The Fosters - Winter Premiere 2014 - Recap: Just One Bite

Recap and review of The Fosters - Winter Premiere 2014 - The Honeymoon:

First and foremost, I didn't realize just how much I missed The Fosters until that opening title sequence came on. Just such a wonderful summation of this show and its slice-of-life (with a dash of teen drama) charm. However, not everything in tonight's Winter Premiere clicked for me. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the majority of tonight's episode, but I feel the show's key strengths are in its examination of a new, modern family dynamic via the home life. The Fosters works best as a more grounded, quiet drama about the everyday life, the quotidian aspects of this particular family and the troubles they face. It doesn't really work as a soapy melodrama, but that's mostly what "The Honeymoon" ends up being. Mostly, I wasn't all that crazy about the "wandering Callie" plot, if only because it removes Callie from the rest of the cast, and I most enjoy Maia Mitchell in relation to how wonderfully she plays off of her castmates. But with that being said, even while I wasn't over-the-moon with this Winter Premiere, I still love the show, and this episode had a lot to like around the edges.

Credit: ABC Family

So the big story here is Callie (Maia Mitchell) going on the run with Wyatt (Alex Saxon), who is headed to Indiana to move in with his grandmother. Callie is still desperate to avoid returning to the Foster family, not only because of the awkwardness between herself and Brandon (David Lambert) -- after their big kiss in the Summer Finale -- but also because she doesn't want to ruin the good thing Jude (Hayden Byerly) has going for him with this family. And so Callie and Wyatt travel cross country, chat about UFOs and time travel, and Callie's reasons for running off. But it isn't until Callie chooses to get a late-night cuddle session with Wyatt at a motel off the interstate that the moppy-haired kid decides maybe this isn't the best idea. He calls Stef (Teri Polo) and Lena (Sherri Saum), who rush out to pick up Callie. But by then, it's too late, as Callie has run off. The rest of the episode, then, follows Callie as she attempts to find a way to make a life for herself, first applying for work at a diner, and then attempting to find a place to stay, until her despair causes her to make a decision almost as desperately boneheaded as choosing to run off in the first place. But we'll get to that in a bit.

The key point of interest in the episode is less about Callie and more about how her disappearance affects those in the Foster family. When the family first discovers she's run away, Stef wants to call law enforcement, but Lena insists this is a bad idea, since Callie would technically be in violation of her parole, and could be sent back to juvie or put back into the foster care system. So Stef takes the wait-and-see approach, which eventually pays off when Wyatt calls. But once they get there and discover that Callie has escaped again, Stef's anger and frustration boils to the surface.

Credit: ABC Family

The episode is a great showcase for Maia Mitchell, but I'd argue it's every bit as strong a reel for the unique talents of Teri Polo, who truly sells the notion that Callie is someone whom Stef has grown to love in a significant way. Whether she realized it or not, Stef sees Callie not just as a child, but as her child -- a child whose care and safety is her responsibility. So she lashes out at Lena for talking her out of calling the cops, and rants at her for always being wrong. It feels authentic, like a married couple that has truly fallen upon the hardships that often accompany such unions. "The Honeymoon" essentially brings the Adams Foster (no hyphenate!) honeymoon phase to an end, as the two women bicker with one another as a means of redirecting their fear and concern over Callie. It's wonderfully executed, and I almost wish we could have gotten more of it. But this episode has many masters to serve, and so we check back in at the Foster home to see how everyone else is holding up.

Mike (Danny Nucci) is charmingly befuddled as he attempts to run the house in Stef and Lena's absence, and this is one of the sole comedic bright spots of the episode, save for Annie Potts turning in a splendid performance as Stef's mother, one of the most charming recurring characters in the show's reserves. But other than these brief moments of levity, it's mostly an hour of guilt and self-blame. When Brandon first learns that Callie is gone, he assumes she ran off with Wyatt because she loves him. But when he learns that Callie ditched Wyatt and continued on her own, he realizes that the real reason she ran away was because of him. It's an utterly crushing realization for Brandon that's only offset by Jude's similarly guilt-ridden insistence that Callie ran away because he'd told her she was being selfish, and could potentially get them kicked out of the Foster house.

