Every year, we get a bunch of “inspired by true events” series that are either inconclusive or simply reflections of what we’ve already seen in documentaries and articles. This is actually the first time I’ve heard of the story of Natalia Grace, so I haven’t really had a chance to dive into her story before watching Good American Family. The 8-part series tells the story of the Barnetts, a close-knit family who were desperate to adopt a baby girl into their already thriving family of 5. The show begins in 2019, when Kristine Barnett is giving a talk about her book, “The Spark.” Ironically, while she’s talking about being a great mother, she ends up getting arrested in front of an audience for “neglect” of a child. Of course, Kristine’s immediate reaction is that her 3 kids are right there, so how exactly could she be neglecting them? That’s when we rewind back to 2010. Episodes 1 and 2 introduce us to Natalia Grace, a girl whose story has been explored quite a few times. Yes, even I thought Orphan may have been based on her case, but this happened after that movie came out. But, with that said, let’s dive straight into the first 2 episodes.
Spoiler Alert
Why Did The Barnetts Adopt Natalia Grace?
In Good American Family episode 1, we go back to the year 2010, when the Barnetts are going through a rough patch because their adoption of a young girl fell through. Kristine and Michael aren’t even sleeping in the same bedroom, and it seems like Michael’s having trouble at work too, so he just feels frustrated when he’s back home, and his 2 sons are already asleep while his eldest autistic kid Jacob isn’t even interested in talking to him. On top of that, Kristine wants to give away all the toys they gathered up for the little girl, and Michael’s still grieving, so this makes things worse. On the other hand, it’s made clear that Kristine is actually really good with kids, and she’s won a grant to set up a proper school for autistic kids.
Kristine immerses herself in work so that she doesn’t have to think about the adoption, but one day she gets a call from First Path Adoptions. The woman on the line says there’s a little girl with dwarfism who needs a family to go to, but if a decision isn’t made within 24 hours, the poor kid will be sent to a group home. Of course, this immediately sends Kristine over the moon. After having a bit of a chat with Michael, they realize that having this girl join their family might solve all of their problems (well, with the mental struggles at least). So the family uses up their savings to travel to Myrtle Bay to adopt little Natalia Grace. For the moment, all they know is that she’s 7 and has dwarfism. But, when they get to the adoption centre, which doesn’t look anything like a children’s centre, Natalia shows up with a walker, something the Barnetts didn’t know about. What’s worse is that, because it’s a closed adoption, they can’t speak to the girl’s previous family, but they have to compensate for her previous surgeries. Of course Kirstine thinks this is very odd, but since everything is a bit rush-rush, she decides to use up her autistic school grants to pay off the $7000 worth of surgery charges for Natalia and take her home.
Is Kristine Paranoid?
At first, everything seems to be okay with Natalia and the family. She seems to be getting along with the boys just fine, but the problem begins when Natalia throws her first tantrum. Of course, she’s just a child, so if she’s throwing a tantrum wanting to go to the beach because her brothers got to go first, then it makes sense. However, she runs off without the walker, almost as if she doesn’t need it, which is the first sign of suspicion for the Barnetts. Later, when they’re back home, Natalia says she doesn’t like the room Michael’s set up for her because it’s too princessy, but she’s more rock and roll. She then doesn’t eat her dinner and throws another tantrum, but the real trouble comes when Kristine is meant to be giving her a bath at night.
Natalia pushes Kristine off her, which leads to Kristine getting bruised on her side pretty badly. But to make matters worse, the next day, Natalie draws all over the windows where Jacob wrote down his equations, all out of spite. Somehow Michael seems to think this is all okay, but Natalia gives Kristine a secret smile, almost like a smirk to let her know who is winning in this situation because Michael always seems to side with her. Things get progressively worse until the day of Kristine’s school’s launch, when a reporter is supposed to show up to write about it in the paper.
Natalia decides she wants to help Kristine in the kitchen, but instead of doing what she’s asked, she says she wants to cut vegetables and picks up a massive knife. This is when Kristine gets really spooked, because the girl’s already told her she can’t tell her what to do because she isn’t her real mother. Kirstine has to basically grab Natalia’s wrist for her to drop the knife, but the situation is terrifying and anything could’ve gone wrong. This is when Michael walks in and wonders what’s wrong. Kristine begins to tell him how terrified she is but by then the guests start to arrive. Michael speaks to Natalia while Kristine sets up the stuff for the launch.
