Good Trouble – Hangover Heebie Jeebies

By: Marnie Faith

Fighting the power always seems like such a good idea  once you’re half a bottle of tequila down. You’re convinced to give up your phone for the evening so to completely avoid your work obligations, it may even take you as far as going live on Instagram to have your fellow drunk friend call your boss an asshole. We’ve all been there – a few shots down and you feel like you’re capable of anything, especially fighting the rife misogyny at your workplace. Callie (Maia Mitchell) and Mariana (Cierra Ramirez) are no exception to this narrative. As much as they both may wish to avoid it, the Monday after their blow out party at the Coterie rolls around forcing them to face the repercussions of the mistakes they endured whilst heavily under the influence.

Whilst Mariana finds herself reveling in the embarrassment over leaving what must have been at least twenty five voicemails to Alex (Dustin Ingram) apologizing for Davia calling him an ass, Callie is left to fret over Rebecca picking up her slack and writing the case memo for the Jamal Thompson case. Although, it’s questionable how much time she spent worrying compared to time spent having sex with Gael. Though the episode only briefly shows the pair together the night following the party, my guess is that the latter took a greater priority over the former.

Mariana arrives at the Spekulate office to be greeted by an overly charming Alex. This, in itself, should have been a big red flag. He acts as though he never got her multiple voicemails, instead purposely mispronouncing her name and carrying on being infuriatingly over-polite. Mariana takes this as a sign that nothing was going to be said about her weekend endeavors. This peace of mind is rudely interrupted by a visit from their supervisor, who praises Alex for his new idea – the same idea that Mariana reeled off in voicemail #15. When confronted about stealing her ideas though, Alex denies doing such a thing and acts as if he doesn’t know what she’s talking about. 

As if her situation couldn’t get much worse, Mariana is then greeted by the sight of her colleagues playing with VR headsets as opposed to working. It is this that makes her snap – she heads home and does something very un-Mariana like. She pops open a bottle of Champagne and decides to celebrate the fact that she has to do fairly little to still take home a big pay check as opposed to dwelling on how surrounded by misogyny she is. It’s during this scene that Davia (Emma Hunton) gives her some advice; she tells her to work to her full potential, believing that as long as Alex looks good, she’ll only be impressing him. Though given with good intentions, this advice is arguably the worst thing Davia could have told a very driven Mariana. She takes this advice and goes on to complete their build in a much shorter time than their team ever has. When Alex learns of this he’s furious, raging that they’ll now be expected to work to that speed every time (because God forbid they’re forced to actually do some work once in a while).

Quickly snapping back into the fierce Adams Foster we know and love, her encounter with Raj (Dhruv Uday Singh) following Alex’s flip out sees Mariana telling him that “being a nice guy behind Alex’s back doesn’t make you a hero.” She drives home a good point; Raj can’t expect brownie points on the basis of being the only guy in the team who acknowledges her as a real human. He’s more than happy to standby and witness Alex continually pass Mariana off as their team subordinate opposed to their equal, thus meaning he isn’t actually doing anything progressive to help end their current workplace misogyny. Mariana then has a run in with the boss of Spekulate. She bumps into him in the hall, resulting in his white shirt now being coffee stained and his phone screen cracked. The whole encounter is awkward, a little tense, but also weirdly cute. Though neither of them are who I’d ever envision Mariana ending up with, I could see it being good for her – she has always loved a challenge after all.

Callie faces a completely different set of repercussions. Following her missed attendance at the office on Saturday night, Rebecca (Molly McCook) took it upon herself to write the bench memo. Come Monday morning she lies to Judge Wilson (Roger Bart), assuring him that all three of them had input into it. Callie, like Mariana, is granted temporary relief. That is until Judge Wilson becomes suspicious, noting the stance of the memo is too conservative to have had any involvement from Callie. He offers her a second chance – informing her she has a day to write one from her point of view. This is exactly what Callie was afraid of – having been informed that she is nothing more than a prop to enable Judge Wilson to tear down the liberal argument, she’s reluctant to write from her perspective.