Credit: ABC Family

Brandon attempts to comfort Jude, and it's a beautiful little moment of two brothers bonding in a moment of mutual guilt, bringing their adversarial relationship at the start of the episode full-circle, as Jude initially harbored resentment over Brandon for kissing Callie in the first place (he even goes so far as to compare Brandon to the notorious Liam, an insult that Brandon doesn't take lightly). The dynamic of the Callie/Brandon romance, given their foster sibling relationship, is one of the more interesting on TV right now. Even when it feels cliche, or engages in certain narrative tricks of the soap opera trade, it doesn't really feel overwrought or inauthentic. And I appreciate that, particularly since it makes everything involving the two feel more consequential.

We also have the departure of Lexi (Bianca A. Santos) to address, as Mariana (Cierra Ramirez) learns from her teacher that Lexi will not be coming back from Honduras. This is understandably devastating news, and I'm pleasantly surprised the show didn't go the obvious route and have Lexi elect to live with the Fosters, or worse, have Jesus (Jake T. Austin) impulsively decide to marry her to grant her American citizenship. While it's sad to see Lexi go, this just feels like a more natural resolution to the story: sometimes people just move away. Jesus promising to wait for Lexi is heartbreakingly authentic, because young love is melodramatic that way, to the point where you could honestly believe you'd wait for another person for the rest of your life, until suddenly the wound of their loss scabs over and you start to heal. Maybe Lexi will come back for college, but she's right to tell Jesus not to wait for her, because it's the honest thing to do. I just loved the sweet simplicity of the Jesus/Lexi/Mariana story, even if it wasn't the strongest, from a pure plot perspective.

Credit: ABC Family

As for that pure plot moment referenced earlier, Callie inevitably becomes desperate, getting kicked off the city bus at the end of the line and ending up outside a liquor store where a sympathetic hooker tries to offer her a place to stay, seeing a similarity between Callie and herself at that age. But Callie just wants a phone to use, and right here I'll admit that I wasn't certain what, exactly, she was going to do. But I do know I was rooting for her to call home and end her wandering, which is what I feel the episode wanted us to root for. However, Callie ends up calling the prison where her delinquent father is being held, hoping to find out the visiting hours in order to go visit him. Hey, at least some sort of destination would give her a renewed sense of purpose, right?

Unfortunately, Callie ends up learning that her father was released from prison over a year ago, and since he's clearly made no attempt to come and find her and Jude, Callie comes to the realization that her father doesn't give one wit about her or her brother. Utterly despondent, Callie gives up and decides to steal food from the store, taking a sandwich and soda and eating them right in front of the store clerk, who orders her to stop. When she unwraps a candy bar, the clerk warns her that if she takes so much as a bite of that bar, he's going to call the cops. "Just one bite!" he warns, for the last time. Callie smirks and takes the bite, and just like that, the clerk is on the phone with law enforcement. And you know what? I buy it. I completely buy that Callie would be this desperate, this fed up, this "over it". Sure, it's a stupid thing for her to have done, but one could see how running away would make sense from her perspective. Kids make mistakes though, and only time will tell if this is something from which Callie can bounce back.

Credit: ABC Family

I do wonder how the show will find a way to reintegrate Callie into the Foster family, since she would now presumably become a warden of the state once again, meaning a lot of loopholes would be necessary to get things back to the status quo. But then, maybe the point isn't to go back to the status quo, but to create an entirely new normal for the series. Perhaps Callie ultimately won't be able to come back to the Fosters, but will find a way to remain in the area (I mean, she's one of the ostensible leads of the show, so she's clearly not going anywhere) while Jude gets adopted anyway, allowing for Callie and Brandon to pursue a relationship without the issue of being foster brother-and-sister hanging over their heads. Whatever backdoor the show finds to get out of this problem, I'll be with it all the way. I may not have loved "The Honeymoon", but I still have a ton of faith in The Fosters.