Our Little Secrets is nicely plotted with secrets and twists, but the topics discussed seems to be well ahead of its time in the late 19th century Western Frontier, and some of the plot twists were a bit... overly dramatic.
Charlotte Baldwin ran from her stepfather in Philadelphia, taking her late mother's jewelry and her late father's onyx box with her. She was almost robbed in St. Louis and got on a train to somewhere... and ended up in Montana, met the general store owner Michael West, and agreed to marry him... for she realized to throw off whoever's after her she had to change her name, and now, she is just Charlie West. What she didn't know is Michael West is hiding deep dark secrets as well, having also ran away from Philadelphia...
Clearly the villain was modeled after William Randolph Hearst and the yellow journalism, but the idea of using family members as bait to solicit secrets which were then exposed was much more morally repugnant. This, combined with the over-the-top evilness of the villain, yet no explanation of the motivation other than greed, made the villain almost comical. The twist only made it worse.
WARNING SPOILER AHEAD
Charlotte and Michael ran from the same villain... Michael is his son, and Charlotte is his step-daughter. And Michael got a woman killed and a diamond necklace disappeared... Hidden by the villain, and it just happened that he hid it in the box that used to belong to Charlotte's father... which Charlotte took with her!
There's a couple logical problems with this... Clearly, Michael left, THEN the villain married and got Charlotte as the step-daughter and started grooming her to also be his spy. So where were the diamonds in the meanwhile? Also, how can it be that NO ONE ever told Charlotte (or she never found out) that her stepfather has a son whose whereabouts are unknown?
There's also talks about whatever Michael prefer male company and the marriage was just for show, though that's more of a joke. But really... talk about homosexuality in the late 1800's? A bit anachronistic, isn't it?
Category: Historical Western
Primary Plot: Girl ran west to get away, married a guy with deep dark secrets of his own; and even more people chased them down...
Tropes: family secrets, evil parents, woman in peril, protector
Overall Rating: 3/5
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