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“The Fosters” recap (1.21): “Paperwork”

Previously on The Fosters, Stef and Lena got married and had seven minutes of heaven in which none of their children were missing, in danger, or committing felonies. But then ding! time was up so first Callie ran away because she and Brandon kissed at the wedding and Brandon is still trying to figure out that saying “like kissing your sister” because he really, really liked it. While the whole family wondered why Callie would run, Brandon just sat in the corner whistling and staring at the ceiling until finally he fessed up admitted he loved her like Romeo love Juliet and the teens ate it up and the rest of us who actually finished the play saw that this was going to end very badly.

Callie ate a candy bar, got sent to juvie, then to Rockford to be a Peach. She got to hang with Rosie O’Donnell who taught her that neato bat flip and also some coping skills. Jesus spent half the season trying to find his shirt and the other half trying to ditch his ADHD meds. Mostly, he kind of liked Emma who kicked his ass at wrestling but he still kind of loved Lexi who was in Honduras until she came to visit and broke up with him. Mariana gave the wrong boy her panties, but took the right boy to the dance only to spend the night trying to find his mom. Brandon got a copy of “Felonies from A to Z” and got to about “G” before finally getting caught. Mike had a wildly inappropriate girlfriend who filled Brandon’s head with the kinds of stupid things not generally found outside of the confines of Rosewood. Stef’s father died, Callie and Jude saw their dad, and Lena had the brilliant idea of making a baby sized child with her womb and sperm from Timothy, the overly friendly English teacher with Barry Melrose’s hair, and an English accent.

We open this week where we left off, with Brandon in the back of a police cruiser leading a spelunking adventure through the true depths of his idiocy. He paid Ana to change her testimony and Stef’s eyes nearly pop out of her head and land in the front seat. Fortunately, he hasn’t told anyone about this particular felony so there’s time for his parents to muck it up some more. Stef tells Mike all about her little heart-to-heart with Ana and then run through their options. Mike says he could kill Ana. Stef says she’ll handle it and Mike should just stay the hell away and while she’s at it, she’s taking Brandon and she’s bringing him home.

At Mike’s bachelor pad, Mike and Dani scream at each other while Brandon lurks. Mike tells her to get out and she storms off.

At the Lesbian House of Pancakes, Stef tells Lena that Brandon is coming home. Lena, who hasn’t been brought up to speed on the whole witness tampering portion of the evening doesn’t understand why Brandon needed so much money in the first place. Stef’s thrilled that cops’ kids never get arrested but Brandon is going to get expelled for sure. While they wonder what happened to their son, Callie sits on the stairs probably blaming herself for Brandon’s epic breakdown of character. It’s not your fault, Callie.

Mariana stops by Zac’s house and encounters sunny, inappropriate Mrs. Rogers. She tells Zac that his mother needs help. Zac says his mom has early onset Alzheimer’s and if she goes into a home he will have to move in with his dad. He doesn’t want to do that because he’s smitten with Mariana.

Stef is waiting outside a halfway house for Ana. She tells Ana that if she wants the money she will meet Stef at a diner the following day. Stef makes sure Ana understands that if she takes the money they better not see each other again, ever. This seems like a sound decision since Ana has never before returned asking for more money.

Jude and Connor are playing video games when Jude gets a call. “It’s from a giiiiiiirl” Mariana says with a giggle. The girl invites Jude to a movie. He has to ask his moms because he’s adorable and perfect. Jesus and Mariana gossip about how nervous Jude seems. Jesus should help Jude, Mariana says. He laughs because he is currently single and getting the silent treatment from Emma. Mariana tells Jesus that he’s kind a dick now that he’s off his ADHD meds and while she knows he really wants to get off them she misses the guy who wasn’t such a douche. Back in the living room, Jude tells Connor that Maddie asked him to a movie. Connor wants to know if he’s going to go and if he likes Maddie and if they are getting married and have five kids like Stef and Lena. Jude says he doesn’t like Maddie that way so Connor asks if he can ask Maddie out. Jude says okay but looks about as okay as he would be if Connor just stole his puppy.

Brandon is packing up his half dozen Fred Rogers inspired sweaters when Mike walks in and tells Brandon that Stef said Brandon can sleep over one more night to work on his audition piece and get into some more trouble. Brandon apologizes to Mike and says he didn’t think. Mike says he’s never been so disappointed in him.

Lena is meeting with Timothy to get him to sign the donor agreement. He says, yeah well, here’s the thing I didn’t think about when I was promising to stay the hell out of your lives. I never really thought about not being able to hold the glorious hair model child you and I are going to create and I have always had sort of an icky thing for you so, yeah, take your contract and shove it. Absolutely no one saw this coming. This is brand new information.

