Tonight on the ABC The Family returns with an all new Sunday April 24, season 1 episode 9 called “Betta Male,” and we have your weekly recap below. On tonight’s episode, Det. Meyer (Margot Bingham) watches Adam’s (Liam James) therapy sessions; Claire (Joan Allen) tries to keep an eye on Ben after Hank’s (Andrew McCarthy) dressing-down; the family prepares to support Claire at the gubernatorial debate.
On the last episode, Claire dealt with the ramifications of Willa’s scheming; Nina tracks Adam, who disappeared every night from his home; Clements investigated Jane’s link to the pock-marked man. Did you watch the last episode? If you missed it, we have a full and detailed recap right here for you.
On tonight’s episode as per the ABC synopsis, “Det. Meyer watches Adam’s therapy sessions; Claire tries to keep an eye on Ben after Hank’s dressing-down; the family prepares to support Claire at the gubernatorial debate; and Hank’s guest leads him to discover proof of who kidnapped Adam. In other events, Meyer worries about her missing partner; and Ben is visited by someone from his past.”
Tune in tonight to catch the season 1 episode 9 of The Family on ABC – we’ll be right here recapping it for you live! While you wait for the recap, let us know what you think of The Family so far down below!
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After last week’s bombshell, Detective Nina Meyers was trying to stay under the radar. It seems everyone now knows that she’s crossed a moral if not ethical line when she began sleeping with the father of the missing boy she tried to find. So there were some at the station and in town that were judging her for what she did, but Nina’s first concern hadn’t been about herself or even her career. She just wanted to find her missing partner.
No one had heard from or seen Agent Clements since they had followed Ben. So Nina initially thought that her must have slept in late however across town someone was smashing up his phone and removing any trace that the Agent had come looking for Doug. Though Doug himself didn’t seem to care that his pregnant girlfriend had taken a frying pan to Agent Clements. And it wasn’t long after he had moved the other man’s body that he was at Hank Asher’s house spying on the Warren family.
Doug kept track of when John and Claire where at the house and when they left. So it was quite clear that Doug was slowly trying to figure out when Ben would be home alone yet he always made sure Hank never caught on. Hank had hired Doug to do some work around the house seeing as he was trying to sell the place. However, Hank and the others couldn’t help thinking about the past. Hank had remembered the moment he told Adam (the real Adam) that they couldn’t be friends anymore because he was an adult and Adam was a child.
And yet mere seconds that had happened, Doug had seen Adam for the first time. Doug had been playing around with his dog when he noticed Adam walking around after Hank had apparently hurt his feelings. So that’s when Doug introduced his dog to Adam and the dog had managed to cheer Adam up afterwards with that dog because children are children. But Doug used that dog to get Adam lower his guard and unfortunately his plan worked on the young boy.
Later, though, Hank had stopped by Doug’s craftsman stand at the fair and he just nearly missed him. So Hank hadn’t seen Doug the day Adam had gone missing and he never got the chance to catch sight of one of Adam’s bottle projects that Doug still had on him because if he did then he would have realized what happened. And he probably could have stopped Adam’s abduction.
Only, as Nina was finding out, it was too late for regrets. She had finally checked out Adam’s story and she had found several holes that had made her think maybe he wasn’t Adam. Yet, she hadn’t been sure about anything until she found out about a foster boy named Ben. Ben had been placed in what looked like a crowded house and his former foster father hadn’t even bothered to report him missing.
The older man had told Nina that he hadn’t wanted to lose his license over a kid just running away. Which is what he thought had happened. So the foster father had covered up Ben’s disappearance and had in fact written him off as a runaway when it turns out he had been kidnapped. And there was simply no one looking for him.
So it’s understandable why Ben would now want to stay with a “real” family, but Nina was onto him and she would have questioned Ben about his past if Claire and Willa hadn’t put a stop to it. Both Claire and Willa had wanted to continue to pretend Ben was Adam because Willa thought they could be a family again and Claire wanted to win an election. Yet, neither John nor Danny knew the truth so the ladies wanted to stop Nina from questioning Ben in case she ruined the image they built up.
However, Claire didn’t necessarily trust Ben. She told him that he could stay and she told Willa that they needed to focus on the election yet Claire had tried to spy on Ben. She had set up a nanny cam in his room and unfortunately Ben had found it. So Ben had already gotten rid of it by time the debate happened and everyone else had left him in the house alone. And so there hadn’t been a nanny cam around to catch Doug sneaking into Ben’s room.
Doug had waited until everyone had left and then he had walked through the Warren’s front door. Apparently Ben hadn’t locked it all the way after he had accepted pizza from the delivery guy so Doug had later used that opportunity to break into the house. And he had wondered around until he found Ben in Adam’s room. Were he then told the young man he had kidnapped that he needed to talk.
Only we never did find out what they talked about. Afterwards, Ben had been fine enough to greet the Warren family and he hadn’t told them about any visitors. So there could be a chance that Doug frightened him into remaining silent or the idea of the truth (about who he was) getting out did. But either way the truth was slowly coming out.
Hank had begun to suspect Doug after he remembered their almost run-in ten years ago and Nina had finally figured out that there was something up with Agent Clements. The agent’s husband had stopped by the office to see him and so that’s when Nina realized that no one had seen him over thirty-six hours. And she quickly put out a BOLO on him after that, but thankfully it was revealed on tonight’s episode of “The Family” that Agent Clements is still alive.
But it starting to look like Ben had lied when he said Adam got sick and if so there’s a possibility that Ben had been the one to kill Adam. Not Doug!
THE END!