Five years ago, this series was cancelled, and yet it still haunts me. There were things about it that I liked and things I did not. It was a bit of a melodrama, which could be off-putting, and it was rather perverse, which could also be off-putting but also, like the distress of witnessing a road accident, made it difficult to look away from.
For those who do not know, the plot centers on a woman named Claire Warren (Joan Allen) who is the mayor of a small town (supposedly in the U. S. state of Maine, although there is nothing about the people or place that says "Maine" to me, and I grew up in nearby Massachusetts). She is also the mother of three children, one of whom, Adam, has been missing and presumed murdered for ten years. (The name, Adam, perhaps unfortunately, echoes that of Adam Walsh, a boy whose abduction and murder, along with the subsequent case of a girl named Amber Hagerman, contributed to increased systematic and rigorous responses to child abduction in the U. S. and, perhaps, to similar emergency protocols in other countries.)
Claire is contemplating a run for governor of Maine when a youth claiming to be Adam (Liam James) appears at her home, dredging up unpleasant memories for the family. Also, each character is apprehensive about whether this youth is really the long-lost Adam. They must reevaluate how the original loss affected their behavior in its aftermath as well as how it still down to the present day. Not only does Claire partially owe her election as mayor to being the mother of an abducted child, but her husband, John (Rupert Graves), owes his success as an author to a book about surviving the loss of a child.
BTW although one might think that this plot is improbable, there are documented cases of people who may have been long-lost relatives turning up and being believed by some and doubted by others. An old documented case of this sort was the basis for The Return of Martin Guerre (1982).
One of the many disturbing characters is Hank (Andrew McCarthy) who, although actually a pedophile, was wrongly convicted of the kidnap and murder of Adam nine years before.
Disturbingly, the viewer is invited to feel both sympathy and repulsion toward Hank who, as a registered sex offender, is forced to take a drug that chemically "castrates" him. He therefore cannot develop a socially and legally more acceptable relationship with an adult even though he tries. Still, the viewer is justified in not feeling too sorry for him because he feels sorry enough for himself.
Indeed, one of the creepiest and therefore most memorable lines in the series belongs to Hank. When someone questions him about whether he saw the real abductor, he describes the way a strange man was looking at the boy. He is then asked how he noticed and remembered this man's behavior so vividly. "Because I was looking too," says Hank.
Naturally, the detective (Margot Bingham) who made her career by making sure that Hank went to prison is not looking as good as she once did to those around or to herself. Adding to the soap opera, she is still haunted by the affair she had with John, Claire's husband and Adam's father.
Nobody in Adam's family is dealing well with the return. The mother is even reminded of her anger at-of all people-Adam, precisely because she thought she had taught him never to trust strangers or to go off with them. She feels guilty for blaming the victim but cannot help herself.
In the two children who remained, now young adults, Adam's return rekindles the old guilt they felt because they were supposed to be watching their brother on that fateful day. Willa (Alison Pill) and Danny (Zach Gilford), the adult children, seem the most sympathetic to me, but only because their flaws and weaknesses are traceable to a horrible and public family tragedy that brought them unwanted attention and guilt at vulnerable ages. They were innocent, and now they feel so bad about themselves that they are the only characters who probably feel worse than they deserve.
The ultimate mystery: who is the youth who claims to be their long-lost loved one if he isn't who he says he is? How else does he know some things that identify him as Adam, yet occasionally does not remember other things? Where has he been all these years, and why can he not help investigators to locate the place where he was kept or identify the man who kept him there?
Then there is the journalist, Bridey Cruz (Floriana Lima), a particularly irredeemable character who does not care who she has to hurt (or sleep with) to get the dirt on the Warren family. In an era when the erstwhile stigma of being gay or lesbian has been dramatically rehabilitated, Cruz incorporates her bi-sexual fluidity in her armamentarium of ways to manipulate people, including Willa who, arguably, is the most vulnerable of all the vulnerable characters.
My theory as to why this series was cancelled is that too many viewers did not watch because they were turned off by the unpleasantness of the subject as well as the lack of any truly sympathetic characters. If you think that any character is virtuous, just wait, and you will learn that they have less than admirable qualities.
