Switched at Birth - Season 2 Episode 18 - Recap - As The Shadows Deepen

Switched at Birth - Season 2 Episode 18 - Recap - As The Shadows Deepen

On this very cringey episode of ABC Family's superb teen drama Switched at Birth, old wounds are nothing but re-opened. "Leave no romantic pain un-revisited!" is what I assume the writers' room decided. The interlocking lives affected by something as simple as the discovery of two girls having been switched in the hospital shortly after delivery, it's just so endlessly fascinating. I love this show, no shame. It's sold as having a target audience of teenaged girls, but I'm not that at all and I cannot get enough, which just proves that the appeal of this show is broader than the network's ads would have you believe! This week, old flames are reignited and new flames are doused and everyone leaves the episode completely unhappy and I love it.

In our main plot this week, Bay Kennish is worried about her job at the Maui theme park going away, because the park isn't getting very much business. She wants to come up with some ideas to help drum up business, and her big idea is a "deaf day". Daphne offers help, and Bay says she'll ask Emmett to help get a deaf movie screening set up. The wrench in the gears here is that Emmett doesn't know about Bay and Ty getting back together. They have a very touching moment bidding on a copy of Deafenstein on a fake cable TV eBay lookalike, and it ends in a really weird hug. Like, super weird. The next day, at the park, they discover the apparently very quickly shipped movie reel turns out to not be Deafenstein but instead to be some sleazy porno. When Emmett brings in the DVD as a replacement, the case also has a copy of their indie short they made last year, Dawn of the Deaf. They watch it, Bay and Emmett, together. When the kissing scene between them happens in the movie, I threw my face into my hands and started loudly moaning in emotional terror because I knew what was coming next. Of course Ty walks in just during the kissing scene in the movie and storms off all whiny like a baby. Bay gives chase, but Ty shouts at her and runs away. When she finally tracks him down at the Army base, Ty's fellow soldier accidentally lets slip that the whole unit is being redeployed to Afghanistan! Agh! Ty and Bay! No! See, my friends are super into Bay and Emmett as a couple ("Bemmett", if the ABC Family Twitter hashtags are to be believed), but I am not because Emmett is a total jerk. Plus he's clearly Daphne's soulmate. Whatever! This plot closes with Ty admitting to Bay that he loves her, and Bay almost imperceptibly hesitating, then not saying it back before the kiss and embrace! I'm dying inside from this kinda stuff! Drama bombs all over!

Jace and Daphne get hot and heavy, and when a cop comes behind their car, Daphne gets to see a bit of Jace's mischievous side. Jace pulls a great lie out of his ass about diplomatic immunity. The next day, Daphne and Jace go to a dessert store and meet with a baker Jace knows. The baker's fiance comes in, and HOLY CRAP IT'S CHEF JEFF. Daphne's incredibly sleazy nearly-thirty ex-boyfriend and ex-boss Jeff, a creepo who doesn't deserve to share my name, is apparently newly engaged to this woman he's loved for four years despite his ill-advised fling with Daphne only being a year past! This awkward encounter behind them, Jace and Daphne go to the theme park for the deaf day Bay set up earlier in the recap. Some dumb bigot gets mad at the deaf kids, and Jace tells the guy off. Later, in a secluded makey-outey part of the park, Jace and Daphne find an abandoned wallet, and wouldja-lookit-that it's the jerk from just before's wallet! Daphne takes his $47 cash as a donation to the Carlton School for the Deaf. Jace suggests they use the guy's credit card to make some big donations to charity, but Daphne poo-poos the idea. Jace relents, but this sets Daphne ill at ease. Later, when Jace is doing deaf karaoke (listen I dunno either), Chef Jeff returns to be a complete wad like usual. Oh also he's mad because someone told his fiance about the fling with Daphne. It wasn't Daphne, so it must've been Jace. Jace cops to it when Daphne confronts him, but he thinks it was the right thing to do. I agree, but I'm not an incredibly handsome/creepy British barista with the haircut and cold dead eyes of a Twilight vampire, so it doesn't seem so weird coming from me. This guy just seems like no good! He says he's got nothing but good intentions, what with his talk of nobility and honesty, but he just looks evil, so I don't trust him.

Elsewhere in the episode, Nikki displays some doubt about the wedding, after finding out her father's murderer has been caught. She doesn't want to be sad or angry walking down the aisle. While Regina is in the car wash office doing some planning for the redecoration, Toby convinces her to take him and Nikki to visit the murderer. When they get to the glass wall and telephones set up we're accustomed to from movies, Nikki freaks out and storms from the room, leaving Toby to talk to the crazed lunatic. Well, the crazed lunatic turns out to be a repentant former addict, and Nikki's dad was his dealer. Toby struggles with this bombshell but of news, but Regina encourages him to tell Nikki. He does and she is... well, upset is one way to put it. Destroyed is another. Angry beyond words is a third way. Look, she's just very, very distraught over this.

Sprinkled in the episode as a light garnish, we've got some sweet Travis pickin' up hearing chicks going on. Travis has a time at the park. It's... not a good time exactly. Without his wingman Emmett, the poor dude is doing badly with the ladies. He gets into the booze, because these deaf kids are always up to shenanigans. At Mary Beth's gun game, Drunk Travis loses some times in a row, then when he wants to play again and Mary Beth isn't getting the signing, he speaks! He says "I just need one win. Do you understand?" and my heart breaks and Mary Beth lets him play again and he loses and my heart breaks again. Later, Travis comes back sober and asks Mary Beth on a date, because even tertiary characters need to hook up sometimes.

In the episode's umpteenth plot, Toby's letter about his wait list acceptance to college gets to the Kennish house, and his parents open it. Kathryn asks John to go talk to Grandpa Kennish about maybe pulling a favor, but John isn't having it. Kathryn goes herself, and Papa Kennish is being just as stubborn. She yells at him to be nice and brings him back to the house, forcing John and Pops to stand in the same room and not be jerks anymore. It... sort of works? This plot seemed unnecessary. I guess Kathryn and John had to be in the episode somewhere though!

If this show aired new episodes every night of the week, I'd happily tune in every single time because it is like a candy bar that doesn't make me fat. I enjoy watching it, just all the time. It's corny and sincere and complex and well-made. This week's episode doesn't chicken out of developing plots, despite being nearly at the end of the season, the way some other shows might; pretty much every show I'm watching this summer season slowed down after the midway point to save all the good stuff for the finale. Whatever! Switched at Birth remains amazing. Check back here next week for another recap, and be sure to comment below! Oh, and since this week's and last week's previews got conflated somehow, here's a short video recap of the episode from ABC Family instead!