Switched At Birth: “And We Bring The Light”
Structurally, Switched At Birth shot itself in the foot a bit with this one. Opening with a cryptic in medias res teaser sets a tone of mystery that carries throughout the episode, but as the episode presses on the mystery becomes far less interesting than the character stories themselves, until it pops back up at the very end. Using this device to tease a big plot point later in the episode is tricky for a show like Switched At Birth to pull off, and I’m not quite sure it actually did make it work.
By teasing Kathryn getting a call about a mysterious accident, Switched At Birth effectively set up a “Who will it be?” mystery to tempt the audience to solve throughout the episode. We know something is coming, but we’re not sure what, so everything takes on an edge of portent it doesn’t necessarily earn. Smartly, the writers set up two parallel storylines—one with the Kennish family, and one with the Sorrento-Vasquez’s—sort of like a “choose your own potential tragedy” scenario to follow. What ends up happening, however, is that the parallel structure of the families becomes far more compelling than the hook of the opening, so when the device pops back up at the end, it feels more inevitable than interesting.
Still, the parallel structure of the family stories is just about compelling enough to make up for any shortcomings with the in medias res device. What’s so interesting is how it shows the Kennish family coming together, just as the newly stable Sorrento-Vasquez family is falling apart. (And in a clever bit of opposition to these trends, Bay’s college dreams of Platt are tanking right when Daphne’s dream of getting great SAT scores to go to the best pre-med school is just taking off.) Watching Toby, Kathryn, and John rally around Bay to help her with her art display was touching and interesting, in that there are rarely times the four “original” Kennishes are all in one place and working toward the same goal. It’s also a heartbreaking contrast to what eventually happens with Regina and Angelo at the end of the episode, as their entire relationship implodes in one quick and unfortunate moment.
What’s frustrating about the Angelo and Regina blowup at the end, the one that precedes Angelo getting in a car accident and potentially never getting the chance to make amends, is that their relationship has been so poorly defined since they got remarried. Was it for convenience only, or something more? Were they actually behaving like a married couple? Angelo slowly became more and more involved with Regina and Daphne in these past few episodes, but it was always very unclear as to what emotions were there beyond wanting to get closer to Daphne and take care of Regina. The one part of the story that worked very well was his growing connection to Daphne, and that culminated in this episode in an absolutely beautiful scene where he helped Daphne with her SAT stress and she, in turn, helped him see that they were finally a family. To have that loveliness followed so quickly with the nastiness of his argument with Regina wasn’t necessarily surprising, considering the circumstances, but it was certainly sad.
Where it feels like the mystery teaser serviced the story the least was in the scene where Regina accidentally draws a gun on her own daughter in a case of mistaken identity and paranoia. As the episode came to a close, it was obvious someone was going to be hurt. There was a gun in play, and Daphne couldn’t hear Regina to respond. It’s a genuinely stressful situation, but in concert with the in medias res teaser it feels like a bit of cheap misdirection to throw us off the trail of Angelo’s car accident being the actual tragedy. The tragedy is that this comes right on the heels of a terrifically resonant and emotional scene with Daphne and Angelo. I understand the urge to play with the structure a bit and have some fun, but Switched At Birth is strong enough to stand on its own; cheap misdirection not required.