the riveting new thriller “The Family,” which will debut with a special premiere.
On tonight’s episode as per the ABC synopsis, “in the premiere episode, “Pilot,” ten years after the disappearance of her son, Adam, Claire Warren (Joan Allen) still can’t sleep at night. She not only has survived the heart-breaking loss of her son, but has used her resiliency and surrounding adversity in the aftermath of this tragedy to fuel her own political aspirations. Now the Mayor of Red Pines, ME, she is considering running for governor when suddenly Adam (Liam James) reappears, forcing the entire case to be brought into question and freeing the Warren’s neighbor, Hank Asher (Andrew McCarthy), who was convicted of his murder. Deceptions and indiscretions have taken the place of what used to be a happy, loving family.”
Tune in tonight to catch the season 1 premiere of The Family on ABC – we’ll be right here recapping it for you live! While you wait for the recap, check out a sneak peek of tonight’s episode below!
Tonight’s episode begins now – Refresh Page often to get the most current updates!
Adam Warren disappeared ten years ago. Apparently he was with his family at the time, handing out fliers because his mother was running for public office.
Yet, the children (especially Adam and his brother) had needed a break from it all so their father had given them enough money to buy themselves ice cream cones and the eldest child had been put in charge. Only Danny was a teenage boy and he eventually ditched his younger siblings in order to go hangout/make-out with his girlfriend. And he had been so consumed with doing whatever he wanted to do that he had also later ignored his sister Willa when she told him she couldn’t find Adam.
So that’s how someone was able to get their hands on Adam and what happened to him next remains a mystery. Back then, the police and one officer in particular had written Adam off as dead when they failed to find him within the first 48 hours and so they began to suspect the Warrens’ neighbor of possibly harming Adam. Willa Warren had said she saw her brother speaking to Hank Asher at the park. And while she hadn’t thought much of it, her parents had.
It seemed the older Warrens had known and had not told their children that Hank Asher had previously been convicted of exposing himself to children and that he was on the sex offender registry because of it. Therefore, Willa hadn’t suspected her neighbor of being up to anything nefarious when she saw him in the park and she didn’t question why he would be talking to her nine-year-old brother. She just thought he was normal until her parents finally informed her otherwise.
However, the police came to believe that Hank probably did do something to Adam and they were in the unfortunate position of only having had circumstantial evidence to make their case. So they later thought they had got extremely lucky when Willa, who was suffering from guilt, had helped them prove Hank had one of her brother’s boats. Adam had apparently loved to build boats inside of ships and he had just created a new one on the day he disappeared so Hank having that exact same ship in bottle meant he have taken Adam.
Or at least that’s what Officer Nina Meyer thought when she basically pressured Hank into ultimately confessing to the crime because of that bottle as well as his past.
But ten years later and the officer that had been promoted to detective because she claimed to have found Adam’s killer now has to answer to a lot of people when a young man walked into the station claiming to be Adam. The young man looked like Adam and appeared to be of the correct age as Adam yet there was something about him that seemed off. And only Danny was really prepared to question the sudden return of his brother.
Adam said he had been kidnapped by a pockmarked man who had gone on to rape and torture him over the past ten years. Which was what his family was using as excuse to explain why he was so different personality wise. Yet, it was almost as if he took pleasure in shocking his supposed parents as well as Detective Meyer with the details of his ordeal.
Especially when the detectives wanted to continue questioning even though he told her he wanted more ice cream. But the little things that Danny noticed were off was when Adam couldn’t stop eating scrambled eggs when he used to hate them because they made him feel sick. And the Adam that came back was also strangely confused about how anyone used to get the ships in the bottles when that used to be his own personal obsession.
So Danny had questioned the young man claiming to be Adam and he had brought his concerns to his mother and sister. Even listing all the things that were either off or merely felt off and he wanted them to at least wonder why the Adam that was currently residing in their house wasn’t matching up to the Adam they all clearly remembered. Though, instead of listening to him, his family chose to ignore Danny’s warnings because of his past with the bottle.
Danny was the eldest out of all the children and it had been his job to look after his younger siblings. But, when Adam disappeared on his watch, he took it to heart and began drinking throughout all of his teens to most of adulthood. Thus Danny hasn’t been sober in years because of what happened to their family while his sister Willa instead chose to turn to god. Possibly becoming slightly fanatical.
Although their parents’ also had their struggles. Claire Warren took to campaigning as way to ignore everything else and in time she soon found herself as Mayor of Red Pines, but her husband John found himself an outlet as well. Such as writing a book about the grieving process that would take him all over the states. Doing book tours and whatnot yet those obligations meant he was away from home for the short times that Claire actually was there.
Thus the marriage ended up falling apart in the interim and, while everyone knew the reality of their situation, they had previously made an effort to ignore the many cracks in their family until Adam came back. And that’s when Danny’s drinking was used to discredit him plus Willa confessed to a priest that she hadn’t been honest with him in confession in nearly ten years. Like right around when her brother disappeared.
But what the ladies told Danny to finally make him stop with his conspiracy theories was that there was a DNA test that proved Adam was who he said he was.
And so they wanted Danny to stop trying to say otherwise. The press had been all over their family since news about Adam broke and Claire’s politically career was taking off. It seemed she had merely been a mayor when her son was found, but now that she was part of reunited family, they were many believing she could win the upcoming race for governor. So Clair and Willa were preparing themselves for the next step in the agenda and they had asked the men in the family to fall in line.
But John hated the photo opportunities he felt his wife was secretly setting up and Danny had immediately gone to a bar following that nasty argument at home. So while John was carrying out an illicit officer with Detective Meyer no less as way to relieve the tension, Danny had gone and done something even more foolish. He talked to the press. Or in this case he talked to a journalist that had something to prove.
Said journalist worked in the Lesbian Life & Styles section and she wanted to use her past with Danny to find something a little more lucrative for herself. Like a possibly better beat if not better job at a different paper. Yet, that past Bridey had with Danny hadn’t been any old passing thing.
Bridey had apparently been the girlfriend Danny was with when Adam had gone missing. Thus she knew what he and his family had gone though that day but that hadn’t stopped her from playing the old concerned friend card to gather information. So she made sure that she found out about Adam’s scars and which hospital he had been treated in. And when she had left a still drinking Danny, she had tried to call the doctor that had verified Adam’s test only to find out that the doctor doesn’t exist.
And therefore Bridey had found herself a story meanwhile the bigger story that was eluding everyone was why Adam was lying.
Adam had found old videos around the house and he was using them to mimic the Adam he saw in the videos, but why would he do that? He was telling the truth about the pockmarked man who was still on the loose by the way yet the fact such a man exist could mean he’s right about others things. Though the gaps he has in his overall character as well as the mimicking is weird.
If he’s not the real Adam, then who was he?
Hank had been freed following “Adam’s” return so has dangerous pedophile now back out on the street or was he really what he claimed all those years ago to Officer Meyer? A looker who swears he doesn’t touch!
THE END!