Summary
Girl Taken has a surprisingly hopeful ending for such a bleak show, but the grace notes are appreciated and earned well through strong character development and psychological depth.
Let’s be clear here: Girl Taken is a very bleak show. Refreshingly, most of its darkest details occur off-screen and are implied instead of shown, but nevertheless, the whole thing is rather miserable. With this in mind, it’s a bit of a reprieve that the ending is, in some ways, a happy one. If nothing else, it provides a little bit of hope that life for these characters can continue in a way that sort of resembles normality, despite the terrible trauma they’ve all endured.
It’s also crucial to note that around the midpoint, Girl Taken stops being a story about a girl in captivity and starts being one about a girl escaping from captivity and discovering that freedom is now almost equally oppressive and painful. This is an important shift, since it largely allows the finale to focus on emotional resolutions rather than an obligatory thriller-esque escape effort. Although there’s plenty of thriller-esque stuff here, as we’ll see.
The Story So Far
Girl Taken, unsurprisingly given the title, revolves around a kidnapping. 17-year-old Lily Riser is snatched by her English teacher, Rick Hansen, who locks her in the basement of his rural cottage for five years. While she’s imprisoned, Rick subjects his “baby doll” – I shudder even to reproduce that pet name, but it’s also the title of the Hollie Overton novel on which the show is based – to horrendous physical, emotional, and sexual violence, even siring a child with her that he convinces Lily was stillborn so that he can raise her with his wife, Zoe.
At about the midpoint of the show, Lily is able to escape, finding her home life in relative turmoil. Her mother, Eve, is a functioning alcoholic, and her guilt-wracked twin sister, Abby, is in a relationship with her former boyfriend, Wes. Add to that a ton of public and media scrutiny and the fact that Rick remains at large, Lily is a wreck. Eventually, Rick is apprehended, but legal justice isn’t guaranteed, especially with the testimony of Zoe, and it isn’t until close to the very end that Lily learns her child survived.
Zoe’s Bravery Is Integral
Rick is pinning a lot of his hopes for salvation on his wife, Zoe, whose fondness for him initially seems inscrutable. However, when Rick is coaching her through the statement he wants her to read out on his behalf in court, she starts off by saying, “I’ve been in love with Rick Hansen since I was 14 years old.” There it is. Rick makes sure she says 18 instead of 14, but the cat is out of the bag. Zoe is just another of his victims whom he has been coercively controlling since she was just a child.
However, even Zoe had noticed several things amiss with Rick’s behaviour, and his vague cover stories weren’t holding water anymore. After Abby learns that Zoe’s daughter, Alice, could possibly be Lily’s, she confronts her, and despite the conversation ending violently, the message sticks. Zoe takes the stand in court and tells everyone that Rick isn’t as nice a guy as he’s claiming, which sinks his only hope of getting away with it.
Zoe surrenders Alice to the authorities, and despite toying with the idea of ending her own life, ultimately decides not to. Her fate is left a little unclear, but I think it’s safe to assume that without Rick, and with a lot of therapy, she might be able to live something resembling a normal life.
Rick Gets What’s Coming to Him
Following Zoe’s testimony, Rick knows he’s looking at a hefty prison sentence, and after already having had a tough time in jail, he makes his move. He’s able to assault his guard and escape, and then kill a man in the woods to steal his vehicle and return to his cottage. He also calls Lily from the dead man’s phone to torment her about the child, hoping to lure her out to the cottage.
Instead, he inadvertently lures Abby, who comes armed with a knife. After a tussle in the basement, Abby stabs Rick in the neck. As he’s bleeding out, Tommy, the detective who had been investigating Lily’s kidnapping and had deduced that Zoe’s child was really hers, arrives. He makes sure to state on the record that Abby acted in self-defence, protecting her from any legal recrimination.
Near the cottage, the police find the bones of Isabel, another teenager Rick had snatched from his previous school two years before abducting Lily.
Happily Ever After
With Rick dead, Lily and Abby are finally able to move on. Alice ends up in foster care, though it’s assumed temporarily, and since we see Lily meeting her, it’s definitely implied that she will eventually take custody of her. Abby is also pregnant by Wes — with twins.
The ending of Girl Taken shows the entire family enjoying dinner together, which is the closest thing to an outright happy climax that this show could have possibly conceived. Finally, it seemed like the Risers could move on with their lives.
