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Main Characters
Daphne Paloma Vasquez
Portrayed by: Katie Leclerc
- The Ace: She’s a beautiful, sweet star athlete who gets straight As, is a culinary wiz, plays a mean game of poker, and everyone loves her, from teenage boys to the whole Kannish family.
- Fiery Redhead: She might be sweet, but don't test her temper.
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I Am Not Spock: Those who've only seen Katie Leclerc act as Daphne find it slightly jarring to hear her speak in promotional material without her character's deaf accent. - I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: After fighting with Bay over Emmett and trying to break them up, she does this after realizing Emmett's feelings for Bay are the real deal and she needs to let go.
- Living Lie Detector: She's pretty good at reading other people's body language. This skill comes in handy later on when she discovers Emmett cheated on Bay with Simone. She also Lampshades this when she goes playing poker with Toby and tells him she knows exactly when the other players are either bluffing or not (though she turns out to have over-estimated her ability, and the poker game goes horribly wrong).
- Lovable Jock
- Oblivious to Love: She never seemed to realize Emmett was into her until it was too late and he had fallen for Bay.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: At times. Katie Leclerc actually speaks like a "hearing person" in real life and she has faster reactions to people than most deaf people would.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: She's the tomboy to Bay's girly girl. She's a sports-loving girls who has boys as her best friends (Emmett, Ty).
- Took a Level in Jerkass: After her mom takes the job in their old neighborhood, and especially after Angelo's death, she starts to do any number of illegal things. Bay took the blame for the worst ones when it results in a demanded arrest (which Daphne allows her to do), and they've both set themselves up for failure.
Bay Madeleine Kennish
Portrayed by: Vanessa Marano
Just because I always have a snappy comeback doesn't mean I don't break easily...
Heart-broken Bay, to Emmett
Bay grows up in the wealthy and relatively loving and well-adjusted Kennish family, until at the age of 15 she discovers that these are not her biological parents and brother. She was switched at birth, and her biological mother is Regina Vasquez, an ex-alcoholic who raises Daphne (a girl born on the same day as Bay) as a single mother in a poor neighborhood afther her ex-husband walked out when Daphne went deaf as a toddler. Bay is navigating the difficulties of forming a bond with Regina and Daphne (and later her biological father as well), who come from a completely different background.
- AB Negative: How the whole plot gets kicked off in fact.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: How she starts off, but she gets better.
- Emo Teen: Has her moments, but she rarely ever, if at all, goes into
Wangst territory. - New Transfer Student: She transfers to Carlton as part of a pilot program for hearing students with connections to the Deaf community.
- Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: She has jet-black hair and dark brown eyes, on a pale skin. It's plot-important because her father, mother and brother are strawberry-blonde, blue-eyed people, and the family has wondered for Bay's first 15 years of life how she could look so different.
- Regal Ringlets: She has small curls and is a rich, upper-class girl, which contrasts her with Daphne, who has a lower-class background and has straight hair.
Regina Vasquez
Portrayed by: Constance Marie
A woman who has a daughter, Daphne, who becomes deaf as a toddler, after which her husband Angelo leaves her when a DNA-test reveals she is not his biological child. Because she never cheated on Angelo, she investigates this further, only to discover that Daphne isn't her biological child either, and was switched at birth. Regina keeps this knowledge to herself, since as a financially struggling, (ex-)alcoholic single mother of a deaf girl she's scared she'll lose both Daphne and her biological daughter. When these girls are 15 however, Bay suddenly turns up in her life, after finding out about the swich herself...
- The Alcoholic: She has been sober for 8 years at the start of the series, though as she explains to Bay and Toby, she still considers herself an alcoholic. This is Truth in Television, as in self-help groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous, as well as in most professional medical care for addiction, addiction is viewed as a disease that doesn't go away, though one can choose not to (ab)use substances anymore.
- Dark Secret:
- The Kennishes suspect that Regina knew something they didn't. And they were right. It's revealed that she knew about the switch before the series started. Around the time of Daphne's meningitis infection in 1998, Angelo had Daphne's DNA tested due to suspecting she wasn't his biological daughter. (They're dark-toned Hispanics while Daphne is a fair-skinned redhead, after all.) After finding out she wasn't his child, he assumed Regina had an affair (which she hadn't) and left. Through this, Regina realized that the hospital had switched the girls at birth. Fearing that she'd lose Daphne, whom she'd come to love like her own child, Regina kept the secret to herself and got her life together to be a good Single Mom to Daphne. However, she hired a private investigator to track down her biological daughter. Once finding Bay, she began to secretly watch her from afar as she grew up for years; such as attending her school recitals and approaching her when she was by herself to make small talk. Bay actually remembers these moments, but had thought nothing of it at the time. And now it's not a secret anymore.
