Hello, lovely readers, this is the second part of my analysis. You can read the first one here. This is a long post. Enjoy!

I can already guess that after this episode even more people started to hate Daniel or at least feel annoyed because of his actions.

Why didn’t Daniel listen to Sean? Why didn’t he go with him in the first place? It’s his older brother! Why is he acting so stupid? Doesn’t Daniel understand that he was being manipulated? It’s so oblivious! Why is he acting this annoying?

I’ll try to explain all of this questions but first things first. Let’s start at the end of the 3d episode. Daniel is scared. He thinks he killed everyone. He thinks he’s responsible for his brother’s death. He lost everything. First, it was dad, then it was home. Now it’s Sean. He lost his family. Daniel is on his own now. He is all alone. Everyone abandoned him (in one way or another).

Children from single-parent families often tend to seek mother/father figure in other people (I think, it could be one of the reason why he likes Lyla so much). It’s psychology. Unlike Sean, Daniel never had a mother. He doesn’t know what it is like to be with his mom. Everyone around him knew it. Sean knew, Lyla knew, even Chris knew his mum. All of them, except for Daniel. He feels unwanted and, like every kid, wonders if it his fault that his parents broke up. (I wonder, if he ever blamed himself, thinking, that his mum left the family because she somehow knew his “freakness”.)

With Jacob’s help Daniels got a safe place where he could stay, where he is safe and protected. He has enough food and people accepted him. They love him. Guys, you need to understand that children wants to belong to someone. They seek for love and kindness. They naive. Inexperienced. They don’t understand why someone can be cruel, bad or manipulative. And that’s why it’s waaaaay easier to convince a child to do something. Daniel found someone who he can trust, who accepted him, who loves him. He found a mother. Or, at the very least, he thinks so.

It’s easier to say how oblivious Mother Lisbeth’s actions from our point of view. But Daniel was with her for whole two months. And he was in no shape to resist her influence.

Look at his body language. He is shy, nervous, non-confident. Are we seeing the same boy from the ep3? I don’t think so.



About body language. Is anyone else also felt uneasiness when this woman was touching Daniel? It made me feel so uncomfortable just by looking at her. She is confident, controlling and manipulative while doing this “friendly” gesture. And she is doing it a lot. You can see how oppressive she is. And by a lot i mean A LOT.

What did Mother Lisbeth do?

She acts like a mother-figure (while trying to adopt him so she can use Daniel even more)

She gives Daniel an idea that he and his brother can be saved by faith (“Do you want your soul to be saved?”, “You are not ready, Sean”, “Your heart’s full of sin” and all of that stuff)

She calls him special, miracle and a little angel

She’s doing all that fake carrying stuff

She using a lot of “us” and “you” in her speech (to hide her own intentions)

All of the manipulative people are excellent psychologists. They know who you can convince. They know then they should push and then they should be gentle. All they had to do is try to make you doubt yourself. Then they can change your priorities or just simply put it in different angle. And after some time you start to feel like you want to something they ask you to. Mother Lisbeth is no exception.

Did you noticed that Daniel never say “yes” to her? He is never agree with her?

Notice, how unsure he looks, he doesn’t know if he likes it or not. Look, how unhappy he looks. Always quiet, head and eyes down. But the moment he sees Sean…

Brothers have funny dialog about Daniel’s ugly haircut and instead of agreeing or disagreeing with brother Daniel (with his eyes down) simply says: “It’s different. I kinda like it”. Meaning “I know it looks bad but it was Mother Lisbeth’s idea so it must be okay”.

The idea of salvation is the main reason why Daniel doesn’t go with Sean then they first met. From Daniel’s point of view he is purify from his sins but his brother only be off to do it. And Mother Lisbeth did so much for him, how could she be wrong?

Daniel doesn’t want to go with Sean because he already have a place to stay. So, he expects that Sean will be living with him. And three of them could create a family.

”Two boys are not family” but with Mother Lisbeth, Daniel thinks, they could be one. Why they need to go anywhere if they have home now. But Sean is not ready. Sean doesn’t see what Mother Lisbeth is doing (ironic, I know), how she helped Daniel and how she could help him. As much as Daniel loves Sean, he also trust this woman.



You know that Mother Lisbeth is manipulative abuser. I’m not sure if she did something physically but psychologically, emotionally - 100% yes. Then people complain about stupidity of Daniel’s behavior it makes me wonder. Are they lucky enough to never see manipulators/abusers? Honestly, i don’t know. In that case, I’m very happy for them.

Look at this dialog. Sean asks if Daniel really wants to be in this place. And Daniel answers “It’s okay, we had worse”.

I wonder if the same people would blame women because they stayed with their abusive partners. Victims usually say: “Come on, it’s not that bad, it was probably my fault. I shouldn’t have done it”.

And Daniel acts the same. Okay, maybe this place isn’t that amazing and has flaws BUT WE HAD WORSE. This is not an indication that it’s a good place. It’s just means that it could be way worse. It’s the same than victims says “it’s okay, they don’t even beat me. I should be lucky the way it is”.

[Daniel]:Yeah, I have a room that looks like a prison but a least I have a place to stay. Yeah, I have a new friend even though she’s always sick. Yes, everybody abandoned me, but now I have Mother Lisbeth. She even gave me a birthday present. Yeah, she always decides for me but I’m doing all of this for my own good. Right? Mother Lisbeth is always right. She cannot sin. I was troubled but she helped me. She did all of this things for me. I should be thankful.

And the moment Daniel understand who exactly Mother Lisbeth is the moment then he breaks out of her control. Emotionally.

Daniel understood what Mother Lisbeth tried to do. He realized how bad she is. Sean helped him with that.

At the end Daniel understands that not all the people that want to help you are genuine. Not everyone have a good intentions.

He accepted it. He grew up. Matured. He won’t let anyone use him like that anymore.