Jack Byrne proved me wrong on Absentia Season 1 Episode 7.

By the end of Absentia Season 1 Episode 6, I believed that Jack was irredeemable. 

With all of that circumstantial evidence piling up, it appeared that Jack was a drunk with a torture porn fetish who had a hand in abducting and holding his sister for six years.

I guess the pertinent word in that sentence is "circumstantial" becuase Jack is certainly an alcoholic, and he does seem to take a liking to weird torture porn, but he may have had nothing to do with Emily's disappearance. 

I feel like I've been given a second chance. This is the first day of my sobriety.

Jack

• Permalink: I feel like I've been given a second chance. This is the first day of my sobriety.

Go figure. 

Jack Byrne stepped up and saved Emily's life, and perhaps the hope that he would do just that was the reason why Emily called him as she lay bleeding on the ground. 

Yes, there's anger and resentment between the two, but Jack obviously still cares about Emily in his own way. 

And I was thrilled when he didn't knuckle under to Gibbs interrogation tactics and give the police more information that they could use to track her...

You think I don't know what you're doing here? You think I can't see through this? You're trying to pump me for information and you are just going to twist it and turn it and use it however you want against her. So no, I have nothing for you.

Jack

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Emily is the main suspect in so many murders now that I think I've lost count. She can't trust her psychiatrist. She can't trust Nick, and the police only have eyes for her. 

The moment that pacemaker led back to Dr. Lu Fan Shen from the Barrett House orphanage, I knew this was going no where good, especially after Shen's brother said he got kicked out of MIT because his research was considered too controversial.

So what better place to do sketchy research than at a place where young children have no one else to look out for them. The orphanage allowed Shen the access to easy prey for his twisted experiments.

But was Emily one of his early victims?

I found the audio on the cassettes incredibly disturbing, and as much as it makes the story that much more personal for Emily, and intriguing for viewers, I sincerely hope that we don't have to listen to more of it. 

Gibbs: The FBI hotline is definitely not helping us. We get like a hundred bogus tips an hour.
Lt. Campbell: This reward is killing us. She's like a walking Lotto.

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It turns out that the FBI's $250,000 reward isn't helping Emily or the FBI, which I found kind of amusing. 

I'm hoping the two idiots who tried to abduct Emily were connected to the storage place and just got lucky by recognizing her. I'd hate to think that Eric Shen has anything to do with that mess. 

But I didn't fully understand who Charles was and I'm hoping to get some sort of clarification on that soon. Was Charles another victim, or was he assisting Dr. Shen and could he be the person who abducted Emily?

And then there was Flynn...

Alice may have left for her sister's because she and Nick needed some space, but poor Flynn might have done better at home where he had real friends, and not some neighborhood kids telling him that his mother is going to end up with a bullet in her head. 

I really couldn't blame Flynn at all for getting involved in that fight. 

Despite the miniscule amount of time they've spent together, Flynn has grown protective of Emily as seen in this Absentia quote...

I know Mom's alive. Everyone said she was dead before, but they were wrong. She'll come back this time too.

Flynn

• Permalink: I know Mom's alive. Everyone said she was dead before, but they were wrong. She'll come back...

You can't say that the kid's wrong. They told him his mother was dead for six years, and they were dead wrong. 

Although he wasn't sure how to react to Emily's reappearance at first, he's definitely got his mother's back now.

And that can't make Alice very happy. 

I still couldn't blame her for turning Nick down when he asked for her to come back home. Nothing has changed, and he's spending all of his time on this case. 

When the case is closed, one way or the other, then they can talk about their future, but until then the conversation will just go around in circles. 

But I'm at a total loss as to who would have broken into Alice's sister's house and taken them, and where is Alice's sister anyway? Was she there too? We never, ever see her.

What purpose would anyone have to take Alice or Flynn? Or did something scare them and now they're on the run?

But I fear that Nick thinks that Emily has something to do with this, simply because that video was on Flynn's phone. 

It also bothered me that Nick was looking for memories of Emily that would somehow confirm that she had violent tendencies all along and he just didn't see them. 

I know that the evidence is overwhelming, but I hate that Nick has been so quick to believe the worst of Emily.

Check back for my review of Absentia Season 1 Episode 8, and you can continue to binge watch Absentia online here with us at TV Fanatic.

C. Orlando was a TV Fanatic Staff Writer. Follow her on Twitter.