The series ends on a cliffhanger, but it is an ending that definitively answers most of the major questions, and although it suggests that more would be in store for a continued narrative, I am not disappointed that the story ends there. Rest assured that the Big Bad is dead; long live the (new) Big Bad.
For those who do not know, the plot centers on a woman named Claire Warren (Joan Allen) who is the mayor of a small town (supposedly in the U. S. state of Maine, although there is nothing about the people or place that says "Maine" to me, and I grew up in nearby Massachusetts). She is also the mother of three children, one of whom, Adam, has been missing and presumed murdered for ten years. (The name, Adam, perhaps unfortunately, echoes that of Adam Walsh, a boy whose abduction and murder, along with the subsequent case of a girl named Amber Hagerman, contributed to increased systematic and rigorous responses to child abduction in the U. S. and, perhaps, to similar emergency protocols in other countries.)
Claire is contemplating a run for governor of Maine when a youth claiming to be Adam (Liam James) appears at her home, dredging up unpleasant memories for the family. Also, each character is apprehensive about whether this youth is really the long-lost Adam. They must reevaluate how the original loss affected their behavior in its aftermath as well as how it still down to the present day. Not only does Claire partially owe her election as mayor to being the mother of an abducted child, but her husband, John (Rupert Graves), owes his success as an author to a book about surviving the loss of a child.
BTW although one might think that this plot is improbable, there are documented cases of people who may have been long-lost relatives turning up and being believed by some and doubted by others. An old documented case of this sort was the basis for The Return of Martin Guerre (1982).
One of the many disturbing characters is Hank (Andrew McCarthy) who, although actually a pedophile, was wrongly convicted of the kidnap and murder of Adam nine years before.
Disturbingly, the viewer is invited to feel both sympathy and repulsion toward Hank who, as a registered sex offender, is forced to take a drug that chemically "castrates" him. He therefore cannot develop a socially and legally more acceptable relationship with an adult even though he tries. Still, the viewer is justified in not feeling too sorry for him because he feels sorry enough for himself.
Indeed, one of the creepiest and therefore most memorable lines in the series belongs to Hank. When someone questions him about whether he saw the real abductor, he describes the way a strange man was looking at the boy. He is then asked how he noticed and remembered this man's behavior so vividly. "Because I was looking too," says Hank.
Naturally, the detective (Margot Bingham) who made her career by making sure that Hank went to prison is not looking as good as she once did to those around or to herself. Adding to the soap opera, she is still haunted by the affair she had with John, Claire's husband and Adam's father.
Nobody in Adam's family is dealing well with the return. The mother is even reminded of her anger at-of all people-Adam, precisely because she thought she had taught him never to trust strangers or to go off with them. She feels guilty for blaming the victim but cannot help herself.
In the two children who remained, now young adults, Adam's return rekindles the old guilt they felt because they were supposed to be watching their brother on that fateful day. Willa (Alison Pill) and Danny (Zach Gilford), the adult children, seem the most sympathetic to me, but only because their flaws and weaknesses are traceable to a horrible and public family tragedy that brought them unwanted attention and guilt at vulnerable ages. They were innocent, and now they feel so bad about themselves that they are the only characters who probably feel worse than they deserve.
The ultimate mystery: who is the youth who claims to be their long-lost loved one if he isn't who he says he is? How else does he know some things that identify him as Adam, yet occasionally does not remember other things? Where has he been all these years, and why can he not help investigators to locate the place where he was kept or identify the man who kept him there?
Then there is the journalist, Bridey Cruz (Floriana Lima), a particularly irredeemable character who does not care who she has to hurt (or sleep with) to get the dirt on the Warren family. In an era when the erstwhile stigma of being gay or lesbian has been dramatically rehabilitated, Cruz incorporates her bi-sexual fluidity in her armamentarium of ways to manipulate people, including Willa who, arguably, is the most vulnerable of all the vulnerable characters.
My theory as to why this series was cancelled is that too many viewers did not watch because they were turned off by the unpleasantness of the subject as well as the lack of any truly sympathetic characters. If you think that any character is virtuous, just wait, and you will learn that they have less than admirable qualities.
The series ends on a cliffhanger, but it is an ending that definitively answers most of the major questions, and although it suggests that more would be in store for a continued narrative, I am not disappointed that the story ends there. Rest assured that the Big Bad is dead; long live the (new) Big Bad.