Good Trouble – In The Middle

By: Marnie Faith

Following up from the closing of last week’s episode, in which we see Jamie (Beau Mirchoff) seriously offering Callie (Maia Mitchell) to move in with him, the subject once again comes up only this time they’re on dry land opposed to in the middle of the Coterie’s pool. Jamie pushes for an answer on Callie’s reluctance to move in, to which she finally admits she feels like it’s too soon. She goes on to explain that the Coterie will be her last chance of properly living with Mariana (Cierra Ramirez) and isn’t in a hurry to give that up. Not to mention the fact that she values how much the Coterie has come to feel like home for her. Despite Jamie’s questioning on whether she’s even close to the rest of the girls at the Coterie, she explains how she’s definitely close with Malika (Zuri Adele) and is kinda close to the likes of Davia (Emma Hunton) and Alice (Sherry Cola). Regardless, it’s enough to make her want to stay in hers and Mariana’s loft for as long as possible – evidently not in a hurry to give up the familiar, family focused environment. 

That feeling of home may not be destined to last forever however. Following a run in with Davia at the beginning of the episode regarding her pink mug, Callie goes on to discover a group chat entitled “Coterie Biatches” dedicating their evening to poking fun at Callie and her need to claim ownership of her crockery, despite being in a communal living space. Davia sends a photo of herself with the mug that caused the entire uproar, in which she’s edited the words “Elsa’s Chalice” onto them. Mariana continues their roast of Callie by admitting she irons her bedsheets, which sparks a laugh from all of them. It’s enough to leave Callie feeling belittled, as she discovers those she considers family (including Mariana) taking time to poke fun at her for wanting her own things.

Outside of the Coterie things seem to be on the up for Callie. She voices the want to do more in her work; she wishes to take on more responsibility and be more than just a researcher. Despite Marcus (Juan Antonio) being reluctant to give her such freedom, boss of the office Teresa (Lisandra Tena) allows her to being meeting with intake clients. Callie thrives with the new found responsibility – even goes as far as finding a new major case for the office to take on in order to help stop the gentrification of a typically black, low income neighborhood. Although her discovery looks as though it may cause a clash of heads between Marcus and Teresa, it’s a step in the right direction for Callie in terms of exceeding whilst waiting to take the bar exam again.

For the other Adams Foster sister, life isn’t as simple. The beginning of the episode sees Mariana called into Evan’s (TJ Linnard) office to be appointed head of a new app development. He tells her that the app is going to be activism based and will help bring positive PR to the company. It all seems like a great idea until he gives her a deadline of ten days to get the entire project completed. Unable to say no to Evan, Mariana reluctantly agrees to take it on. Becoming so consumed in the project leaves her forgetting about the Women in Tech mixer, resulting in her being fashionably late. 

Whilst telling the Byte Club girls of how stressed the project is making her, she finally comes face to face with infamous Amanda (Allison Paige). Amanda’s name has been dropped a few times throughout the series; however, until now she was always just the girl who was fired from Speckulate but everyone appeared to have a different reason why. She interjects into Mariana’s thought process of saying no to Evan to remind her that that is pretty much impossible. As she heads off to get another drink, Mariana follows her to find out more about why she was actually fired. Whilst waiting to be served Mariana inquires as to why she left the company. Amanda tells her that Evan let her go as a result of her inability to manage the ridiculous work load he would constantly put on her. She recalls that he would become invested in her ideas, pile the deadlines onto her and then eventually let her go when she was no longer able to balance it all. This leaves Mariana terrified that she’s about to follow the same fate, thus she enlists the help of Gael (Tommy Martinez) when Evan demands an in-chat feature to be functioning in the app by the following evening. 

Gael is also finding himself surrounded by deadlines as he is picked up to commission a new art piece for an established business headquarters prior to Mariana’s plea for help. He takes on the commission and promises to get them sketches in 24 hours. Elijah (Denim Richards) is quick to remind him not to think of the money at the end of it, but the exposure it’ll bring him. It’s because of this that Gael goes to meet the buyers in person, opposed to sending them his designs over email. Elijah reminds him that to make it in the industry, he has to sell himself, not just his art. Gael is quick to remind him that in order to make it, Elijah mustn’t copy others work, and jibes at still waiting to receive a note of inspiration in his college thesis. For Elijah, it appears that Gael’s words didn’t seem to stick with him. When he sets down to work on a new fashion design, he can be seen taking images of Gael’s previous work and layering them onto his designs. Though we already know that this isn’t the first instance in which he’s stolen inspiration off Gael, it looks like things could be about to get rocky for the pair when this comes to light.

That isn’t the only issue Gael has to contend with as far as his work is concerned. It’s no secret to viewers that Jamie bought a piece off him in a previous exhibition under the name “Anonymous;” however, Callie’s worked extremely hard to ensure that fact stays a secret to everyone else. She says it’s a result of not wishing to knock Gael’s confidence, but it’s evident that she’s scared he’ll think Jamie had ulterior motives to buying it. Up until this week her plan of keeping it all a secret was working great. That is until Mariana sends Gael to Jamie’s apartment to retrieve a pen drive and he discovers the piece sat in Jamie’s closet. He presumably goes to confront Callie about it, but it appears we’ll have to wait for next week to see how that goes. 

For Mariana everything finally comes to a crashing halt when Evan asks for dating advice in the middle of her work day focused on getting the app finished. It’s not a one off thing. We see multiple instances of Evan pulling her aside to get help on how to respond to various girls on the dating app he recently joined. This time though she can’t seem to hold her tongue. She tells him that she’s learning to say no to him to ensure she doesn’t end up like Amanda. This clearly strikes a chord with Evan, as all he can offer in response is that not everyone knows the full story with Amanda.

Elsewhere, Davia finally breaks it to Jeff (Chris Sheffield) that she’s no longer in love with him. It goes as well as anyone could imagine. He’s understandably hurt, but he then goes on to try and blame him losing his marriage, family, home, dog and friendship group on her. Thankfully, Davia is strong enough in herself to not take it and reminds him that regardless of their affair he wasn’t happy in his former marriage and needed to get out of it. She goes on to offer him the assurance that he deserves someone who’ll make him happy and fulfilled, but unfortunately that won’t be her. Her love life drama doesn’t stop there. After thanking Alice for removing Dennis’ mini fridge in a bid to get him to leave his room, Alice jokes about the pair being in love. This is enough to send Davia into hysterics as she admits that she is in love with Dennis, but doesn’t want to tell him in fear of losing their friendship. She fears that he won’t feel the same due to the fact he only ever dates stereo-typically skinny, pretty women. Alice tries to offer a helping hand by confronting him directly. Nothing says blunt quite like having Alice clad in her pajamas throwing the, “Do you have feelings for Davia?” question right at you as you’re brushing your teeth. Regardless, Dennis fails to provide a conclusive answer, so it’s left to Davia to find out for herself. The episode closes with her going to Dennis’ loft, intent on telling him everything and finding out if he feels the same. We don’t see much past the pair sat on his bed, but the smiles on their faces suggest that this may actually go well. 

For Malika, she finally manages to land her dream role at a progressive company that care about making fashion for people regardless of how they fit into societal identity restraints. She’s hired as their Marketing Analyst and is in charge of researching how campaigns could impact different social groups – a/k/a what she was born to do! It all seems too good to be true…which it unfortunately is. They employ her on the condition that she has no public involvement in the Black Lives Matter movement, as they fear it could “exclude customers.” In short, they don’t want to upset their white demographic.