RECAP: Burden of Truth “Ducks on the Pond”

Last night’s episode of Burden of Truth found Joanna at Riverside Grill, getting a little bit of not-so-nice ribbing from one of the locals as well as an earful of grief from Luna, who can’t understand why Joanna isn’t fighting to keep the case alive. It also didn’t help that Billy was, not all too unsurprisingly, giving Joanna the cold shoulder.

Despite Billy’s best intentions in court, though, he wasn’t able to convince the judge that Dr. Williams was incorrect in his findings that the afflicted girls have conversion disorder rather than toxic poisoning. In fact, she dismissed the case – just as Joanna all but claimed would happen.

What was worse was that after that decision came down by the judge, Dr. Williams convinced Molly to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement while offering – free of charge – to help cure her and the other girls. He claimed to care about their well-being so why would he need an NDA? And while it seemed that Molly was getting better under Dr. Williams’s care, unfortunately her twitching returned. That issue combined with the revelation that Molly’s girlfriend Luna got her college acceptance while Molly’s soccer scholarship was basically rescinded, Molly broke things off with Luna.

Things weren’t much better for Taylor, one of the other afflicted girls, whose college acceptance was also dropped. In talking with Diane, the school’s guidance counselor, she shared that her condition isn’t getting any better and is, in fact, getting worse: she’s forgetting things, she couldn’t understand the questions on a big test – a test that she actually failed despite never failing a test before – and that she would get dressed in the morning, heading out the door of her home but not knowing where she was going. She told Diane she knew all those problems were not associated with conversion disorder.

Thankfully, it seemed that the case just might have a savior in the form of a local mill worker who was complicit in dumping those barrels in the girls’ soccer field. The guy secretly met with Joanna at the local golf course, telling her that they needed to go back to Southvale Farms – the dead end in their case that eventually lead Joanna and Billy to the soccer field. As it turned out, the high school boy Steve Magnus, who committed suicide and was the basis for Dr. William’s diagnosis of conversion disorder – had been twitching too. At the time Steve thought he had developed Parkinson’s (just like his grandmother) – asking his baseball coach – the local mill worker – to keep his secret.

Armed with this new information, a whistleblower and the fact that the local pond – where Steve and his girlfriend Amber (who is also one of the afflicted girls) used to hang out a lot – was one of numerous dump sites in Millwood, Joanna and Billy met with the judge, who was convinced enough to reopen the case – much to the disagreement of Alan, the lawyer from CTS and Joanna’s ex-boyfriend. They were also able to share with the judge – thanks to Gerrilynn, Luna’s mom – that Dr. Williams planned to write a book about conversion disorder, and that was the reason behind the NDA. So much for him wanting to help the girls.

What do you see happening next in the case? Will they be able to get to the bottom of who dumped all those deadly toxins seemingly throughout town? Please share your thoughts below.

The next new episode of the debut season of Burden of Truth will air on The CW on Wednesday, September 19 at 8/7c.

[Photo Credit: Cause One Productions Inc. and Cause One Manitoba Inc./IMDB/The CW]

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