Switched At Birth – Recap & Review – This Is Not A Pipe

photo: abc family

Switched At Birth
This Is Not A Pipe

Original Air Date: Jun 6, 2011

Karen Belgrad – Associate Editor
karenbelgrad@
thetwocentscorp.com

Young children often imagine a different life. Maybe we’re really long lost royalty or a distant cousin to a famous movie star. But for all of the daydreaming, the concept of finding out that your whole life was supposed to be another life would be very overwhelming.

This new show sets the premise in the initial four minutes. There is no spoiler here to say the show’s core is about two teenage girls who were switched at birth. The premiere has a lot of exposition and back story, but it also sets up a lot of storylines that will clearly evolve throughout the summer season.

In a science class at a private school, Bay Kennish (Gilmore Girls’ Vanessa Marano) is doing blood typing. She tells her parents, John and Kathryn (played by Friday Night Light’s D.W. Moffet and Back to the Future’s Leah Thompson) that she’s type AB. Since they’re both type A, they assume the testing was wrong. But Bay, having a gut feeling based on a long held curiosity about her dark coloring to her sibling’s red hair, suggests genetic testing. Six weeks later it’s confirmed that she is not their genetic daughter. Two weeks later, the phone rings in the home of Regina Vasquez (George Lopez’s Constance Marie) and her red-headed (Leah Thompson look-a-like) daughter Daphne (relative newcomer Kate LeClerc). And, yep, that was the first four minutes.

We quickly learn a little backstory. John Kennish is a former third baseman for the Royals and he now owns a string of successful car washes. The Kennish family lives in a mansion with a swimming pool, tennis and basketball courts, and a guest house. Regina works as a hairdresser, and lives with her mother and Daphne in the poor part of town. In fact it is so poor, that they have stereotypical bars on the window and car break-ins.

The twist in the story is that Daphne is, due to meningitis at age three, profoundly deaf. But the show is very clear to show that although deaf is a disability, it does not define the character. She is fluent in sign language (as is Regina), lip reads, and does use her voice. John and Kathryn have a hard time seeing beyond her deafness and make a lot of rookie mistakes in getting to know her. Kathryn speaks loudly and John immediately jumps to cochlear implants. Even their son Toby (two years older than the girls) is taught that you talk to a deaf person, not the interpreter. It’s a bit after-school special-ish, but it’s necessary to set the groundwork for the story to move forward. Deafness is part of Daphne, but we’re made to quickly see that she’s smart, a little sarcastic, and a terrific athlete, so no one thing characterizes her. He best friend (boyfriend?) Emmett is also deaf and attends a deaf school with her.

Whereas Daphne is definitely shown as the “good girl”, Bay is having a little more trouble adapting. She’s not sure who she is, how she feels, or where she belongs in all of this. She pushes away her boyfriend Liam. She acts out as a graffiti tag artist, a fake nose piercing, and getting arrested for trying to buy beer with a fake id card. It’s a little cliché at this point to have one be a good girl and one be the rebel, but I’ll assume for the pilot they’re just laying the groundwork for later character development.

The show really breaks from the teen mold by focusing a lot on the parents and how they are adapting to having raised someone else’s child. Both parents love the child they raised, but Kathryn and John are a bit pushier in wanting to become part of Daphne’s life. They wonder, if with their money, they could have gotten her better medical care and prevented her deafness. They worry when they see her on Emmett’s motorcycle. And they think she may be limiting herself by attending the deaf school instead of the fancy private school that Bay and Toby attend.

They take her on a tour of the school without telling Regina. Daphne meets Liam there and the two have a flirty encounter, unbeknownst to Bay. But when she tells Regina she wants to go there, Regina thinks it’s a bad idea, as Daphne had been teased in regular school in the past. In an odd turn, there isn’t much interaction between Bay and Regina, outside of a brief meeting, post-runaway incident. But we’ve got more episodes, so I guess we’ll see that explored later.

In a convenient twist, Regina is two months behind and considering moving herself and Daphne to Toledo. Bay suggests that they instead move into the family’s vacant guest home. Regina makes it clear to Kathryn, that while they’re both going to get to know their respective daughters, she’s not interested in the two of them becoming friends. Yeah… I see lots of conflict and resolution in their future.

And Bay makes a new friend, Ty, who she bumped into earlier while doing her graffiti of a girl in a pink dress with a sledgehammer (her tag). He thinks she’s just a rich white girl, but there’s clearly a spark between the two. She also schools him in the title of the episode, which comes from the artwork of René Magritte, about how things are not always what they seem.

As pilots go, this one was on exposition overload (such as Regina’s sobriety), but also refreshingly enjoyable. Now that we know all the characters, they’ve settled into their new (awkward) living arrangement, and education (Daphne will go to the regular school), we now get to see how the story plays out. Between teen drama and angst, fish out of water angles, and the initial premise alone, there should and will be lots of story to be told this summer… and I’m looking forward to it!

Well, those are my TwoCents! What are your TwoCents? Share your comments, feedbacks and thoughts below!