At the end of episode 1, it seems whatever Michael told Natalia was enough for her to forgive her mum. She gets on stage while Kristine is talking and asks her to help with her dress, the one she didn’t want to wear because it was too childish. Natalia then whispers to Kristine, telling her not to hate her, and they hug it out in front of everybody. But, this is not where all is well. The next thing we know, Kirsitine is woken up at night by Natalia holding a knife at the end of the bed. Natalia goes back, but Kristine can’t shake the feeling off of her, so she goes to her room and checks for the knife everywhere. This wakes Natalia up and Michael comes into the room too, but there’s no knife. However, Natalia was definitely in the room, and Kristine wasn’t paranoid, because while it might seem just a mother-daughter conflict for the attention of daddy, Natalia is no ordinary kid. Kristine tries to talk it out with Michael, and he calms her down on that night, but we’ll have to see what happens next.
What’s Happening In 2019?
In the 2019 timeline, we see a man interview Michael, but he looks like a different man and has a new family, wife and child. He tells the man that he shouldn’t believe a word Kristine says because she’s a liar. Ironically, Kristine says the same thing about Michael later. Michael’s big issue is that she always took credit for Jacob’s success, and that’s why she started the centre too. He claims she never actually cared for the kids, but from what we see, she clearly did. But Michael’s confession is what helped the police arrest Kristine, so we’ll just have to wait and see what happens next.
How Does Kristine Realize There Was Something Wrong?
In episode 2 of Good American Family, Ethan gets caught in Natalia’s web. First, she ruins his cow toy (which Michael doesn’t tell Kristine about), and much later, she puts thumbtacks on the floor facing upward, and he runs onto them, getting pierced. But before we get to that, on the first day of school, Natalia doesn’t want to wear the dress Kristine picked out for her, so she takes Ethan’s clothes without telling him. Later, at school, it’s revealed that Natalia’s records are redacted and not enough for admission. Of course, Kristine talks her way into keeping the girl there, but she has to figure out her vaccination records. This is when she calls First Path and learns that the number has been disconnected. Moreover, when she looks up the agency, she learns it’s closed down.
At school, Natalia rams her walker into a few of the kids and gets suspended, but Kristine makes it so that it doesn’t sound like a suspension. However, she’s really starting to think this girl is actual trouble. Natalia even opens up the car door in the moving vehicle after Kristine tries to discuss what happened at school, which makes Kristine super furious. At night, Kristine looks up “First Path Scam” and finds out that many parents have had issues with the agency. She finds a woman who lives in the same area as her and they meet up to talk. Kristine’s instincts all seem to be pointing in the right direction, but of course, she can’t ruin things for Michael. She even nearly messes up Jacob’s Princeton interview, but it went pretty well. Of course, she won’t let him stay in a dorm by himself at 12. This is something to remember for the future because of what they’re going to do with Natalia.
Michael’s meant to be getting a promotion at work, but Kristine tells him to take Natalia with him under the pretence that the paperwork is needed for her to be allowed in school. She doesn’t tell him about the suspension. At work, Michael leaves Natalia with one of his pregnant colleagues and goes for a meeting with the big boss. The boss is happy with his numbers and all that, and everything seems to be going well, meaning Michael is meant to get his promotion. However, in the middle of the talk, Natalia crawls into the room, just when Michael’s boss tells him that they’re shutting down the store. On the way back, Natalia and Michael have a bonding moment because he plays his rock music really loud to relax his nerves. But, he also tells Natalia that he doesn’t want Kristine to worry, so he wants to keep the store shutting down news between them.
At home, Kristine sets up everything for Natalia’s second first day at school. She’s gathered all the paperwork and everything, but Natalia says she doesn’t want to go back to school. She even lies to Kristine that Michael got a promotion. The next morning, Kristine gets a call from her friend about the newspaper. It’s got a front-page picture of Jacob the genius, but nothing really about her school, which means they’ll still have to work hard to get admissions. But things are positive because Jacob is her ticket to success. Then, everything is disrupted when Ethan steps on a thumbtack and a little later, Kristine’s mum shows up unannounced. She calls Ethan a soft boy and says Natalia’s just a girl so there’s nothing to worry about. It looks like Kristine’s relationship with her mum isn’t great and they don’t get along very well because all she can do is find fault in Kristine. She doesn’t like Michael either, but she sides with him about Natalia.
At the end of Good American Family episode 2, Kristine looks for Natalia to ask her about why she’d do what she did with the thumbtacks. She also finds a knife missing in the kitchen. Kristine finds the girl closing the bathroom door. Kristine immediately opens the door to find Natalia with no pants on, screaming at her to close the door. Kristine closes the door and tells her husband that the “little girl” they’ve adopted has “hair down there” which means she’s much older than 7. Did Kristine see something that wasn’t there? Is she actually paranoid, or is she right about wanting to protect her family? We’ll find out in episode 3.
