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“The Fosters” recap (1.11): “Come here, woman”

Previously on The Fosters, everything happened (no really, everything). Most recently, the moms asked Jude and Callie if they could adopt them, Stef and Lena got married, Callie and Brandon kissed, Jude McCullersed a garbage can, and Callie ran away with Wyatt and his Pantene commercial hair.

The second half of the first season opens just where we left off, with our two moms doing a little naked spooning after their wedding. They coo at each other over their new, matching, un-hyphenated last names. Adams Foster does have a nice ring to it, in that lesbians-share-every-damn-thing-including-too-many-syllables kind of way. Stef’s mom is still around and making bacon but even bacon can’t compete with a warm bed and a hot wife who calls you “woman” and doesn’t mind morning breath.

While the moms have a post-wedding “morning skate,” Annie Potts is continuing her magic in the kitchen. The kids are eating while she puts away glasses from the reception and regales them with tales of her wedding to Stef’s father. Brandon skulks in and asks Jude where Callie is. Jude shoot daggers at Mr. Snoggypants and says Callie is at her guitar lesson because nothing says women’s college lady killer like being able to play “Closer to Fine” on the quad. Stef and Lena glide into the kitchen on a pillow of post-coital bliss. That sound you hear is a million lesbians falling over at the sight of Stef rocking that flannel shirt. Married life looks good on your Stef, real good.

Stef says, “Wow, it looks like you were up all night too, Mom. And not doing the fun stuff I was doing with Lena.” Jesus even helped grandma put the tables in the back of the car, which was sweet but not helpful since here’s Mike coming to pick them up. While they sort out the great table debacle of 2014, Jesus and Mariana fight over who gets to spend time with Lexi before she goes to Honduras for two weeks. Lena and Mike marshall the troops to switch the table and chairs and glasses while Stef and her mom have a little heart to heart about whether Stef and Lena should be adopting two more kids. Stef assures her mom that she’s a grown ass adult and she and Lena have thought plenty about it and are sure they can handle adding a couple more hormonal teens to their house.

At a gas station in the middle of a desert somewhere, Wyatt tosses his perfectly coiffed hair and waits for Callie to return with snacks. He refuses to let her into the car until she tells him what the hell it is she’s running from. Wyatt has graduated to the withholding until we process stage of lesbianism. I kind of love bitchy Wyatt. Callie gets in the car and sets the theme for the episode. She just wants control over her life for once. Wyatt nods like he understands and drives off.

Back home, Jude and Brandon are folding table linens. Brandon says, “I just want to make sure we’re cool, bro.” Jude says, “No, you don’t. You just want to know if I’m going to tell everyone you were stuffing your tongue down my sister’s throat.” Judicorn, you are the absolute best. Brandon figures they can sort it all out but Jude is having none of it. He slams his half folded napkin down and tells Brandon to leave his sister alone because otherwise they won’t get adopted. Then Jude takes it a step further and tells Brandon that he’s just like Liam. Hey, Jude. Don’t make a bad comparison. Brandon might be an unthinking teenager who jeopardized your chance at a stable home life but he’s no rapist. Brandon says he’s nothing like Liam and that he loves Callie. Jeez, Brandon, I bet Jude loves having a stable home where he is supported and loved for being who he is not beaten for it.

Meanwhile, Sharon is upstairs supervising a couple of dudes who are delivering a Craftmatic Adjustable Bed for Stef and Lena. Jude walks in and tells Grandma that the moms are going to kill her for messing with their bed. She tells him to shush because this bed is so fantastic that she keeps around her nimrod of a boyfriend just because she loves his bed so much. Sharon, from the look of the opening scene, I don’t think Stef and Lena are having any trouble in the bed department. They play with the buttons and Jude folds himself into a bed taco (not a euphemism, although on a show with lesbians it should be) and asks Grandma, why not ditch the nimrod and buy yourself a new bed? Just like that Grandma has been Judicorned.

Next door Mariana and Lexi are working on their project, or a ransom note, it’s hard to tell with all the magazines and poster board. Jesus barges in and asks if he can make out with his girlfriend. Mariana gets huffy and says they need to finish the project. Jesus appeals to Lexi who gets up to leave, Mariana pouts some more and Lexi comes back to the project. Lexi pulls the classic high school girl thing and tells Mariana she’ll understand someday when she’s in love too. Hold on, my eyeballs just fell out of my head I rolled them so hard. Mariana calls Lexi on the horseshit that it is and stomps off for a soda.

Callie and Wyatt are examining Area 51 and eating green snow cones while they discuss the ethics of time travel. Callie wishes she could jump forward five years so she would be living on her own and Jude would be almost eighteen. They could be together without foster families and CPS getting in the way. Wyatt asks what about Jude, now? Callie says the little guy is better off without her. Poor Wyatt, his lesbian starter kit covered processing feelings and epic hair, but he needs to wait for next month’ package to handle this shit.