Stef is taking this news really well. she’s slinging cold cuts and lettuce around the great lesbian kitchen and pointing out that (duh) Lena might already be pregnant. Lena says she stopped on her way home for one of those new fangled blood tests to tell you if you’re growing a baby or not. Stef asks for the results. Lena kindly points out that it will take twenty-four hours. “Twenty-four hours! Do you know how many times I can put my big old foot in my mouth in twenty-four hours?” Stef hollers. Yes, dear, I do. Stef starts immediately trying to set a new record and says let’s just hope that you aren’t growing Timmy junior in there. Lena finally asks Stef if maybe she doesn’t want to have a baby. Lena, you gorgeous unicorn with hair and a face that makes angels weep, every single person on the planet and the astronauts sitting on the space station know that Stef does not want this baby.

Brandon is practicing his piano (not a euphemism) and it’s not going well. He’s interrupted by Callie who has stopped by to ask Brandon if he’s really okay with her finally having a home after being in five foster homes, being raped by her foster brother, going to juvie (twice), getting beaten up, having to protect her little brother, living in a group home, and running away. She’s worried that she’s hurting him by joining this family and he, to his credit, says no.

Back at the Adams Foster home of passive aggressive relationships, Lena emerges from the bathroom and says “I got my period I bet you’re happy.” Stef does a dance to thank the goddess Menses. It involves fans made of tampons and a hat made from a sanitary napkin. It’s really quite something. Then she takes off the hat and tells Lena that their life together is upside down and backwards and she feels so overwhelmed at the prospect of adding a baby because she’s royally screwing up the teenage portion of the parenting skills test. Lena says but they are just making regular teenager mistakes. Stef says, well not so much, let me tell you a story about our eldest and his plans to bribe a witness. Stef says she’s not going to pay Ana, she’s going to wear a wire a record her trying to extort a police officer.

Brandon is hanging out at Mike’s covered in chips and empty beer bottles (who knows where he got them sans fake ID and living in the home of a couple of alcoholics). He’s loaded and Dani comes in and helps him to bed. She says to take off his pants and when he looks all forlorn about Callie because she’s going to be his sister. Dani says, girls don’t see what a kind, sensitive, handsome boy you are with rock hard abs and an ass that won’t quit. He leans in and they kiss and then they have sex. Dani has sex with a drunk sixteen-year-old, or what the world calls rape. There must be a pedophile portal between Rosewood and San Diego! ABC Family: Adults Boinking Children.

The next morning, Brandon wakes up to the alarm Dani set so he wouldn’t miss his big audition. Apparently, he missed a frantic call from his drunk father. Mike slurs a lot and tells Brandon he loves him. Remember last time Mike got bombed before one of Brandon’s auditions? Yeah he tanked that one. Brandon calls Dani to see if maybe she can help him track down his dad.

Maddie, who is cute as a button, walks up to Jude and asks if his moms said he could come to the movie. He tells her he can and Connor gets all bent out of shape. He thinks Jude is going out with her just because Connor likes her. Jude says to suck it because Maddie picked him. Connor retaliates with a “I guess I won’t be coming to your adoption since it’s for good friends and clearly that’s not what we are.” Oh man, adoption burn!

Brandon is sitting in a theater waiting for his turn to audition and hoping for news that his dad isn’t in a gutter somewhere. He gets called up for his turn and looks out over the audience. Stef shows up partway through the piece and, in a nice nod to the pilot, beams as she listens to him play.

Meanwhile, Jesus finds Emma and apologizes for being an aggressive maniac. He’s going back on his meds so will she date him now? Emma gives him a hard time for about half a second before snogging his face off in the middle of school.

Are you kidding me with that hashtag?

Brandon joins Vico outside of Sanchez’s office. They chat back and forth about how nothing either of them did was their fault. You don’t understand my pain, Vico says. I am rich and entitled and break the law at will and never feel the consequences. It’s truly hell to be me. Brandon is disgusted by Vico. How dare he ruin lives and get zero punishment! I know, dude that’s totally your role.

Jude is painting his nails blue and Lena comes and sits down with him. Jude ask Lena when she knew she was gay. Lena is so flabbergasted by the question she asks what he means. He explains that Maddie asked him out and then Connor said he was going to ask her out and he got jealous. But he says, he doesn’t think he’s jealous about Maddie. Let’s just pause right there for a second. He and Callie are fascinating counterpoints to each other. She is filled with all sorts of feelings but doesn’t tend to sit with them long enough to sort them out or find names for them while Jude, tiny unicorn, can reach into his heart and find the right name for how he is feeling. Callie, I would argue, has given him that gift. She bashes cars and will forever be the Katniss to his Prim. She will fight and fight to give him the space to feel.

Back to the scene. Lena smiles and tells him that it’s normal, well shit normal is a stupid word, it’s just well, damn it’s hard to talk sometimes. Lena stumbles a bit but tells him that being jealous is something everyone feels and it doesn’t mean he’s gay and it doesn’t mean he’s not. She tells him that they don’t care if he’s gay or not, they love him because he’s Jude.

