Archive

“The Fosters” Recap: S5:E1 ‘Resist’

In the aptly titled season premiere, we kick things off right where we left off at the end of season court, with the student body’s protest against the privatization of Anchor Beach. Disgruntled students are chanting “Education is a right, not just for the rich and white.” Two members of the line of protestors include Mariana and Jude, whose participation Lena has supported even though she works for the school.

Brandon searches for Jesus after he runs off in the wake of discovering his brother was the one who took Emma to get an abortion. After losing him at the student protests, Emma and Brandon begin to look for him by car while Lena tries to talk Mariana down from the protests before someone gets hurt.

On that note, school security decides to take matters into its own hands to break up the protest, and Stratus attempts to manhandle Mariana. In a move to protect his sister, Jude jumps in and gets maced in the face for intervening. The protest breaks up just as the violent tensions begin to boil over, and right on cue Monte informs Drew that she has changed her mind about resigning as Principal, making the vote in front of the board invalid. Fight on, Anchor Beach.

Over at the first class creep show motel, Diamond begins to set the stage to take down Russell while he sits in another room sweet taking Callie while she sings for him. It’s impossible not to cringe while he continues to call Callie ‘baby’ and forces Diamond to bring in her makeup to put on her.

Stef frantically follows the GPS on Callie’s phone to try and hunt her down, but she ends up in a convenience store where her daughter is nowhere to be found. The GPS picks up again for Stef to follow, but Diamond has snuck a phone to text her the location of the girls. Just as the message reaches Stef, she gets out of her car without the phone to confront the driver of the vehicle that has Callie’s phone.

Meanwhile back at the Foster home, Gabe struggles with the anger Jesus has raged against him after telling his moms he stopped taking his medications. Just as Gabe begins to ponder taking the job offer in Tahoe and leaving Jesus to his own devices, Jesus returns home on a rampage. Jesus takes a bat to Brandon’s room, destroying all of his belongings before Gabe intervenes.

After batting practice, Team Bio Parents have an intervention to discuss Jesus’s outburst and the status of Emma and Brandon’s relationship. Jesus talks himself through realizing that just because he had a dream that Emma and Brandon were romantically involved doesn’t mean it actually happened. Jesus continues to get a free pass as Emma kisses him goodbye, Bio Dad Gabe decides to stick around, and Lena lets Jesus off easy for the destruction of property.

While all of the Jesus drama is going down, Mariana and Ana take a moment to hash out the recent therapy session that was cut short by Mariana’s revelation that Ana has abandoned her babies overnight. Ana had initially reacted with fury and denial, but now admits that even though she doesn’t remember it, the incident probably did happen. At one point does Ana’s involvement in their life just become toxic instead of healing?

So for now all Jesus gets is the door gently closed in his face by Brandon, who has ended up drawing the short straw all around for meddling in their relationship. Don’t get me wrong, I love Jesus and am devastated over what all he has been through, but I can’t help but sympathize over everyone else in the house service as glorified cannon fodder.

Back at Motel Pimp, Russell attempts to seduce Callie until she tells him her real name and who her mother is, so Russell goes out to search the van for Callie’s cell phone. The shit hits the proverbial fan when Diamond pulls a gun on Russell, leaving Callie to coax her into not shooting and killing the man who is trying to prostitute her out. Gross, right? But she knows Diamond won’t be able to come back from taking another life.

Just as things escalate to gun violence, Stef finally gets Diamond’s text with their location and calls for backup, showing up at the motel just in time to save the day and capture Russell the creep. Finally, on the way home, Stef tells Callie that all of her self sacrifice was for not, because she’s likely off the hook after the true murderer confessed.

Now comes the most poignant and desperately needed confrontation in recent memory of The Fosters, as Stef gets real with Callie about her destructive behavior. The frustratedly helpless emotions on display in Stef’s expressions tell the whole story, as the pleads pragmatically with Callie to start caring about her own wellbeing.

Callie’s luck is going to run out eventually, and one of these days Stef won’t reach her in time to save her life. The Fosters is definitely sobering up with the start of season five, so here’s to hoping Callie can stay out of the world of prison and pimps for a few episodes. Here’s to hoping Stef doesn’t have to pick her up in a body bag next time.

The premiere episode of season five manages to balance each storyline that was left hanging in uncertainty at the end of the season finale, pushing the plots forward while setting the stage for an upcoming season that will hopefully focus on mending and healing the wounds that have severed some of the strong bonds between members of the Foster family. Freeform has begun to cement itself as a rebranding effort to inject more realism and edgy, contemporary content into its line-up of shows, and The Fosters has certainly set the tone for that.

Thoughts?

Lesbian Apparel and Accessories Gay All Day sweatshirt -- AE exclusive

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button