'Burden of Truth' Season 3 Episode 6 Review: With Joanna's biggest hope lost, what will she do next?
Spoilers for Season 3 Episode 6 'It Takes a Village'
After that much-needed and highly-anticipated pregnancy update, 'Burden of Truth' Season 3 Episode 5 ended on the most-teasing cliffhanger ever. Billy Crawford (Peter Mooney) tells Joanna Chang (Kristin Kreuk) that considering all that's going on in Millwood, he never wants to have kids. Joanna's immediate response to him was that she's pregnant. The aftermath of it isn't shown, but was expected to be explored in Episode 6. Sadly, the much-needed conversation between the two doesn't happen here either.
Joanna is partly terrified of having a baby and passing down mental illness and addiction issues and partly leaning towards keeping the baby. The matter comes up during a town hall meeting when people say she isn't the right person to understand what the mothers wronged by Clear Dawn, feel. And even though she practically announces to all of Millwood that she's pregnant that's the only time we hear of it. The rest of the time, she and Billy decide to keep things civil, in their quest to help Kodie Chartrand (Sera-Lys McArthur). Things go great for a while, but Joanna's biggest hope for the win simmers towards the end. And that piques our curiosity about what she might do next.
With everybody pushing Joanna to go for a class-action lawsuit, she feels like the only one ruining the day for the rest of them, because she has a gut feeling that just three wrongful apprehensions aren't enough for the court to certify a class action. On top of that, Clear Dawn are ready to pull up their settlement from $25,000 to $50,000, but Joanna doesn't want to settle. It is however only when Kodie tells her about the situation her kids are in that Joanna changes her mind. Reluctantly Joanna gives into filing a class-action suit when she finds out Kodie's kids will be given up for adoption in a short 90 days
Canvassing all of Millwood for similar mothers who were fakely tested positive by the lab, luck strikes only with one older classmate of Luna (Star Slade), Cassie, who is convinced to take part in their case and also leave her abusive boyfriend in the process. The not so favorable luck also follows later when Billy and Joanna have a townhall meeting with everyone to convince them to join the lawsuit, with most people attending the meeting claiming Joanna can't relate to the other others because she isn't one. This forces Joanna to blurt out that she is in fact pregnant. The shocking moment of the episode is laden with mention as Joanna comes to accept the fact that she might actually go against her inhibitions and actually keep the baby. She tells her audience that as terrified as she is about having a baby she is even more terrified of the idea of her child being taken away from her. The moving confession gets people to sign the petition. while Billy finds help from a rather unexpected source.
Billy's father tells him about a Clear Dawn whistleblower who attends his AA meetings. In exchange for money, the whistleblower tells Billy how Clear Dawn did over 200 tests more than its previous year, and the more tests they do, the more profit they make. The court scene gets interesting with the Clear Dawn lawyer dismissing Joanna's case as rubbish, while Joanna argues all of her clients are right on the poverty line, a stereotype for people who get their kids taken away. Sadly, while the judge agrees there is a case, the class action certification is dismissed. Even though with reluctance, Joanna was actually banking upon that because it was their strongest ground of defense in fighting a custody battle that should have never come up.
Kodie is getting clean and making something out of nothing. And perhaps a pregnant Joanna might be more driven to fight her cause. But she has deadlines looming large and powerful people with selfish pursuits. Whatever Joanna does next to help her friend will have to be either huge or extremely dirty. Her primary witness against Clear Dawn is someone called Shake and that's enough to hint at how reliable he is going to be. If Joanna is as intuitive as she has been shown to be, she would keep backups ready because this is a problematic alcoholic in recovery they are banking on. And we all know how unreliable Billy's father can be; can his acquaintance be any better?
'Burden of Truth' Season 3 airs on Thursdays at 8 pm only on The CW.