Burden of Truth Recap: “Family Ties”

The fourth episode of Burden of Truth aired on The CW on Wednesday night – although in the Los Angeles area the show was preempted by a Dodgers game (SIGH!). Thankfully the network supplies the episodes online so it was easy to get caught up.

Rather than seeing the aftermath of Billy and Joanna being run off the road, the episode actually opened up with the counselors speaking to a judge, requesting Matheson Steel provide their environment records since it would SEEM the barrels found buried in the high school’s soccer field was connected to the steel mill. Unfortunately, the judge denied their request, but neither Billy nor Joanna were willing to give up.

Joanna began creating an in-depth staging board on the wall of her motel room, going back through countless records of the steel mill attempting to find out how those barrels ended up in that field. Meanwhile Billy hoped to talk to his former hockey coach – Ben Matheson – the current owner of the steel mill. That conversation didn’t go well at all, sadly.

Elsewhere, Luna didn’t show up for work at City Hall when Billy and Joanna were meeting with the judge and worse yet, she wasn’t at City Hall to support her girlfriend Molly, who is one of the high school girls afflicted with the unknown health issues. As it turned out, Luna’s mom, Gerrilyn [who is the same age as Joanna, by the way], held her up, but why?

As the episode played out – with Joanna giving Luna a ride out to the reservation for her kookum’s (aka grandmother’s) birthday party – it quickly became obvious that Luna’s family – especially her grandmother – didn’t want Joanna there. Again, why?

Fed up with her daughter, Gerrilyn went to Billy’s law office to confront Joanna, making a startling claim: Luna is Joanna’s sister. Gerrilyn also mentioned that Joanna’s father talked about Joanna all the time to her. The pieces started falling into place, especially given the fact that Luna shared with Joanna that her dad left town “before the pee even dried,” and as we know, Joanna and her father left very suddenly in the middle of the night when she was only 17 years old.

It was also quite surprising to see Joanna’s dad turn up in Millwood, asking her to leave town with him. Even after showing him the work being done at the soccer field – and the shocking discovery of the barrels – her dad was able to convince her that there was no case. And just as she was ready to leave with him that was when Gerrilyn made her proclamation, which – of course – caused her to confront her dad, wanting to know if Gerrilyn’s claims were true. “She’s crazy,” claimed her dad – “just like Mom,” Joanna countered. Not believing her dad, not only did Joanna decided not to leave town with him, she resigned from the firm AND after having a good cry in her motel room, she marched into Matheson Steel and served papers on Ben Matheson.

The next new episode of the debut season of Burden of Truth will air on The CW on Wednesday, August 22 at 8/7c.

[Photo Credit: Cause One Productions Inc. and Cause One Manitoba Inc.]