Did Abby Kill Tom On 'Secrets and Lies'?

To say that ABC's Secrets and Lies has escalated quickly is seriously an understatement, but I'm going to say it anyway because I feel very strongly that, if you're not emulating Ron Burgundy at least once per day, then you're not living. Based on the Australian TV show Secrets & Lies, the series tells the story of a young boy's murder, and the townspeople and police who are anxious to solve the case. Over the course of nine episodes, just about every single character has fallen under suspicion, and in this week's season finale, we will (supposedly) finally find out who killed 5-year-old Tom Murphy. Personally, I think that Abby Crawford, Ben's youngest daughter, killed Tom.

I know what you're thinking: She's just a kid, the two of them were close, and she seemed genuinely upset when she found out that Tom was her half-brother — she couldn't have done it. But guys, she totally had the motive. Think about it. Detective Cornell knows, based on the evidence they've collected, that his killer is a woman, and she knows exactly who it is. Many assume that it's Jess Murphy, Tom's bipolar and off-her-meds mother and the woman that Ben cheated with, or Christy, Ben's jilted soon-to-be ex-wife. That said, making the psychotic mother the killer would be too easy from a writer's perspective, and just because Christy chose to have an abortion does not a murderer make.

That leaves a few people to deal with: Nicole, Jess's sister, who would really be too random of a choice; Elaine, the wife of the man who tortured Ben; and Natalie, Ben's older daughter, who babysat Tom and really seemed to care about him. None of these women have the motive. That just leaves Abby, and she's a real piece of work if you really look at her. First of all, she's got some serious rage issues. First was the boy she pushed at the Christmas fair, then we constantly find her screaming at one authority figure or another. On top of that, she always wants to be on her dad's case, claiming she's a "daddy's girl," and she always seems to know just a little bit too much — so much so that, early on in the series, her parents would scold her for constantly invading her sister's privacy. On top of that, we know that the more sophisticated framing was done by Kevin, a government-sanctioned torturer, so there's no argument to be made for Abby not being able to do any of that.

Here's what I think: All of the flashbacks show Ben spending tons of time with Tom. I think Abby was jealous of the attention that Tom was getting. We now know that whoever killed Tom took him to a lake to try to drown him, and we saw in a flashback that Abby knew that Tom didn't know how to swim. It seems to me that she probably knew where Ben's flashlight was, took Tom down to the river to "try to teach him to swim," and when Tom tried to leave to go tell on Abby, most likely to Ben, she killed him to stop him from doing so. There's also the possibility that this was an accident, that Abby didn't mean to hurt Tom and actually just wanted to teach him to swim, but the point still remains: I think it was Abby.

All of this is mere speculation (those who've checked out the original series know how off base or on base this theory is), though, and given the rapidity with which this show throws curve balls, I wouldn't be surprised if I was entirely off base. Now, all we can do is wait for the episode to air to see whether I'm right or wrong. Either way, I'm sure it's going to be a shocker.

Images: Brownie Harris/ABC; secretsandliesabc/Tumblr