Surprisingly, it turns out okay – after a drink with fellow lawyer friend and a face The Fosters fans will recognize as Brandon’s (David Lambert) wife’s older brother, Jamie (Beau Mirchoff). He assures her to write the argument how she’d wish to present it. For once, advice from a man turns out well for Callie. Judge Wilson is impressed with her perspective and when told about Callie’s worries he immediately laughs them off. He reminds her that as his position as a highly experienced Judge, he’s already well aware of the counter argument. He also goes on to assure Callie that he simply enjoys sparring with new clerks and help them gain experience in writing sound arguments. Who knew a highly Conservative judge could demonstrate such empathy?

Judge Wilson even goes one step further in proving his ability as an empathetic human when the court case rolls around. Despite denying the injunction against destroying the 911 calls, he also denies the motion of dismissing the case. This means Jamal’s mother Sandra (Nicki Micheaux) will finally get her trial and, hopefully, justice for her son. Good Trouble makes a point of highlighting how scarce these sort of outcomes are for families in the same position as Jamal Thompson. When discussing it with Malika (Zuri Adele), Callie notes that people were keen to show up when it first happened, but five years have passed since then and with the increasing number of cases similar to Jamal’s it’s rare if such cases get to court, let alone have people remember them.

Staying true to form, Callie and Mariana aren’t the only ones whose narratives see a good amount of development this episode. The beginning of the episode sees Gael (Tommy Martinez) telling Callie how he plans to get some of his artwork bronzed for an upcoming showcase. This plan quickly falls through following meeting with his sister, Jazmin (Hallie Sahar). She explains how she’s having issues with her job due her being transgender because “apparently the T is optional when you’re LGB.” Following the recent passing of Trump’s bill denying transgender individuals to serve in the military, comments such as Jazmin’s highlighting the implications of transphobia show once again why Good Trouble is always on the ball with addressing prevalent societal issues. As a result of this inequality in Jazmin’s workplace, she finds herself short on rent. This is where Gael comes in. He offers her the eighteen hundred dollars she needs to cover the  payment, leaving his plans to have his art bronzed at the bottom of his to-do list. It’s evidently infuriating for Gael, as he is later shown to smash his near finished pieces. Though viewers are left feeling sorry for him, it’s refreshing to be able to learn more about him than just being Callie’s latest object of affection as he clearly has a lot of history to offer and it’ll be interesting to see how much the writers allow him to open up.

We’re also offered a greater glimpse into Malika’s past this episode, too. Aside from her evident involvement in the Jamal Thompson case, viewers are invited to learn more about her strained familial relationships. Last week saw her brother come to visit the party to inform her that their mother was ill. Upon her reluctance to see her, his resentment for Malika began to shine through. It’s evident that he still begrudges her for calling Child Protective Services on their mother, resulting in them being separated. In a flashback scene in which we see the pair being placed into separate cars, viewers start to understand why. A Child Protection Officer told Malika the reason they were being split up was in her best interest, due to the fact ‘no one wants black boys’ in reference to potential foster families. Though the system was never bound to be easy on either of them, it clearly was always set to fail her brother more than her.

Through opening up another perspective of Malika’s past, as well as the fleeting conversation between her and Callie in which Callie reveals that she’s also been in juvenile detention centers before, the similarities between the pair become clearer. They’ve both experienced the foster care system, both have had experiences with the prison system and run ins with the laws and both care greatly about changing the justice system. In short, the show seems to be plotting the foundations of an incredible friendship between the pair. Though both in agreement not to interact until the trial is over, I’m thoroughly hoping that they bond once it’s over, as I believe they’ll serve as excellent support systems for each other.

The final scene following the trial reminds us that good things can’t last forever. Following the trial, Ben (Ken Kirby) notices an apparent relationship between Callie and Malika. This isn’t helped by the fact Malika spent the duration of the trial seated next to Sandra Thompson. He mentions his suspicions to Rebecca and just like that, Callie gains yet another target on her back. I’m anticipating this ending badly for both her and Malika, but here’s hoping both Ben and Rebecca learn to keep themselves to themselves for once.