Speaking of Jude, he bops his way to the living room and fires up the XBox. While turning his chair around he notices Callie’s guitar. Stef, you’re a cop, if you want to make detective this is the shit you need to start noticing. Jude rushes upstairs and breaks up Lexi and Mariana’s study session to pull open Callie’s closet and dresser. There are no clothes, no things, nada. Brandon saunters in and asks what’s going on. “I am the one who get to rifle Callie’s drawers!” Jude scowls at him and says, “She ran away, dumbass.”

Down in the kitchen command center the guitar and Callie’s cell phone are in the middle of the table and Stef is grilling everyone on any tiny details they might have as to why Callie left and where the hell she has gone. Stef can’t believe that no one knows anything. Your instincts are right, Mama. Somebody knows all right. Brandon gives Jude a pathetic look. Stef wonders if they freaked her out with the offer of a permanent home. Nope guys, it wasn’t you. They have to notify Callie’s probation officer. Jude asks Lena if Callie is going to go back to juvie and Lena says she doesn’t know but promises everything will be all right.

Wyatt and Callie have stopped for the night at a delightful looking motel. Mona’s A Team lair is probably on the other side of the wall. While Callie takes a shower Wyatt ignores a call. It’s from Lena who leaves a frantic message. Wyatt broods in the dark wondering what the hell he’s gotten himself into with Callie.

Meanwhile back at the Adams Foster home for misbehaving teens, Stef is on the phone in her bedroom. Sharon pops in to chat before heading to the airport. No! Don’t ever leave us! She tells Stef that no matter what happens with Callie they better keep Judicorn. That kid is magic. Stef cries and tells her mom that they are both good kids and she just doesn’t understand what is happening. Her mom laughs and says teenagers don’t know what the hell they are doing most of the time and that raising Stef was so hard that she considered sending Stef to live with her Nana. Before she leaves, Stef wants to know what the hell happened to her bed. Mostly, she’s worried about that special box under the bed that even though she’s all grown she’d rather not have her mom find. Mom is so pleased with herself that she hoists Stef up and they both have a much needed laugh.

Back at the motel Wyatt is asking Callie about her plans for the future. Not included in the plan is a phone call to Stef and Lena. She has a harebrained scheme involving getting her GED, finding a job and a place to live in Indiana. Wyatt asks if maybe she could stay with her dad and she says, “Don’t you watch Orange is the New Black? They don’t let kids live in prison.” He says well, maybe he’s looking for you and Callie scoffs. Wyatt, bless him and his full head of ginger locks, can’t understand why Callie always assumes that no one cares about her. Aw dude, your feelings are showing. He starts to make a bed on the floor and she tells him he can sleep in the bed with her. Welcome to hell buddy, in which you try to sleep next to the object of your affection without losing your mind. I’ve been there, dude. Have fun staring at the ceiling all night.

The next morning Wyatt hops out of bed and tells Callie they better get on the road. He’s acting squirrelly and she’s irritated because he promised her pancakes not a McMuffin for breakfast. He says “meet me outside.” Wyatt bounces down the stairs and is about to hop in the car when he hears the melodious sound of Stef Adams Foster asking, “Going somewhere?” Oh, our little hair model is having second thoughts about calling the moms on Callie. Callie’s spidey sense was tingling so she looks out the window in time to see the moms and to get her ass out of the room. While Stef channels Stanley Kowalski and screams “Callie!” at passing trucks, Callie has slipped into a tractor trailer and is gone.

Back up in the room Lena and Stef are grilling Wyatt. He says Callie told him that it wasn’t working out and that she was probably going to another foster home. Lena gives the most incredible “What the effing crap?” face and says we were going to adopt her.

Back in the kitchen of magical powers Mike is pinch-hitting for the lesbians. He is making eggs and telling Jude that everything is going to be just fine and that Callie will be home by dinner. He throws in that Santa and the Tooth Fairy are real. Mariana says she’s not eating the eggs he made because she’s been perusing the PETA ads (you know the ones with naked ladies) and chickens are treated really badly. Mike says “but your lesbian moms only buy cage free!” Jude asks for cereal. Brandon is mooning around like a regular Dawson Leery. He tells his dad that ham is a no-go for lunches because Mariana won’t eat it because of the piggies and Jude doesn’t like it. Mariana also won’t eat turkey, because of the turkeys being animals so she settles for peanut butter. Mike, imma let you finish, but the combined ages for these kids is what 60? I think they can make their own damn lunches. Brandon corners Mariana to ask if she thinks Callie and Wyatt are back together now. Settle down Mr. McFeelsy. Mariana is like, “Dude, she ran away in the middle of the night and you think she slipped me a note saying ‘totes back together with Wyatt, I love his hair?'” Good lord. Mike freaks when he realizes how late they are and shuttles them out the door. Oh Mike, your parental ineptitude makes Lena and Stef look even more amazing.

