The Fosters - Recap: A Matter of Trust
Recap and review of The Fosters - Episode 17 - Kids in the Hall:
One of the things The Fosters does so well is focus on how action shapes reputation. "Kids in the Hall" illustrates the extent to which reputation precedes certain characters, based on prior actions and expectations of who that person is inside. However, the episode also displays the ways in which our reputations don't always align with who we are, or who we think we are, or even what we do. It's far from my favorite episode of the season, much less since the winter premiere, but it's still a worthwhile hour for how each character begins to take stock of the consequences of his or her actions. Granted, not everyone is as aware of the error of their ways as, say, Mariana (Cierra Ramirez) or Jesus (Jake T. Austin), but there's a lot of self-reflection going on here. And self-reflection often leads to characters growing, which, in turn, changes the character's relationships with those around them in interesting ways. In short, "Kids in the Hall" is worthwhile more for what it portends for the future of the series than for anything that actually happens here, as this was a pretty encouraging hour of TV as far as setting us up for an interesting endgame is concerned.
Credit: ABC Family
I don't think there's really one main plotline for this week, as the wealth is generally spread out across the ensemble. Brandon (David Lambert) is still working on getting his fake ID business with Vico off the ground, which I suppose is problematic enough from a narrative perspective, but sensible from a character standpoint: Brandon is painfully desperate to make back the money he used to pay off Ana, and so he's breaking his own moral code and violating the truth of his family to do so. Hell, he even samples the goods, allowing Vico to make him a fake ID so they can get into a bar. It's there that Brandon comes face-to-face with Dani (Marla Sokoloff), his father's recently-sober new girlfriend who has apparently fallen off the wagon, if she was ever on it to begin with. Meanwhile, Stef (Teri Polo) and Lena (Sherri Saum) are discussing how they will move forward with conception, and Lena decides that it would be best to avoid using an anonymous donor and instead take the genetic sample from someone they know, someone warm, kind, and intelligent -- someone like Timothy (Jay Ali), the school's literature teacher. Yet Lena doesn't actually express this desire to Stef, and it ultimately leads to an incredibly awkward dinner party with Stef, Lena, Timothy, Brandon, Dani, and Mike (Danny Nucci) all in the same room, trading passive-aggressive barbs with one another.
The dinner scene is a wonderfully uncomfortable bit of staging, as Brandon beats around the bush about seeing Dani at the bar, while Stef also pokes around at Dani's suitability as a role model for her son. Mike, meanwhile, is trying to defend Dani to the rest of the table, while Lena attempts to sell Timothy to Stef. It's great stuff, and has all the quality of a one-act play, as the table eventually clears, leaving Brandon and Dani to talk through their concerns. Brandon worries about his father's sobriety being jeopardized, but Dani basically echoes Mike's earlier statement to his son, namely that his sobriety doesn't depend on another person's actions. Dani, however, largely seems like a decent person, so I don't think we necessarily have cause to dislike her beyond the likelihood that she's been lying to Mike for longer than he knows. But the show illustrates that everyone lies: not only is Brandon keeping a secret from his family, Lena was also keeping the Timothy option from Stef, as she wanted Stef to get to know Timothy before broaching the subject. It all leads to a bunch of hurt feelings and arguments, even though Timothy eventually affirms that he'd be willing to donate his sperm to Lena. These are all weighted arguments that are made every bit more burdensome by the lies of omission that separate all these loved ones from one another.
Credit: ABC Family
Take Brandon, for instance. His reputation as a straight-arrow is what prompts Callie (Maia Mitchell) to believe him when he says he wasn't in school on the night a bunch of Kindles went missing from Lena's office. And so Callie believes that it was Daphne (Daffany McGaray Clark), one of her friends from the Girls United group home, that committed the theft. This all stems from a photoshoot Callie was holding after hours at the school, in which she'd take professional photos with the hopes that the pics would help each kid find a new foster home, given the success Callie's photos have had in helping Kiara (Cherinda Kincherlow) find placement. It's an encouraging use of Callie's time as a character, since this was a subplot that allowed her to have agency beyond simply being a victim of the system, or of her own self-destructive impulses, or even of her identity as "Object of Brandon's affections". She's given power to change lives in a storyline that doesn't treat her like a child, and it has the added benefit of further illustrating her rapport with Jude (Hayden Byerly).
But things inevitably get more serious once Callie gives Daphne the master set of keys so she can use the bathroom, which makes her the prime suspect when the computers go missing. Daphne angrily denies Callie's accusations the next day, saying she should ask Brandon about it, since she saw him wandering the halls. But Brandon denies the sighting immediately, continuing in his "dishonest for the greater good" ways (an ideology that isn't entirely unfamiliar to the young, or to the self-righteous. Brandon is fundamentally a good kid, but misdirected). Yet, when Callie reviews security footage from Lena's office and enhances the image of the window, she realizes Daphne was right: Brandon's car is in the background, meaning he likely drove the getaway car if he didn't steal the computers himself. For his part, Brandon tries to convince Vico to return the stolen goods, but when you're the bottom guy on a criminal enterprise, you're not really going to have much luck convincing the more hardened criminal to go soft. It's a storyline that's necessary not because it will drive a wedge between Brandon and Callie, but because it will force Callie to reevaluate her own judgments of the people in her life. It has the potential to be a tragic side effect, as Callie losing faith in Brandon's inherent goodness could lead to the loss of her renewed sense of trust, but it also has the potential to make for some great TV over the coming weeks.
Credit: ABC Family
The other two stories of the week are interesting on their own, but together, speak to the theme of reputation. Mariana is being harassed at school by Chase (Garrett Clayton) and his buddies: they laugh at her in the hallways, mockingly strut past her at lunch with panties stuffed in their back pockets, and they even go as far as to stuff her locker with granny panties. Mariana knows her reputation is suffering, and she even has a heart-to-heart with her parents about the situation, yet it isn't until she actually wins back the friendship of Zac (Julian de la Celle), who trashes Chase's performance in the play in the school newspaper, that she starts to feel as if her reputation might actually be on the mend. She understands that she made a mistake, and takes measures to correct her folly by apologizing and by trying to rise above the damage that's been done to her good name, and it makes Mariana exponentially more admirable. More than any other character on this show, I feel like Mariana has grown the most. Of course, Jesus has grown a bit too. Although Emma (Amanda Leighton) is annoyed that Jesus holds back in their wrestling match because she's a girl, she still can't contain her feelings for him -- nor can he contain his feelings for her. He's upset to have to come to say so, but he's come to the realization that he has to end things with Lexi, since neither of them want to be cheaters. It's mature in a way some might not expect from a teen storyline, since the usual inclination with stories of young, doomed love (like Jesus and Lexi) is to cling even tighter to that relationship when the odds are stacked the highest against it. Yet Jesus recognizes that it just can't work, since Lexi is in Honduras with no immediate possibility for return. It's basically unfair to everyone for them to remain tethered to one another. Even if I didn't like the Jesus and Emma pairing, I would still love the decision Jesus makes.
Credit: ABC Family
"Kids in the Hall" is an incisive hour of TV that does a lot to illustrate the effect of reputation, and how trust can be lost every bit as easily as it was difficult to earn. The Fosters still has a ways to go before we reach the end of the season, but I'm fully expecting that the incidents of this week will have reverberations for weeks to come. Hell, it wouldn't be The Fosters if they didn't.
Side note: The episode used one of my favorite songs for the scene in which Callie confronts Brandon about the computers, so I've embedded it below, just because I'd love to not be the only person who loves Radical Face. Thanks for reading this week's review! Enjoy: