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“The Fosters” recap (3.14): You Are My Home

Previously on The Fosters, AJ and Ty ran away, but Stef tracked them down because she can’t do a damn thing about the ticking time bomb, cancer gene he has but she can sure as hell bust some people. Sharon decided to stick around while Stef has surgery. Callie got catfished by Jack, Brandon flirted with the cute bartender, Mariana got the role of Juliet in Mat and Brandon’s rock opera, and Jesus decided to stalk his birth dad.

Callie bounces up to the guard at juvie and asked to see AJ. Sorry Larry, Piper doesn’t want to see you.

I can’t believe he’s mansplaining boobs to lesbians.

Stef and Lena have an appointment with the surgeon to talk about how he is going to remove her breasts so they don’t kill her. Stef isn’t paying attention as he drones on about her nipples. I imagine this is how she got through the years she was married to Mike. She’s imagining diving into a pool. Naked. I’ll pause for a second for you all to take that in.

Okay, back with me? Stef and Lena get home, and Sharon wants to know everything. How did it go? When is the surgery? Is she getting bigger boobs after? Slow your roll, Sharon. Lena suggests that maybe it’s time to tell the kids. The biggest joke is the idea that anyone can keep any secrets in this house. Stef wants to wait until they know when the surgery is happening because the kids haven’t quite reached peak panic yet.

Lachlan told me he deleted this!

Mariana stomps into the kitchen and asks if Lena is screwing Monte. It was one kiss! Well, one kiss and some emotional cheating! But it was certainly nothing like this.

Mariana promises a counter campaign on Twitter to drown out the retweets. She comes up a terrible hashtag (which makes me think she was the one behind the ABC Family hashtag generator). Stef wants to ignore it all because she has CANCER for fuck’s sake but, of course, Lena’s phone starts ringing. Not now, Monte! Callie tells Stef off for ruining her friendship with AJ. It’s turning into a banner day at the Adams Foster house.

Jesus is playing a game of 20 questions with Gabriel. Did you grow up around here? Did you maybe ever have a couple of kids, twins perhaps? Good lord, Jesus. If it’s possible to be less smooth, Brandon is across town ordering a Shirley Temple to quench his thirst after a hard day of playing piano.

Justina is showing Callie the new site design for Fost and Found. ICallie isn’t happy that people’s comments keep getting deleted and Justina explains it’s for their own good. This is the internet -people are mean. Just like that person who made that obviously false allegation about Callie banging her foster brother. Awkward. Anyway, it turns out the person catfishing Callie is Jude. Pardon me while I laugh forever. Judicorns don’t catfish.

What the hell are notions?

Callie marches right up to Jude’s room and confronts Jack about catfishing her. He didn’t mean to; he was going to tell her, please don’t tell Jude. When Jude get there, he notices that Jack is bleeding. Callie switches from pissed off at Jack to protector mode. Jude wants to go to Stef about it, but Callie tells him that Stef will just get Jack sent to juvie like AJ.

When two women love each other very much, they hold hands in a very special way.

Stef has herded her entire brood out the front door and settles in next to Sharon for a relaxing day of making her own funeral arrangements, updating her will, and picking out caskets. You’re not dying, Stefanie. Stef wants Sharon to have the job of pulling the plug if it should come to that. Could this be a symptom of marital woes? Is it possible that Lena is shtupping the principal? Stef reminds her that it was that goddamn bed Sharon gave them that killed their sex life. Just make sure you have sex before the surgery, Stef. God help me if I ever have this conversation with my mother. Sharon may enjoy being outrageous, but she knows Stef’s tendency to shove everyone far away when she’s scared. Cancer and having major surgery are terrifying enough without pushing Lena away.

Twenty pounds of brown sugar

Callie still can’t get in to see AJ, but there are other super important things happening in the Anchor Beach hallways. Nick want Jesus to tell his birth father who he is, Mariana wants these two morons to leave her alone, and Sally wants Mariana to be the chair of the honor board. Mat and Mariana are rehearsing everything but their kiss. Zoey would like to practice kissing with Mat and Brandon isn’t going to do a damn thing to stop them no matter how much Mariana wants him to ban intra-squad dating (she didn’t have such objections last season when she was slipping her undies in that dude’s pocket during play rehearsal).