- The Kennishes also react shocked when she reveals she's an alcoholic (though firmly ON the wagon for the last 8 years), and that Daphne's deafness was caused by a meningitis (the Kennishes immediately treat this as proof that she was neglecting Daphne). When she later falls Off the Wagon, she tries to keep this a secret, but Daphne and Bay won't have any of it.
- Mama Bear
- Off the Wagon: After Angelo returns, and stress gets to her, she begins drinking again. It gets so bad that she is eventually forced to return to rehab to get her life back on track again.
John Kennish
Portrayed by: D. W. Moffett
- The Complainer Is Always Wrong: Happens a lot in season 2. Most of the time, if John objects to something, he is wrong, and has to be brought around.
- Happily Married: To Kathryn. That is, until a brief separation in Season 3 had him kicked out and living with Toby for a couple of episodes. They're back together, though.
- Hot-Blooded: To the point wherein the second season, he actually had a heart attack due to stress.
- Morality Pet: Gets one in the form of Travis.
- Nepotism: It's not treated negatively, but a lot of the key positions in organizations he runs end up getting filled by his children (and their friends). Lampshaded by Bay at one point.
- Papa Wolf
- Really Gets Around: Not anymore now that he's married, but back before he met Kathryn, he was apparently quite the ladies man. Upon Kathryn's goading, he told her about an incident in his ballplaying days where he slept with three women, one after the other, in one night. Apparently coffee really helps.
- Self-Made Man: Was a pretty famous baseball player before retiring from the game, and later started a successful business of car washes.
- Strawman Political: John seems to develop new, stereotypically conservative beliefs whenever it would cause the most drama and familial tension. This picks up after he gets elected.
Kathryn Kennish
Portrayed by: Lea Thompson
- Feminine Women Can Cook
- Happily Married: To John, barring the occasional rough patch. They have a serious flare-up in Season 3, when she declares that she is no longer happy, and kicks him out.
- Housewife
- Mama Bear
Toby Kennish
Portrayed by: Lucas Grabeel
- Big Brother Instinct: Towards both Bay (whom he still considers his sister) and Daphne. It culminates with him shoving Emmett to the ground after finding out about Emmett cheating on Bay with Simone, who was Toby's girlfriend.
- Shonen Hair
- The Gambling Addict: He eventually kicks this habit.
Angelo Sorrento
Portrayed by: Gilles Marini
- The Atoner: He's desperate to make up for abandoning Regina and Daphne all those years ago, and really wants to make up for lost time with Bay.
- Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: His abandonment of Daphne when she was younger - basically, he was convinced Regina cheated on him (since Daphne certainly didn't resemble either of them). After having her DNA tested, he up and left her and Regina. He does deeply regret this however, and is more than willing to aid John in suing the hospital for the switch.
- Disappeared Dad: Bay's biological father, Angelo. She's not happy about this. He eventually shows up out of the blue in the midseason finale, after reading about the switch in a newspaper. Then disappears again. Then comes back. You can understand why Regina told him she wants off his roller coaster of comings and goings. Before this, he'd also left after Daphne was born, rightly suspecting she wasn't really his daughter given that she looked distinctly different from both him and Regina. Then he disappeared for good, dying of a cerebral hemmorhage caused by injuries he received from a car accident.
- Killed Off for Real: In "The Image Disappears," Angelo suffers a cerebral haemorrhage after a car accident in the previous episode, and is left brain dead and on life support. The episode went out of its way to establish that this isn't a fluke; he's failed every possible neurological test, and brain scans reveal absolutely no activity or blood flow, all meaning that he's completely gone. The girls and Regina ultimately decide to take him off of life support and donate his organs as requested in his medical papers.
- Papa Wolf: He becomes this when he finds out that Daphne was secretly seeing the older Chef Jeff in the season 1 finale. He punches him in the face and even threatens Jeff to stay away from her if he ever sees her again.
- Really Gets Around: After leaving Regina, he's had more than a few flings on the side, including a love child with a college student. However, it seems Regina is his true love.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: He was rightfully suspicious on doubting whether Daphne was his biological daughter when she was young. But He simply assumed she was a result of Regina having an affair rather than The Hospital making a mistake by switching two babies.
