Burden of Truth Recap: “The Ties That Bind”

The second episode of Burden of Truth, the Canadian import airing on The CW this summer, aired on Wednesday finding Joanna Hanley still in her small hometown after proving that her firm’s big pharmaceutical client was not the cause of the mysterious illness afflicting a handful of teen girls from Millwood High School.

In fact, she was hard at work – after partnering with former high school friend now small town attorney Billy Campbell – attempting to determine the real culprit behind the illness. It was her intention to convince her high powered firm to take on the cast, but she knew that they were going to need a lot of prove in order to get CTS on their side; especially her powerful dad – David Hanley, who is one of the partners of the firm.

Of course, her decision to stay in Millwood does not go over well with her father; and it certainly seems there was more than one reason for his disdain. After all, Joanna was on the receiving end of that punch by that random stranger at the local bar, who seemed to have a great deal of hatred towards Joanna’s dad. When grilled by Joanna, her dad played off the issue as “small town, small minds,” however, her former high school friend now high school guidance counselor Diane Evans did mention to her that there have been rumors in town since the Hanley’s left 17 years earlier “in the middle of the night.”

That certainly will leave a lingering question in Joanna’s mind about why they really left, won’t it?

The more important issue, of course, was that the sick girls all had frontal lobe damage, which could have been caused by huffing according to the doctor who reviewed the X-rays of each afflicted girl, but upon much investigation by Billy and Joanna the likely culprit was actually chemical spillage on the farm land that was donated to the high school and used by the girls’ soccer team.

Despite having plenty of evidence to present to her dad and the other partners at her firm, the case was turned down flat leaving Joanna and Billy on their own. But that wasn’t going to stop Joanna. She told her dad that she has 13 weeks of vacation for which she was going to start using and she offered up her own savings to bankroll all the professionals that would need to be brought in to help prove their case.

Naturally her dad wasn’t happy with that news so far as sending Alan Christie, Joanna’s boyfriend and fellow CTS lawyer to bring her back; but that didn’t work in his or Joanna’s dad’s favor at all. Joanna switched sides and she won’t leave until she has proven what really happened to those girls.

The next new episode of the debut season of Burden of Truth will air on The CW on Wednesday, August 8 at 8/7c.

[Photo Credit: CBC/The CW]