That wedding is Justin and Rebecca’s, which happens spontaneously when the two are at the courthouse with Holly, who is tracking down a lead. While not totally out of the blue since they were engaged,, I really thought we were supposed to assume they were married already. Yes, their wedding was disrupted when Kitty fainted, but the subject was never even brought up once in the many episodes we’ve seen since then. I wrote it off as a continuity error a few episodes ago, but they proved me wrong this episode.
That said, I think they could have saved it for an episode that wasn’t as full of plot lines as this one because it seemed random and out-of-place, like the Kitty cancer plot. However, I did enjoy Holly and Nora walking in on them at the cabin. One of the best laugh-out-loud moments of the night was when the mothers tell the kids to “take their time” after they walk in on Justin and Rebecca’s honeymoon, and embarrassed Justin says, “I hate them, so much.”
Kitty’s cancer story was the other aforementioned random plot continuation of the episode. Really it was barely a full story, only mentioned a couple times, with Kitty revealing that she was cancer-free at the end. Personally I think it was just another one of the writers’ ploys to add to the happily-ever-after feel at the end of the special, because really the cancer storyline was wrapped up several episodes ago.
Aside from those plots, the first episode of the two-hour focused on the secret that Dennis York has been holding over Nora. Now, if you’ve been reading my other reviews, you know that I have been dying to know the secret she has been keeping for weeks. Nora has been a nervous wreck ever since York entered the picture.
A series of flashbacks of the siblings as teenagers in the ’80s reveals the big secret. At first we are led to believe that Tommy killed/seriously injured someone in a car accident while he was drunk driving. But then, in an “exciting twist” we find out that it was Kevin’s secret. Not out of the closet yet, scared Kevin shoves a boy off the Ojai loading dock after the boy, Aaron, tried to kiss him. Aaron ended up being paralyzed. Not only did William and Nora pay off Aaron’s family, but they also told the kids that Aaron had been fine.
Also I have to say that they did a great job casting the teenage siblings. Anna Wood, Cody Longo, and Kasey Campbell were the perfect younger versions of Sarah, Tommy, and Kevin respectively. The only one who was so perfectly cast was Kay Panabaker as teenage Kitty since the two don’t look as alike as the others who were cast. But I’m willing to overlook it since Panabaker did give a good performance.
To be honest, I would have preferred it if they’d stuck with the original secret of Tommy drunkenly destroying his car and injuring the person he was with. True, I did enjoy learning more Kevin’s past, and like the siblings was surprised to find that saintly Nora had been lying to them for years.
But it wasn’t as big a shock I’d been expecting, given all the hype around Nora’s secret. I mean, she was a complete wreck over this…and now we find out that it wasn’t even anything illegal? York was pretty gutsy to blackmail her with that when the exposed secret wouldn’t even result in anything except her family hating her for the moment. He was very lucky she was so eager to keep this secret from her children, or he would have had nothing on her.
In fact, he’s also lucky that she didn’t turn around and shoot down his blackmail with evidence of her own. We’re told that he was the guy William went to when he needed a “problem solved,” the which had probably resulted in actions ranging from the unsavory to the downright illegal. If she researched enough, Nora surely could have found papers or something that would be proof of a crime York committed. Then again, it doesn’t fit Nora’s personality for her to blackmail someone, even if that someone was threatening her first, so I suppose the oversight is understandable. That, and she would probably have been implicating William in the same crime, even though at this point she’s so fed up with William’s secrets that I don’t think protecting his name matters to her as much as it once did.
Anyway, as the special moves into the second half, the focus is on the mystery of finding “Narrow Lake”…and some of my absolute favorite moments so far this season. I love Nora and Holly’s odd sort-of friendship, so I was thrilled when they embraced their inner corporate spy and snuck into York’s hotel room. Individually, they’re my two favorite characters, and together they are totally hilarious – which is proven many times as the story reaches its climax. I laughed out loud when Nora actually steals York’s car and demands that reluctant, panicked Holly get in with her. And then again when Robert takes a picture of them in jail. So priceless. Another favorite moment was when Robert tells her she shouldn’t have stolen a car if she didn’t want to hurt Kitty’s campaign, and Nora retorts, “Well, hindsight is twenty-twenty, Robert!”
In the end, I was only slightly disappointed by the two-hour special Time After Time. Though the first half was a little slow and disappointing, Nora and Holly’s antics in addition the usual happy conclusion still managed to leave me smiling.
