Diksha Sundriyal
In the third episode of Hulu’s ‘Good American Family,’ Kristine and Michael Barnett continue to struggle with the challenges brought forward by their adoptive daughter, Natalia. As a whole new side of her comes to light, the couple finds themselves in a tug-of-war against each other. As Natalia seems to strengthen her offense against her, Kristine tries to get to the bottom of the truth and acknowledge the problem for what it is. Michael, on the other hand, refuses to accept his wife’s flights of fancy, which further drives a rift between them. SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Question of Natalia’s Age Deepens for Kristine
Following her arrest in the first episode of ‘Good American Family,’ Kristine Barnett gets out after posting bail, but the news has already spread like wildfire. She is on TV for all the wrong reasons, and her ex-husband, Michael, seems to enjoy it a little too much. His happiness to see his ex-wife’s downfall is short-lived when he discovers that he, too, will be charged with child neglect and the cops are for him next. While he processes this information, we go back to 2010, where Kristine has started to catch up with Natalia’s lies.
After discovering that the seven-year-old girl has pubic hair, Kristine and Michael take Natalia to a doctor. While Michael is still amicable towards their daughter, Kristine doesn’t care to make any show of it. She directly asks the doctor how old he thinks Natalia is. He cannot make any confirmations about the age, but he does confirm that the girl needs a lot of surgeries, and she hasn’t had a single one before in her life. This shocks Michael, who reveals that First Path told them all her surgeries were done, and they paid seven grand for it. For Kristine, however, this is yet another confirmation. She tells her husband about the adoption agency closing down and all the cases against it.
When she shares her concerns about Natalia’s age, the doctor listens to her and refers the parents to specialists. Following a lot of visits to all kinds of doctors, it turns out that Natalia’s dwarfism is one in two million, which makes her the rarest of rare cases, making it impossible to find out how old she really is. Meanwhile, her behavior at home gets worse with each day, and as much as Kristine tries to be patient with her, the girl eventually manages to test her to her limits.
Natalia’s Periods Confirm Kristine’s Doubts
When Kristine asked her doctor whether Natalia was an adult, the first thing he asked her was if the girl had had her period yet. At the time, she had no concrete way to answer it because she thought Natalia might be hiding that from them. And she turns out to be right. One day, while cleaning, Kristine discovers a bunch of bloodied socks hidden in the girl’s cupboard. Later, at school, she is told that Natalia is not making friends her own age but prefers to be in the company of the teachers. On the way home, Kristine asks her how she got blood on the socks and if she has had her periods. Natalia ends the conversation by covering Kristine’s eye while she is driving, leading her to almost hit her son.
With the danger extended to her children, Kristine decides to keep her distance from the girl. Meanwhile, Michael continues with a treatment method recommended by a therapist, who told them that Natalia would be considered a sociopath if she were an adult. But because she is not so, what she has is Reactive Attachment Disorder, and one way to treat it is to treat her like an infant and restart the process of building trust and relationship with her. Kristine is well past this, but what really ticks her off is when she sees a bloodied tampon under the couch in her living room while she is in the middle of an interview with a channel.
Knowing that Natalia deliberately placed it there to sabotage her, she decides not to treat her like a child anymore. Moreover, Valika also tells her about the movie ‘Orphan,’ with a case eerily similar to Natalia’s, which makes Kristine even more worried about her family. She also tells Kristine about a website by a military guy, which is considered a therapy of its own. The website is called Tough Love, and Kristine gives it a go. She follows the instructions on the website and tries to knock some sense into Natalia, who lashes out by telling her that Michael lost his job months ago when the company closed down and has been lying to her ever since.
Kristine Digs Up Natalia’s History
Kristine is shocked to discover that her husband has been lying to her about losing his job, but she also knows that Natalia chose to reveal this information to her at a specific time as a way of manipulating her. So, she decides to keep that on the back foot. A few days ago, she had requested a copy of Natalia’s immigration documents, hoping that at least her real birth year would be mentioned. When the document arrives, she is in shock when she discovers that the document has a photo of another girl. Michael, however, doesn’t see it.
Interestingly, the document also mentions the address of the family who adopted Natalia straight out of Ukraine. Because they brought her to the country, their name and address are on the document. Discovering that they live around New York, Kristine decides to pay them a visit, but due to it being a closed adoption, she needs a cover for her trip. Incidentally, at the same time, she and her son, Jacob, get an interview request for which they will have to come to New York. Previously, Jacob had expressed his desire not to do any more interviews, which Kristine had accepted. But when she sees that the interview would be a perfect cover for her investigation, she decides to take it despite her son’s disapproval.
When she knocks on the family’s door and introduces herself as Natalia’s new adoptive mother, she almost has the door closed on her. But she manages to convince the woman to come out and talk to her, which is where it is revealed to her that the reason they left Natalia is because the girl had become too dangerous to be around. They feared for their safety, which is why they left her. The woman is also not surprised that First Path is closing down and extorting money from Kristine and her family. While there is nothing that can be done about that seven grand, Kristine can still save her family, and that’s what she decides to focus on.
Right before they are about to go live on TV for the interview, Krisitne updates Michael on her new findings, but he still refuses to accept it. When Kristine says that she wants to place Natalia in a psychiatric facility, he threatens to tell everyone how she has already given up on Natalia while she prides herself on being the kind of person who never gives up. To show Michael that Natalia has been manipulating her, Kristine confronts him about losing his job. While this catches him off guard, he still refuses to send Natalia away. While Kristine decides to wash her hands off the girl, he agrees to stay by her side day and night to take care of her and make sure she doesn’t hurt anyone. Their argument is abruptly stopped when they are called on TV, and once the cameras start to roll, they pull up the facade of being a perfectly good American family. But it won’t hold for long.
Read More: Good American Family: True Story of Natalia Grace, Explained
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