Strip away the swamp noir murder mystery trappings of Knee Deep and, at its core, this stage play-in-a-video game is really a story about fathers, sons, mothers, daughters, and their ongoing struggles to connect. You've got divorced dad Jack Bellet, trying desperately to hang on to his son, Reggie, under threat of a custody battle with his ex-wife. Romana Teague, the young blogger, is estranged from her scandal-scarred mother. Detective K.C. Gaddis lost his father to the Church of Us before drifting away from his own mother. Even crazy swamp rat Jefferson Dean Gallant copes with family issues: a gator in Chief Roadside's Wonderland named Merle ate his infant son and crippled his wife before escaping into the murky wilderness. So, yes, Knee Deep takes you into a stage play about a noir-styled mystery involving land deals, Hollywood has-beens, and suspicious femme fatales. But it's also an exploration of how families fall apart and sometimes knit back together - and how some families aren't blood relatives at all.