What If Carter & Taylor Aren't Really Twins?

If you're anything like me, you love a good mystery — especially when it's situated within the context of a teen-centric drama. Luckily for me, Tuesdays are really bringing it in that particular category. not only do we have ABC Family's Pretty Little Liars to freak out over, but we also have MTV's brand-new kidnapping drama Finding Carter , which has easily become my new television obsession. For those who have yet to tune in, Finding Carter is about a 16-year-old girl named Carter who discovers that the awesome mother she loves is actually the woman who kidnapped her 13 years ago. Now, Carter has to cope with her "new/old" family which includes a tightly-wound cop mother, a self-described "replacement child" brother, a failed author dad, and Carter's responsible twin sister. While the show is definitely a new kind of family drama, it's also a mystery — we still don't know why Carter's kidnapper/mother stole Carter away from her family. Though fans have a ton of different theories, there's one theory that might make a ton of sense — and it involves Taylor, Carter's twin sister.

As many fans have pointed out, Carter looks a lot more like her kidnapper, Lori, than she does her biological mother Elizabeth or her twin sister Taylor. While Carter has dark, reddish hair, both Elizabeth and Taylor have lighter locks. Obviously, there's no reason to say that hair color is an automatic indicator for family, but given that this is a television series, the show might be hinting that there is more to the kidnapping story than meets the eye.

There are a lot of reasons that would explain (though not excuse) Lori's kidnapping of Carter. Kadeen Griffiths here at Bustle suggested that maybe Lori is Carter's biological mother — it would explain why Lori would want Carter so badly. While some fans have suggested that perhaps Carter was adopted by Elizabeth and David, there's also a chance that Elizabeth and David might not know that Carter wasn't really their biological child.

There are a few ways for this to work, and it all has to do with Carter being Taylor's sororal twin. Let's say that Lori and Elizabeth both went to the hospital to have children on the same day. Elizabeth could have had twins — Taylor and another child, whom she named Linden — while Lori had the girl we know as Carter. Due to a switch at the hospital, Linden and Carter could have been switched for one another. (Hey, it happened on Switched at Birth, right?)

Lori appears young for a mother, which could mean that she had Carter when she wasn't able to raise her. She could have given up the original "Carter" for adoption in the hospital (Elizabeth and David's biological baby) and felt enormous regrets about it. Then, for whatever reason — maybe the child she gave up for adoption was sick and needed a biological match — Lori learns that she's not actually the birth mother of the child she gave up for adoption. She could go find the "real" Carter, knowing that she is the rightful mother.

The theory is complicated, sure, but it's one of the few explanations that would both explain Lori's connection to Carter and Elizabeth and David's relationship with her. If this theory is true, then Lori and Elizabeth would both really believe that Carter is their biological daughter. Though it wouldn't excuse Lori's actions (stealing a child is always a no-no, even if you are her biological mother), it would prove that she's more than just that "crazy kidnapping lady" that Elizabeth believes her to be.

While we probably won't know the whole kidnapping story for a while, I'm excited to watch the rest of the season to find out what really happened.

Images: MTV; Giphy (3)