Jude invited Jack to come over to play but surprise! Justina is there to help make everything better. This time, she is going to get him into a placement where he doesn’t get the hell beat out of him. Callie wants to know what she means by “this time.” Oh, it’s just a figure of speech, I didn’t have anything to do with getting Jack into that hell hole.

Lena and Monte are discussing what to do about the fact that the whole school thinks they’re doing it. Monte and Stef agree that they should just ignore it until it goes away. Lena breaks down and tells Monte that Stef has to have surgery, and she’s going to need at least a week off to be with her. I hereby submit a petition for Lena to get some friends of her own. While Lena is crying, Stef walks up to the window and sees her wife talking with Monte. Seriously Lena, any friend at all. Call up one of the seventy-five plumbers who worked on your bathroom.

Nick and Jesus are doing donuts in Nick’s car until a security guard busts them. Brandon helps Cortney do inventory at the bar. Am I the only one who can never tell what day of the week it is? What is Brandon doing at the bar on a school day? Anyway, Brandon charms Cortney by singing her a ditty. Charmed or not she’s not up for kissing him.

Jesus is late to the work site and then has to pretend he’s a senior because he already told them he’s 18. Gabriel gives him his old tool belt because he’s sick of Jesus dropping tools all over the place. Jesus looks like his pops just handed him the perfect present on Christmas morning. Back at Ocean Front Academy, Nick sweet talks Mariana into going on a date with him.

I can shape them like vulvas if you would prefer.

When Lena walks into the kitchen, Sharon says “Don’t worry, we’ll make all the decisions together.” Lena has no clue what she’s talking about but figures it out when Sharon mentions the power of attorney. Lena leaves Sharon to roll her balls. Upstairs, Stef is lying down. She’s tired. She’s not sleeping well. Lena knows it’s more than that, but she doesn’t push Stef to talk.

Nothing’s wrong, just practicing how I’ll look in the casket.

Jesus asks Mariana to go easy on Nick at the honor board meeting. Mariana quirks an eyebrow while contemplating just how real Nick’s date offer was. Oh, buddy, you fucked with the wrong Adams Foster.

Callie wants the keys to the car. Brandon stomps around and says he needs it. Callie doesn’t give a shit any more. He needs to move the hell on instead of processing his star-crossed lovers feelings by doing Romeo and Juliet for his senior project. Callie is a damn hero.

Nick has a speech for the honor board. Too bad it’s the same speech he gave Mariana yesterday. He gets off with a warning, but Mariana makes sure he has to clean the tire marks off the parking lot. Don’t mess with Mariana, people.

Jesus admits to Gabriel that he’s his biological son. Gabriel starts to freak out. He tells Jesus to leave; he isn’t legally allowed to be near Jesus.

Jack shows up to his meeting with Callie, Jude, and Justina with a cast on one arm. The kids in the home broke his arm but it’s okay because now he’s got the power; he has leverage there, and he will be safe. He won’t give up the little bit of control he has to move to another house.

Nick is scrubbing the asphalt when Mariana saunters by to inspect his work. He makes a gross joke about her needing the knee pads for their date. Mariana, please leave this dope behind. I wish Emma were here to kick this loser’s butt.

I’m an ass lady, Stef. You know that.

Stef is getting her affairs in order at the dining room table. They need to worry about the kids and Brandon’s hand money and who will take all of them in if the moms die. Lena sits down. She knows Stef stopped by but didn’t come in to talk. She knows Stef wants Sharon to have her power of attorney; she just doesn’t know why. First, Stef says she wants to spare Lena from having to be the one to pull the plug. Lena knows her wife well enough to call bullshit.

What if Lena doesn’t love her anymore when she doesn’t have any boobs? What if her scars make her so ugly that Lena can’t stand to be with her? She can’t compete with Monte with tattooed on nipples and fake boobs. Oh, Stef. It’s not your boobs; it’s your heart and your laugh and your stupid, stubborn courage.

