Animation
Knuckles
The Sonic spinoff blends explosive adventure and road-trip-buddy-comedy into a fun romp for both kids and diehard fans.
It’s one thing to have a lot of secrets. It’s another to not know what they all are.
Take Emma Becker, a pretty runaway who is quite literally pretending to be someone she’s not—namely her beautiful and devious twin sister, Sutton Mercer. Separated at birth, Emma just hoped to bunk with her sibling’s well-to-do family for a while, but she’s 20 seconds off the bus when Sutton announces that she’s leaving for Los Angeles to find their real parents.
Would Emma mind filling in for her at home for a bit?
Sure, no prob, Emma says. And if she had been twins with, say, a television reviewer, it wouldn’t have been. After all, anyone can sit in a cubicle and download TV shows from iTunes, can’t they? But Sutton is no media critic. She’s a high school queen bee—a diva with more nefarious plots than a Disney villain, more secrets than that island on Lost. It’s a setup about as outlandish as you’ll find on basic cable—at least on a show that doesn’t feature vampires or aliens.
I’d like to give The Lying Game credit for being a sly commentary on the pressures girls struggle with to be all things to all people. But, really, the program doesn’t have those sorts of aspirations. The Lying Game is strictly throwaway theatrics—part Parent Trap, part Princess Diaries, part Gossip Girl.
Oh, it has some surface morals that we can applaud. Emma is indeed much nicer than Sutton. She helps out around the house, behaves reasonably well and treats her friends and enemies alike with humanity and humility. And it’s obvious to everyone. “Who are you and what have you done with my daughter?” Sutton’s father, Ted, jokingly tells her. Ironically, the show seems to suggest how bad and corrosive lying can be, with multiple characters—the good ones at least—talking about how important it is to be honest and truthful, particularly to one’s family and friends.
And yet those very same good characters lie to each other constantly, even while understanding how two-faced they’re being. Secrets pile on top of secrets, fibs on top of fibs. The Kremlin was never this duplicitous. It’s enough to make the casual viewer want to pick up the television set to try to shake some collective sense into all of them.
Of course, if everyone ‘fessed up, The Lying Game would quickly lose both its name and its reason for being. No one wants to watch a show about truthful folks trying to do the right thing. If that’s what you’re after, you could just pop in an Andy Griffith Show DVD or something. But then you’d miss out on all the angsty teen romance and sparkly clothes and tawdry drama and …
The Lying Game, based on a series of novels by Sara Shepard—the same woman who wrote the books on which another ABC Family soap, Pretty Little Liars, is based—is teen escapism supreme. And I’d be lying if I said I liked it.
“Being Sutton”
Hurt feelings are just the tip of the iceberg when tempestuous teens get into yelling matches with their parents. And then it gets physical when Ethan gets socked in the jaw by somebody else’s dad. Ethan retaliates by grabbing the guy.
Indeed, parents are routinely treated disrespectfully by their kids and their kids’ friends. And parents sometimes treat their kids disrespectfully too. We see a viral video of Emma (as Sutton) hitting her archenemy. And we learn that Sutton played lots of mean practical jokes. Ethan keeps barging into Sutton’s room (on Emma) without any sort of supervision.
An adult drinks to excess. Loads of folks lie and keep damaging secrets. Girls and women wear revealing evening wear and ballet outfits. Swears include “h‑‑‑,” “p‑‑‑ed” and misuses of God’s name.
“Pilot”
Emma, living in foster care in Las Vegas, finds herself in a serious pickle when her creepy foster brother frames her for stealing—then gives her an “out,” saying, “Promise me a little action, and I can make those cops go away.” Instead, Emma runs away, with the police in pursuit. And she makes it to Arizona to meet up with her newly discovered twin sister, Sutton.
Instead of taking her home, Sutton makes Emma take her place while she heads to Los Angeles to find their birth parents. (She’s sure her adoptive parents are hiding a terrible secret from her.)
We see girls in skimpy swimsuits and sports bras. Couples kiss … and not always the right people. Travis leers at Emma and blurts out some disturbing come-ons. Lying is little more than conversational currency. A girl insults Emma (as Sutton) for being adopted. “Your own parents didn’t want you,” she says. And Emma hauls off and hits her. Teens and adults say such things as “a‑‑,” “h‑‑‑” and “p‑‑‑ed.” They misuse God’s name.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
The Sonic spinoff blends explosive adventure and road-trip-buddy-comedy into a fun romp for both kids and diehard fans.
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