8/10
Fateful Pool Party
24 January 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Miss Kelsey Jackson has just transferred to a new school in the Parish community. It is instantly apparent that this young woman with a photographic memory will attract a lot of attention from her classmates.

Shortly after her arrival, Kelsey is invited to a "pool party" at the home of her classmate Melissa Bloom. A young woman named Jessica will die in an apparent drowning accident. Mr. and Mrs. Bloom are present at the party, yet they lie to the police that they were away from the home. One thing leads to another, and young Kelsey is kidnapped, unwittingly taking the place of Jessica as a victim of human trafficking courtesy of the Blooms.

In "My Daughter's Been Kidnapped" (a.k.a., "Taking My Daughter," a.k.a., "Killer in Suburbia"), the ever-reliable Boti "Lifetime" Bliss plays the pivotal role of Gina Jackson, Kelsey's mother, who will be relentless in bringing her daughter to safety.

The action is especially gripping due to Kelsey's epileptic condition, which was not known to the kidnappers. The plan is to get Kelsey her meds so that she can be transported first to Tripoli, then to Riyadh. The characters were intriguing, including Detective Mike Hopkins, who seems on the surface to be supportive of Gina. But the rug is pulled out from the audience in a stunning reversal about Detective Hopkins.

The most memorable character transformation was that of young Melissa Bloom. At first, Melissa welcomes Kelsey to the high school and invites her to the pool party. Was that invitation at the behest of Melissa's two nefarious parents, Michelle and Ryan? Melissa slowly begins to resist the hold that her parents have over her as she becomes more enlightened about how the Bloom family was able to escape the trailer park.

The quick-thinking Gina Jackson does her homework in discovering how two missing girls from Kirkwood also had a close friendship with Melissa Bloom and, coincidentally, Detective Hopkins was the lead in investigating and failing to resolve the unsolved disappearances.

In this chilling story, the mother's love for her daughter is what stands out. In a carefully scripted drama, it was the contrast between the almost sadistically controlling relationship of Michelle Bloom and her daughter Melissa vs. the genuine bond between Gina and Kelsey that was dynamically portrayed.
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