Speechless – A-C-Action

By starrymag | March 20, 2018

By: Taylor Gates

 

 

The DiMeo’s landlord (Joe Bays) is coming to update their lease, so the whole family attempts to hide Pepper, as she is in violation of their agreement. Pepper, however, is stubborn and refuses to move. They finally coax her into a bedroom, but it doesn’t even matter, as the landlord simply takes the new signed lease and leaves without inspecting anything.

 

Dylan (Kyla Kenedy) asks for some information for a family history project. Maya (Minnie Driver) launches into her and Jimmy’s (John Ross Bowie) love story, which caused her and her father to have a falling out since he didn’t approve of Jimmy.

 

In order to get a visual aid to go with her project, Dylan watches a VHS labeled “Wedding.” She is confused when she sees the man in the video with Maya is not Jimmy. When she gets back from walking Pepper, the tape is gone from the VCR. She looks at Maya suspiciously.

 

Maya shows Dylan her and Jimmy’s wedding video, claiming it’s the same one from earlier. Dylan knows she’s lying and vows to get to the bottom of things. She outwardly goes along with what Maya says in order to appear clueless and stay under-the-radar during the investigation.

 

Dylan pulls Jimmy into the bathroom, telling him about the video she found. Maya is lurking close behind her, intercepting Dylan before she can reveal too much. Dylan does some more digging and finds pictures of Maya with the silver-haired man. She shows the photos to Jimmy, and he tells her he wants to take her out for frozen yogurt so they can talk. When Dylan gets in the car, Maya is ominously there instead.

 

During the car ride, Maya asks Dylan about her crazy theories in an eerily calm voice. Terrified, Dylan attempts to jump out of the car. Realizing this has gone too far, Maya corrals everyone into the living room to show them the tape Dylan found. She admits the story she told them about her father was a lie. Instead, Maya didn’t approve of the woman her father was remarrying and showed up to his ceremony trashed and wearing a wedding dress though she wasn’t even invited. She’s tried apologizing but has never heard back from him. Maya is ashamed that her behavior is the reason her kids don’t have a grandpa, but they encourage her to reach out again. Dylan is excited she actually accomplished something with her journalism.

 

Mr. Powers (Jonathan Slavin) announces that JJ (Micah Fowler) has won the student scriptwriting contest and now gets to direct his own short horror film. The entire family celebrates his achievement, but JJ asks that they not set their expectations too high. Ray begs for a role in order to hopefully win Taylor (Sedona James) back. JJ casts him as a dead body.

 

The entire film class has rallied behind JJ to get him new equipment including a custom communication board, wireless monitors, and editing software that can be used by eye movement. JJ is excited but feels extremely pressured to make the movie perfect. He can’t sleep and throws up multiple times before their first day of shooting.

 

During rehearsal, JJ gets overwhelmed with everyone looking to him for notes. He lets the actors go rogue and make their own decisions, causing the movie to become uneven and not make much sense. Kenneth (Cedric Yarbrough) asks JJ why he has allowed people to take control of his movie and change his vision, and JJ says they provided him with so much help that he had no excuses. He was afraid he would suck and have nothing to blame but himself. Ray and Kenneth both insult and doubt his abilities in order to motivate him, and it works.

 

JJ asserts his dominance and tells everyone to get out their original scripts and keep their suggestions to themselves. JJ’s movie turns out wonderfully, as everyone in the theater is scared and surprised.

 

At Maya’s urging, Jimmy asks their neighbor Eddie (Kyle Bornheimer) to keep the construction noise to a minimum. Jimmy sees the plans for the house addition on a table and notes that the workers are pouring concrete where a skylight is supposed to be. Eddie asks Jimmy to take a look at the rest of the plans since he went to school for architecture. Honored, Jimmy agrees.

 

Jimmy has fun with the project, designing new plans for the heck of it. He’s surprised when Eddie actually wants to switch to the ones Jimmy drew up. Maya gets tired of the noise and yells at Eddie to be quiet, emphasizing that Jimmy has asked him multiple times to keep the noise down. When she spies Jimmy with a chainsaw helping out, however, she feels betrayed.

 

Jimmy admits to Maya that he has loved working on the architecture project, and Maya encourages him to go all-in if it is truly his dream. She tells him to continue working with Eddie, but only if Eddie agrees to pay him for his ideas.

 

Eddie tells Jimmy he wants to buy the DiMeo house so he and his wife can have the space to implement all of Jimmy’s ideas. Although the landlord is not on board originally, he agrees to sell the DiMeo’s property to Eddie when he sees Pepper—a violation of their lease—in the backyard.