Sometimes being a kid feels like being handed a stack of puzzle pieces and having to figure out how to put them together. Maybe you like sports or comic books. Maybe you really like to read and do wheelies on your bike. You take those pieces and you set them down and eventually you start to get a picture of yourself. For those of us who are gay, sometimes we got a piece we didn’t want. There was space to be a hockey player, and there was a space to play in the band, and there was a space to like books, but there was no space to feel like you wanted to die when your best friend went to that dance with that stupid boy.

They looked at the shape you were making and declared it wrong. They told you that you were supposed to like that boy in your chemistry class. They told you the shape you were supposed to make with all of those pieces of yourself. But you couldn’t do it. Every time you arranged them, every time you started to put them together you could see they weren’t going to make the right shape. So you pocketed a couple pieces here, and you broke the edge off a couple more, there. It didn’t feel like you any more but it fit.

Oh to live in a world where everyone has a Lena who gives them the freedom to be a teenager and to decide if you like art and sports and whether the guy you like is more Caleb than Toby or whether “he” actually looks more like Emily Fields. That world is coming. It’s coming one Lena and Jude scene at a time. It’s coming one conversation with my children at a time. That world is coming and it warms my heart that my children will never have to take pieces of themselves and stuff them deep in their pockets, or break them apart to try to be anything but who they are, or to try to love anyone but the person who sees every single piece and says “beautiful.”

Mariana is over at Zac’s house. He’s telling her that his mom was doing some ironing and he came out of his room and she didn’t know who he was. He tried to calm her down but she hit him across the face with the iron. Mariana convinces him that this is not a way to live and his mom needs help before someone else gets hurt. He picks up the phone and calls his dad.

Stef is waiting at a diner, a diner on the corner, she ordered a wire, the arrest is for you, Ana. But Ana never shows. Dani calls Brandon to say she found Mike and that he’s all right. Stef stops by the halfway house and no one has seen Ana. She left and never came back. Someone saw her screaming at some guy, though. Dani hangs up and helps Mike to wash blood off of his hands. Maybe he didn’t kill Ana, maybe this is a scene right out of Mystic River, but he did something.

It’s time for some kids to get adopted. Stef comes in and kisses Jude and Callie before having a quick chat with Lena. Brandon is not getting expelled but neither is Vico. It offends Lena’s sense of justice and she says “there’s something wrong with that kid.” Hold that thought. Stef says Ana never showed up to the diner. Stef asks if they are okay. Lena starts by agreeing with Stef that their life is crazy and they have a basketball team’s worth of kids in their house. But Lena’s pregnant. Spermothy did his job. (Well half of it. Sign the damn papers, you tool!) Stef’s face betrays a roller coaster of emotion before she finally says, “Well, I thought I would feel something else but dammit baby, we’re going to have a baby!” and kisses Lena. Welp, you might as well sign up for the monthly parking plan at the courthouse because you’re going to be spending all your free time fighting Timmy for custody.

Meanwhile Brandon hears that Mariana’s boyfriend is moving to Arizona. It sucks, he says. Mariana says well, he needs to be safe and Brandon is like “God! People we want to make out with need to be safe? Fine, but what about your needs?” Some people aren’t terrible, Brandon. Speaking of not terrible, Wyatt shows up with the kids from Girls United and Rita. Hugs all around!

The lawyer pulls the moms aside to have a chat which always bodes well. Lawyers love surprises. Connor appears and Jude apologizes for the Maddie debacle. Connor says it’s okay and maybe they can all go to a movie together some time. Polyamory for the teenage set, I love it. Stef pulls Callie and Jude away from the happy times to drop a bombshell. Callie’s original birth certificate has another man listed as her father. So, she can’t get adopted until they sort it all out. Jude starts crying and says he doesn’t want to be adopted without Callie. She grabs him by his little shoulders and tells him that she’s okay, and that he’s going to get adopted without her. Gale will look out for you, I promise, little Prim.

She heads outside for some fresh air and possibly a lift to Indiana with a beautiful hair model. Rita goes after her. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes you get rained out. The universe isn’t against you Callie, she says. You just have to wait around long enough for your luck to find you. So don’t run this time, Callie. They go back inside and watch Jude get adopted. They take pictures with the judge and then head back to the house for some grocery store sheet cake. Callie heads outside and everyone checks to be sure she’s not going to run away.

She’s playing the guitar when Brandon comes out and says he’s going to go get his stuff from Mike’s. She sounds good on that guitar though and maybe they can jam some time. She asks about the audition and he says he got the spot. This time he didn’t blow it off to help Callie get Jude, he stuck around and he got what he wanted. He leaves and Wyatt appears with his Pantene hair and wants to know if the botched adoption changes anything for Callie and Brandon. She says no and they kiss. She starts playing a song for him and we see Brandon get out of his car at Mike’s and get punched square in the face by Vico. He falls to the ground and gets the shit beat out of him. He reaches to pull himself up by putting his hand on the car and Vico slams the door on Brandon’s hand. What did Vico tell you? It only takes a minute for your life to change completely.

So, that’s if for season one of The Fosters. Thanks for hanging around and I will catch you back here in June.

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