At the beginning of this episode, not all the scenes were enjoyable. In a phone call with Bailey, holding a stuffed rabbit, Sarah refuses to go to the house for Thanksgiving because she's still saddened about his past behavior. Julia and Ned talk about his family in Stanford, and he downplays them. Kirsten talks to Paul about their plans as she wants them to go with the Salingers but he hoped to meet a couple of doctors for Thanksgiving dinner. He tells her that she's spends too much time with the Salingers although he knows they need her. Despite that, both seem happy together (I'd skip this). Then, Charlie and Owen are buying stuff for Diana and after he refuses to buy a plastic laser for him, Owen begs him to go in the merry go round. While Charlie is talking by the phone with Daphne, who was hoping to prepare dinner, Owen gets lost. Of course, Charlie freaks out and searches everywhere but he can't find him. Little by little, everyone goes to the mall to help looking: first Bailey and Griffin, then Julia, Kirsten, Paul, Ned, and finally, Sarah. In the meantime, Daphne takes Claudia's desperate phone calls while learning to cook the dinner. Finally, after she can't explain why no one is around to talk to her in Thanksgiving, Daphne tells Claudia what happened.
During the search, each one deals with it in different ways: Charlie stays mainly in the TV monitors watching, in the company of a good Police officer, Flaherty, who is also a father of two kids, a boy and a girl. Bailey is mad at Charlie, blasting him for not remembering the exact clothes Owen was wearing (Bailey remembered given that he was staying in the house away from Sarah). He questions different persons like a Santa Claus and then, with Sarah who arrives to help him, checks a badly injured boy in a hospital, who is not Owen (sad scene). They also reconcile over their last argument (of him not loving any child he'd have). Bailey also takes Claudia's phone call and orders her not to come because they'll find Owen soon. Kirsten does everything what a mother would do in this situation: cries when she looks at his picture remembering their happy summer times in the beach at Bolinas (when she brushed his hair and teased him over future girlfriends), gets mad at the selfish people who don't accept the "Have You Seen this Kid" paper and at Paul, because he doesn't understand that Owen is the closest thing to a son that she has (he apologized for her to the selfish woman who refused to help and called Kirsten hysterical). Griffin and Ned look by themselves outside the mall and have some distant talks, Griffin dislikes him very much. Julia looks sensitive and desperate, but is comforted by Ned. Finally, after the mall closes (great scene), Charlie and the cop Flaherty find Owen in a home shelter with food service, in the company of a harmless man named Leon. Leon says he asked Owen his name and adress, but the kid lied saying he didn't know. After Charlie thanks Leon, Owen tells him he got lost on purpose, jealous of Diana and Charlie tries to understand him. He tells him he is the only Thunder trooper he got, implying him that he is his first child and so far, his only son. Finally, all of them share Thanksgiving dinner in the house. There, everybody hugs Owen, and he talks to Claudia by the phone, saying that he got in big trouble in the merry go round, where they spent time together before. Paul apologizes and tells Kirsten that he doesn't want to be a father because he couldn't look for his child in a garbage container, like he did with Owen today in the mall. She says that these dramatic situations doesn't occur often, but he sees cases like this in the hospital, reassuring her it happens. She already knew this (she explained it in 4x17), but now she feels more distant to him. She deeply wants to have children, she loves Owen, so experiences like this one, makes her remember how unhappy she would be without children. As for Griffin, he decides to leave the house for Thanksgiving, he tells Julia that Ned acted good today, but he doesn't like him. It's obvious that he already realized that the guy is possesive, agressive and that he has anger inside. Then, Charlie promises Owen a gift he wants for Christmas, to make amends with him. The ending scene was good, with everyone having dinner, but was kind of sad at the same time because after finding Owen, all the things that were wrong first, then are still there. Nothing has changed. Julia is still with Ned, Charlie is still with Daphne, Kirsten is still with Paul. Those themes didn't matter so much during the search, but then, yes. I believe that in the future when every person is where belongs, and Charlie has his "third child", events like this won't happen again, because Owen's "mother" will be present all the time along Charlie, always loving and taking care of all their children without distinction. Still, about how Owen got lost, there's something wrong, he is 4 years old, near 5, so it's hard to believe that he would "escape" from Charlie on purpose. There are a lot of common cases of jealousy between young siblings in families but, how many times a 4 year old kid decides to walk away from home? This storyline fits with the 7-8 year old Owen (Jacob Smith age), because if the Cavarno twins would have been here, this episode wouldn't exist. Besides, if Kirsten was acting as his nanny in the summer and the first 3 episodes this season, why lately she wasn't? Charlie is much more busy now than before. And considering her words about the beach day, and all the past shared, Owen should know that Kirsten loves him like a son. And despite that now he feels left behind by Charlie, that's not enough reason to walk away. However, I acknoweledge that today was showed a higher level of drama. It was intense enough, there were hard moments and good performances. Despite all that, at the end left me the same sensations of last episodes, it made me miss badly the first seasons, even season 4. The family is so divided since Charlie got in remission, that now they only reunited when Diana was born and now, when Owen disappeared. One of the main reasons to watch Party of Five, a group of orphans pulled together surviving after the death of their parents, each time means less.
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