Burden of Truth Recap: “Witch Hunt”

Things are becoming very tense in the small town of Millwood on The CW series Burden of Truth now that Joanna Hanley has served papers on local mill owner Ben Matheson over the toxic barrels found in the high school girls’ soccer field. In fact, Joanna’s would be partner Billy Campbell was on the receiving end of more than a few cold shoulders by some of the mill workers as well as his office being vandalized. What’s worse Joanna received a death threat near the end of the episode being told, “leave Millwood or you’re dead.”

Even more so, the afflicted girls and some of their friends were gathered around a fire late one night when one of the girls convinced them all to join hands and recite a healing ritual. It was harmless, silly fun for the girls while trying to blow off some steam from their current circumstances; but when a video made of the ritual by one of the girls is found by her father – and that incident combined with Molly “breaking” the dress code at school [a ridiculous ruling by a judgmental principal, quite frankly!] – the girls were to be expelled from all extra-curricular activities at the high school. As if excluding them from outside activities is going to keep all the other members of the student body safe – please!!

Sadly the senior prom was to be held the next day, but those girls could not attend. Molly, however, was not to be deterred. She convinced Amanda, the daughter of the local pastor and the “instigator” of the healing ritual, and her girlfriend Luna to crash the prom. They barely made it through the front door before being encountered by Riley, one of the girls who is clearly against the afflicted girls, ending up getting punched in the face by Luna because Riley pushed Molly down.

Once again, Molly was not to be deterred. She arranged for an alternative prom at the local bar with help from her uncle, allowing all of the afflicted girls, their dates and those from the school who clearly aren’t against the girls to enjoy one good night of fun. This event also somewhat allowed Joanna, albeit briefly, to “just turn it off” – putting aside the case for a few minutes. It was also during this alternative prom where Taylor, Luna and Molly announced that Billy and Joanna were King and Queen of the prom; and Own finally worked up the nerve to ask Diane to dance.

Speaking of Owen, Joanna asked him to do her a personal favor: testing the DNA on chewing gum from Luna and herself to determine if Luna is actually her sister. Surprisingly, Owen was able to get the results very quickly, but Joanna seemed quite hesitant to open the envelope. The same cannot be said when it came to Joanna storming up to the principal to read him the riot act about his behavior toward Molly and the afflicted girls, warning him that she will come after his reputation, his job and his pension; what’s more telling him, “don’t mess with my girls!”

The episode came to a close with Joanna being surprised by a most-unexpected visit by her former boyfriend and work colleague Alan, who seemed to only be in Millwood to, once again, convince her to come home. But that was not the real reason behind his visit. He was there to serve her with papers, as Matheson Steel hired Joanna’s former law firm to represent them. Moreover, Alan was sent to Millwood by Joanna’s dad. Alan’s parting words were quite abrupt: “we’re here to destroy.”

The next new episode of the debut season of Burden of Truth will air on The CW on Wednesday, August 29 at 8/7c.

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