Somewhere, USA. Callie steps out of the truck and wanders over to a diner called “Cafe Mike.” Well done, Fosters. She tries to get a job but doesn’t have an ID or an address and can’t understand how she can have an address without a job. The guy smiles at her and says if his daughter showed up like this he would hope someone would tell her to go home.

Back at school, scruffy, British teacher, Timothy, tells Mariana she needs a new partner for her assignment. She’s says she’s got Lexi. Nope, the Riveras vanishing cabinet doesn’t work anymore so they won’t be coming back from Honduras. Lexi is going away for good.

Meanwhile, the newlyweds are enjoying a passive aggressive drive through the desert. Stef is scowling as she drives and Lena tells her she knows what Stef’s thinking and would she just say what’s on her mind so they can move on. They bicker about how Stef is impulsive but maybe this time Lena should have let her call the cops because they Callie wouldn’t have disappeared after Wyatt called them. Stef growls her frustration because there’s no plan, no way to find Callie. This is the suckiest thing about being a parent. You’re in charge! There’s no one to tell you what to do. Sometimes you’re wandering in the desert without a map or a plan or any semblance of a clue and you fight with your wife because that is something you are good at. She take her frustration out on the glasses clinking around in the back of the car. Those suckers get left on the side of the road because Stef can’t control any other thing in her life. Oh ladies, remember when your biggest problem was your meddling moms fighting over the flower arrangements? Good times.

Jesus comes home to find Mariana and Lexi sitting out back. Mariana made a going away meal out of some leftover cake and her moms’s bridal bouquets for these two knuckleheads. I’m sure the moms won’t be mad that come their anniversary they’ll find out that their cake was sacrificed for a doomed high school romance. Jesus doesn’t understand at first and then Lexi says she’s not coming back at all. Jesus, because he’s 15 and doesn’t know any better, says he’ll wait for her. She says no, don’t do that, but maybe I’ll be back for college. He says he loves her and he’s going to wait if he has to. Okey dokey. Up to this point waiting hasn’t been your strong suit buddy, but I’m pulling for you.

Mike is still filling in. I know Mike sure gets a lot of grief (some of it deserved) but when you have a kid with someone, you’re in it for life and Mike is being pretty great about taking care of the Von Trapps while Maria and the Captain have the worst honeymoon ever. Everyone is gathered around a pizza box in the kitchen when Mike’s phone rings. When he hangs up Brandon asks if Callie is still with Wyatt. Dude, tone it down. Mike says Callie took off again. Jude stands up, glares at Brandon and storms out of the room. Lena and Stef are sitting in the car outside the motel. Stef says she knows she’s a pain in the ass. Lena says she is a pain too and that it’s surprising that they work since they are so different. But there’s a balance there and usually at least one of them is right. Stef sighs and says maybe they were both wrong about Callie this time. No, you were wrong about your other kid. Go talk to Ross Gellar and sort this shit out.

Brandon finds Jude sitting on his bed in the dark. Brandon says when Callie first left he tried to understand why she would leave and came up with the fact that she was with Wyatt again. Then he realized that she wasn’t running to Wyatt, she was running away from him. He apologizes to Jude for screwing everything up. But Jude is crying because he made Callie leave when he called her selfish. Brandon gives him a hug and tells the little Judicorn that it’s not his fault.

Back in Somewheresville, Callie hops on a bus and rides it all night until the driver kicks her off before they get to the blue filtered town of Ravenswood. She wanders to a dark street where some hookers are doing their best Vivian Ward. A girl walks out of a store and asks if Callie is looking for the shelter. Callie says no. The girl tells her she can stay with her and her friends if she needs to. Callie asks to borrow her phone and calls the prison where her dad is. The guard hassles her about calling (what, she hasn’t seen Orange is the New Black) but eventually tells her that her dad was released a year ago. This is why she’s afraid to hope, Wyatt. Because sometimes it hurts a lot more to hope and be disappointed than to refuse to hope in the first place.

Callie hadn’t been in a loving home before the Fosters and instead of letting those people who had come to love her send her away, she pushed them away first. She couldn’t bear the thought of Stef and Lena telling her that they had changed their minds about being her moms. She couldn’t bear that kind of rejection from a place that had only been filled with love before. So she pushed them away first. Who hasn’t done that? Hurt them before they can hurt you. Throw the first punch and run like hell.

Callie hands the phone back and walks into the liquor store. She grabs a sandwich and starts eating it. The guy at the counter yells at her to pay for it. She pops open a can of soda and starts drinking it. He yells some more. She opens a candy bar and he says to put it back or he’s calling the cops. She gives him a look and takes a bite. Maybe not the best plan to take control of her life, but it’s all she’s got.

Next week Rosie O’Donnell starts her arc on The Fosters. What do you think of the winter premiere?

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