- Tall, Dark, and Handsome
Emmett Bledsoe
Portrayed by: Sean Berdy
- A Friend in Need: With Daphne. Even after he starts dating Bay, he still looks out for her well being, and she's usually the first person he turns to for advice.
- The Atoner: After cheating on Bay, he's determined to redeem himself in her eyes because he still does love her and wants to make things work.
- Badass Biker
- Disabled Snarker:Liam: Do you speak English?Emmett: [signing] No, Japanese.
- Dogged Nice Guy: To Daphne. And later on, towards Bay after breaking up with him.
- Nice Guy
- Sex for Solace: After an argument with Bay, he runs into Simone, who also had a spat with Toby. Things progress from there into a night they end up regretting in the morning.
- Unwanted Assistance: In-Universe - he gets pretty frustrated with Bay defending him due to his deafness.
Recurring Characters
Melody Bledsoe
Portrayed by: Marlee Matlin
- Disabled Snarker: Like mother, like son it seems.
- Good Parents: She's very strict, but really does love her son.
- Jerkass: She was initially one towards Bay because she didn't approve of Emmett dating a hearing girl. However, she softened up considerably after the two found some common ground in that they want what's best for Emmett.
- Mama Bear: Towards both Emmett and Daphne.
- Teacher/Student Romance: According to her during the second season, she had a brief relationship with an older professor of hers, but broke it off due to their age difference causing them to have little in common. This is much like the plot of Matlin's Oscar-making hit "Children of a Lesser God", except the professor's prejudice was the deal-breaker there.
Adriana Vasquez
Portrayed by: Ivonne Coll
- Cool Old Lady
- Obnoxious In-Laws: She really does not like Angelo for abandoning Daphne and Regina.
Simone Sinclair
Portrayed by: Maiara Walsh
- The Alcoholic: She runs into Regina at an AA meeting.
- Alpha Bitch: Deconstructed.
- Slut-Shaming: After it was uncovered she cheated on Toby with Emmett, she became a target for some intense internet bullying, causing her to resort to booze to run away from her problems.
Ty Mendoza
Portrayed by: Blair Redford
- Berserk Button: Hurting Bay in any way will have him giving out a good beatdown.
- Like Brother and Sister: With Daphne.
- Put on a Bus: When he joins the military.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: When he comes back from the war, he's clearly a lot more easily agitated and quick to anger.
- Tall, Dark, and Handsome
James "Wilke" Wilkerson III
Portrayed by: Austin Butler
- Ladykiller in Love: Towards Daphne.
- Off to Boarding School: Due to Wilke getting low grades and slacking off, his dad threatened him with boarding school several times. His dad eventually does it.
- Small Name, Big Ego
Noah
Portrayed by: Max Lloyd-Jones
- Actor Allusion: He's a hearing student in Carlton's pilot program. Noah confides to Bay he has Meniere's disease, which Daphne's actress Katie Le Clerc actually has.
Travis
Portrayed by: Ryan Lane
- Dogged Nice Guy: For Daphne.
- Emo Teen: Justified considering his circumstances.
- Freudian Excuse: He's the only member of his family who is deaf, and his parents made no effort to learn how to communicate with him.
- Hidden Heart of Gold: He can be a bit of a jerk at first, but considering his circumstances, as well as learning to open up to others a bit more, he's revealed to be quite a sweetheart.
Lana
Portrayed by: Annie Ilonzeh
Natalie Pierce
Portrayed by: Stephanie Nogueras
- Jerkass: Towards Bay and the other pilot program students. She does soften considerably after the two find some common ground.
- Lipstick Lesbian: It's revealed in "Human/Need/Desire" that Natalie is either a lesbian or bisexual (she's dating a girl later). Natalia has a feminine style of dress and manner overall.
- Twofer Token Minority: Natalie is a "threefer"-she's deaf, queer and also a woman of color (though the last was unexplored in the show-her actress is Puerto Rican).
Jace
Portrayed by: Matt Kane
- The Sociopath: After convincing Daphne to send a threatening text to Senator Coto, his behavior accelerates to trying to get Daphne to use the credit cards of a jerk who made fun of deaf people and then lost his wallet where Jace could find it. Daphne gets scared and dumps him, only to find he doesn't see any need to listen to her anymore.
Minor Characters
Liam Lupo
Portrayed by: Charles Michael Davis
- Lovable Jock: In stark contrast to his teammates.
- Where da White Women At?: Downplayed example in his brief relationship with Daphne.
