‘The A Word’ Preview: Parents Get Devastating News in SundanceTV’s Terrific New Family Drama

In the new SundanceTV drama The A Word, Alison and Paul Hughes, parents to five-year-old Joe and 16-year-old Rebecca, think everyone around them is making too much of a fuss about some potential issues with their son. Like how he can be stubborn. How he doesn’t interact easily with other children. How he doesn’t follow directions. And how his favorite thing in the world is listening to music, via headphones, and singing along (he knows all the words to a whole lineup of pop songs).

All normal behavior for a five-year-old boy, Joe’s parents insist, but when Joe’s pushy grandfather, Maurice (The Leftovers and Doctor Who star Christopher Eccleston) takes matters into his own hands, Alison and Paul are forced to face some tough truths about Joe. In the exclusive preview above from the July 13 premiere, the couple (played by Morven Christie and Lee Ingleby) meet with a very kind therapist who tries to gently, but definitively, get them to realize the “A word” — autism — is behind the behaviors they’ve tried to dismiss as Joe’s quirks.

Related: ‘The A Word’ Review: An Autism Drama With Humor and Love

Meanwhile, Alison’s brother, Eddie, and wife Nicola are trying to repair their marriage after her infidelity; Alison and Paul’s own marriage has taken a few hits as they try to maneuver some differing opinions on Joe’s future; teen Rebecca feels ignored with the whole family’s attention focused on her brother; and Maurice, never shy to share his usually unsolicited opinions, finds his attention divided between family and new lover Louise, the local music teacher who’s helping him tune up his vocal stylings on Gordon Lightfoot covers.

The six-episode first season of the British series, based on the Israeli TV drama Yellow Peppers, aired earlier this year on the BBC, and has been renewed for a second season that will continue to follow the Hughes family as they come together to try to help Joe, and find their relationships with each other tested as the autism diagnosis also serves to highlight the dysfunctional way they’ve always communicated with each other.

The A Word premieres July 13 at 10 p.m. on SundanceTV.