I fell in love with my wife when I was 19. I considered it one of life’s great mysteries why she fell in love with me. I am surly and difficult. I can be moody and grumpy. I snap and snarl. I may never understand what miracle of fate convinced her to fall in love with me. Somehow she has stayed in love with me over the past 17 years.

Trying to calculate why she loves me is the most maddening thing to do. I can add things to each side of the balance. On one side, I am grumpy and growly. On the other, I am funny, and I do the laundry.

The thing is, love isn’t math. You can’t count up all the things about my wife that I love and see where they outweigh the things I don’t (which mainly consists of her leaving her coffee cup on the counter). I don’t look like I did when I was nineteen. I’m not as muscly. I have wrinkles, scars, and stretch marks. I don’t look like I did when we got married almost ten years ago. But neither does our life. We each got pregnant and gave birth to a daughter. We have a puppy and a house. Nothing is the same as it was when we said “I do.” If love were math could we make all of those things still add up to the same love we felt then? I doubt it.

But love isn’t math.

Do you have a favorite book? Is there a book you can’t stop reading? The pages yellow and the spine cracks. The pages split at the top because you’re the kind of person who never has a bookmark on hand, so you dog ear the pages. Do you love that story less when the cover falls off? Did it stop making you cry and feel warm inside because the binding won’t hold all the pages anymore? No. You still find new reason to love the story. The character you liked best 20 years ago isn’t your favorite anymore because you understand the other characters better. You know them in your heart, you feel with them, you ride along beside them on their adventures regardless of how many times you have read that scene with the sword fight. You always worry the main character won’t survive. But now when you cry because she does it’s not for her life but for her children who won’t lose their mother.

It doesn’t matter if the spine breaks or the pages tear. You don’t care because that story lives in you. It filled a space you didn’t know was empty, and nothing can change that. No passing of year or covers torn off through carelessness can wrest it from its place. That’s what love is for me. It’s my wife filling a space I didn’t understand was achingly empty until I heard her laugh and say my name. Every time I go back, there’s only more for me to discover, more for me to love. So no, love isn’t math. It’s more complicated than that.

“Take me swimming,” Stef says. Do this thing for me.

Brandon trots up to the bar after rehearsal and meets Cortney. He gives her a whole speech about how maybe they are meant to be. Then he sees the car seat in her backseat. Cortney has a two-year-old. Whoa boy.

Callie is back at juvie for the nine hundredth time, but she changed tactics. If Piper won’t see her, maybe Vause will. She goes in and asks Ty to tell AJ it’s okay for him to talk to her and to Mike. He needs a foster family until Ty gets out and she wants Ty to encourage AJ to let them be there for AJ.

Mariana thinks Jesus is an idiot for stalking Gabriel like that. They try to think of why he would not be able to see Jesus but before they can come up with anything Stef calls all the kids down to the living room. It’s finally time to tell them what’s going on.

I checked. You cannot get cancer just by having kids who make dumbass decisions.

The kids have a few questions. Is Stef going to be okay? How can they help? Do your chores and stay close. She doesn’t ask them to do too much. She asks just the right amount. God, they are a tornado spinning out of control half the time but when they stop and pull together for a group hug they are something special.

Everyone deals with bad news in their own way. Mariana and Callie are doing research about breast cancer and mastectomies and generally racking up points for Ravenclaw. Brandon is staring at pictures of his mom. Jesus is just staring. And Stef and Lena… well, Stef and Lena are trespassing and going skinny dipping.

The moms go swimming. They strip out of their clothes and jump in to wash away all the bullshit that has been floating around in their relationship since… well, about the time they got married. In terms of symbolism, there’s not much more powerful than the symbolism of water as baptism, as a starting over point. And then they go to bed. Sharon told Stef to have sex with her wife, and it was awkward and funny and made me thankful never to have conversations like that with my mom. But she wasn’t wrong. Thank goodness for a show telling these stories and for a show with two actresses playing these moms who are so good. This story works because the writing is in the hands of these two actresses. I’ve never seen anything more real on my television.

Mariana didn’t stop her research with breast cancer, she went full-on and found out their birth father is a sex offender.

Here are a few of our favorite #GaydyBunch tweets from last night’s episode.

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