Recaps are Spoilers Off per policy. All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned
Written By Dawn De Noon
Directed By David Platt
A missing teenager suddenly returns home after four years, claiming to have been kept as a sex slave in a concrete cell. However, not everything is at it seems in the family...
Tropes
- Abusive Parents: Carl Vucelik, who kidnapped his daughter Kristen and sexually abused her for years, holding her captive in the basement and threatening to kill her if she tried to escape. He also faked an obituary for Kristen's mother to convince that she had nowhere to go in any case.
- Accidental Murder: Nikki tearfully claims she never meant to murder Heather and that pushing her down the chimney stack was an accident. We don't find out the truth because she and Heather were the only ones there when it happened.
- Big Sister Bully: Nikki repeatedly mentions insulting her sister Heather about her weight and calling her a "heifer", most importantly on the day she ran away and was never seen again. The twist is that Heather never ran away, nor was she kidnapped: Nikki pushed her down the chimney stack years ago so she wouldn't tell their parents about the latter's drug habit.
- Bittersweet Ending: Kristen and her mother are reunited while her father is arrested, but the real Heather has been dead for years, and it’s heavily implied that the damage to her family will be irreparable after the revelation that it was her sister Nikki who killed her, and their mother kept the truth a secret from the rest of the family after discovering it not long after the fact.
- Broken Bird: Unsurprisingly, years of being raped by her own father have left Kristen emotionally broken.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Heather's eldest sister Erica does this upon learning that not only did Nikki murder Heather, but that their own mother found out and kept it from the rest of the family for years, giving them false hope that Heather was still alive.Erica: You knew? You knew this whole time?!
Mrs. Hallander: No, not until much later. But, sweetheart, what was I supposed to do? Heather was gone, and I couldn't lose two daughters... - The Cuckoolander Was Right: Munch had a hunch that there was more to what happened with Nikki and Heather than just Nikki bullying Heather into running away. Turns out, Nikki murdered Heather.
- Dark Secret: Nikki murdered Heather after the latter discovered her drug habit and threatened to tell their parents. Not long afterwards, their mother found out but hid it from the rest of the family because she "couldn't lose two daughters".
- Dead All Along: Heather has been dead for years thanks to Nikki killing her and Mrs. Hallander eventually finding out. Only Erica and Mr. Hallander, who were Locked Out of the Loop, are truly shocked to discover the truth about her death.
- Driven to Suicide: Kristen tries to commit suicide by slitting her wrists, but survives. Once her secret it's out, it's revealed she did it because of the trauma inflicted on her by her father and the fear of what the Hallanders would do to her if they found out she wasn't Heather.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Before Heather's disappearance, Nikki used to call her "Heifer".
- Good Cop/Bad Cop: Olivia and Elliot while interrogating Carl. Somewhat unusually, Elliot plays the role of the good cop, in this case as a sympathetic misogynist to bond with.
- Groin Attack: When Vucelik says that he wants to see his daugther, Olivia, as part of her Bad Cop routine, says that she wants to see him castrated with a rusty steak knife.
- Imposter Forgot One Detail: To impersonate Heather, Kristen got a tattoo on her wrist of a four-leaf clover that matched hers. When the detectives compare reference photos of both tattoos, they notice that the stem of Heather's clover curves to the right, while Kristen's curves to the left.
- I Just Want to Be Loved: Kristen pretended to be Heather because she wanted a real family after years of being sexually abused by her father. When asked why she didn't go to her mother, Kristen reveals that her father said that her mother was dead, even producing a fake obituary.
- Kick the Dog: Nikki gives "Heather" a copy of a newspaper with a photo of her and a headline reading "Sex Slave in the City".
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Mrs. Hallander knew the truth about Heather's death the whole time, letting Erica and Mr. Hallander hold on to false hope for years that Heather was going to come back. She didn't want to lose two daughters but in the end, she lost all three of them with Heather Dead All Along, Nikki going to jail, and Erica being disgusted with her choice to keep her Dark Secret.
- Out of the Frying Pan: Downplayed. After years of being held captive and sexually abused by her father, Kristen escapes by posing as a missing girl. Unfortunately, the "missing" girl she chose to impersonate was actually murdered by her psychotic sister, who threatens to kill Kristen if she doesn't go away and later almost follows through on her threat.
- Parental Incest: It's eventually revealed that "Heather", whose real name is Kristen, was abused and raped by her own father.
- Patched Together from the Headlines: This episode appears to based on the headlines of the Elisabeth Fritzl
case, as well as the case of Frédéric Bourdin, who infamously impersonated Nicholas Barclay, a missing person. - Rewatch Bonus: Nikki's actions and behavior make a lot more sense once you know that she killed Heather, and among other things knows Kristen is an imposter.
- Same goes for Mrs. Hallander. The most telling thing is how she claims not to know "Heather's" blood type when she's brought to the hospital for her suicide attempt.
- Kristen's fear that the Hallanders would kill her if they found out she wasn't Heather makes sense when you learn that Nikki Hallander murdered Heather years prior, and told Kristen she'd do the same to her if she didn't leave.
- Secret-Keeper: At some point after Heather disappeared, Mrs. Hallander found out her sister Nikki killed her. However, she chose to cover it up because she still loved Nikki and didn't want to lose her too. Heather's other sister, Erica, is furious when she finds out.
- Shout-Out: A pair of "reporters" tastelessly dub Kristen's ordeal "Sex Slave in the City".
- Smokestack Drop: A young woman impersonates a girl who went missing several years ago, but it's revealed that her "sister" knew she was a fake all along, because she killed her sister the night she vanished by shoving her down a large chimney stack. At the end of the episode, she intimidates her by dragging her to the roof and forcing her to look and see where the real sister fell to her death, and threatening her with the same fate.
- Torture Cellar: Where Kristen was held.
- Weight Woe: Before disappearing, Heather struggled with her weight and her sister Nikki bullied her about it, calling her "heifer". The week she disappeared, she was fighting with her parents because they wanted to send her to fat camp.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- After "Heather's"/Kristen's photo ends up on the front page of the newspapers with the headline "Sex Slave in the City", her oldest sister Erica angrily tears into the detectives for not doing more to protect her, since they were out with her when it happened.
- Olivia chastises Kristen when she first finds out she isn't Heather. Her attitude changes quickly, however, once she learns Kristen's whole story.
