Summary
Good American Family offers another new perspective in Episode 7, this one showing the Barnetts in a new, stupider light, and revealing how tenuous the house of cards they built around Natalia Grace really was.
Good American Family is, on the face of it, a tale of two halves, told from two contrary perspectives. On the one hand, you have Kristine and Michael Barnett, who may or may not, depending on who you ask, have had an eight-year-old legally declared an adult so that they could justify abandoning her. And on the other hand, you have Natalia Grace, who was either committing a very sophisticated scam to defraud her benefactors or, more likely, was a disabled child who was horrifically neglected. But on a surprising third hand, Episode 7 reveals a new perspective – that of Detective Brandon Drysdale.
Brandon has been in the show since the beginning, mostly in the present-day sequences that often bookend the episodes. We’ve seen him interview Natalia and Michael. We’ve seen him float around on the periphery. But “If You Tell a Story Well Enough” – a fitting title, given the circumstances – shows another side to him as he becomes personally invested in the having Natalia “re-aged” so that she can be legally adopted by the Mans family.
After worrying about how the perspective switches would go, I’ve been increasingly impressed by how much Good American Family has been able to add to the story by texturing it in this way. Those first four episodes from the Barnett perspective functioned as a thriller, essentially, leaving little ambiguity around Natalia’s guilt. But the next two episodes, from Natalia’s perspective, came with the creeping realization that all wasn’t what it seemed. Episode 7 doesn’t just offer Brandon’s viewpoint but also recasts the events and particularly the Barnetts in a different, more ridiculous mould. From their own point of view, the Barnetts were the flawless family of the title, driven to despair by circumstances outside their control. To Natalia, they were monsters, the boogeymen of children’s bedtime stories. But to Brandon, Kristine and Michael are both ridiculous, their scheme so harebrained that it can scarcely survive even cursory examination.
There’s still a really unpleasant tinge to it all, of course. The episode opens with a flashback to Natalia’s time in the psychiatric hospital where she was committed by the Barnetts so she couldn’t be involved in (read: ruin) their efforts to have her age legally changed. There was always a lingering question about how they managed to pull that off given how easily Cynthia disproved it, and the answer is revealed in “If You Tell a Story Well Enough” – they used their trusted family doctor to sign off on it despite the testimonies of multiple medical professionals confirming that Natalia was indeed a child. And then they buried the evidence.
Imogen Faith Reid in Good American Family | Image via Hulu
To Brandon, this is the trump card. Natalia’s rights were violated during this process, during which she was never appointed legal representation or given a chance to defend herself. Even if the re-aging itself can’t be challenged, the circumstances in which it occurred can be. But this doesn’t go particularly well, the blatant miscarriage of justice revealing another problem. And it’s a problem of perception.
The Barnetts are the quintessential “good American family”. It’s how their doctor describes them. They’re white and well-to-do and seemingly well-adjusted. Kristine is a minor celebrity thanks to her autism campaigning. They keep their real problems – their sexless marriage, what happened with Natalia – behind closed doors. It doesn’t take Brandon long to begin to leverage this perception for his own ends. And it’s remarkably easy to do.
In the present day, Kristine and Michael have separated, an event precipitated by an almost slapstick moment in a lawyer’s office where an apparently technophobic Kristine sent Michael photos of important legal documents accidentally bundled with saucy snapshots meant for another man. The resentment between them has only grown since then, resulting in Kristine denying Michael access to his sons. It only takes a bit of prodding for Brandon to trick Michael into revealing that a) Kristine beat Natalia savagely, and b) they both knew Natalia was a child when they had her re-aged and re-homed.
It’s difficult to articulate how stupid Michael looks in Good American Family Episode 7. This is a guy who finally plucked up the courage to walk away from his gaslighting wife, only to implicate himself in his efforts to spite her. It isn’t until Jen points out that he’ll also be on the hook for Natalia’s abandonment that he realizes the mistake he has made. Unfortunately, the real-life case tells us that his foolishness will not result in him or Kristine being held to account for what they did. But it’s still satisfying to watch him make an idiot of himself all the same.
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