Good Trouble – Less Than

By: Marnie Faith

The Mamas (Stef and Lena) are once again back in town in this week’s episode of Good Trouble! They arrive with a lot more baggage than that which their suitcases hold this time, it must be noted. They join Callie (Maia Mitchell), Mariana (Cierra Ramirez) and Jamie (Beau Mirchoff) for cocktails at Judge Wilson’s (Roger Bart) house. Though they aren’t willfully attending and, in fact, it is much the opposite. When Callie let it slip to the Judge that her moms were visiting that weekend he insisted they join them for an evening, regardless of how many excuses Callie tried to pull. Eventually, it ends up being a typical family affair. Of course, where the Adams-Foster’s go, so does trouble…it was an eventful pre-dinner party to say the least!

Away from the Adams-Foster (plus Jamie) bubble, the rest of the Coterie gang have their own troubles in their respective paradises. Things seem to finally be looking up for Alice (Sherry Cola). Jamie (Daisy Eagan) says that although she typically has a rule against dating people who aren’t out, especially to their parents, something tells her Alice will be worth allowing the rule to be broken on this occasion. Yet, it was never going to be that simple. Sumi (Kara Wang) overhears their exchange and decides that it’s the perfect moment to interrupt. In typical Sumi style she drops into Alice’s room unannounced to return her hair band and invite the pair for dinner with her and Meera (Briana Venskus). That dinner goes about as well as two exes, a fiance and a new girlfriend having dinner could. It’s evident throughout the entire thing that Sumi is still madly in love with Alice, despite her engagement to Meera. She spends the evening recounting their romantic memories together and generally sucking up to Alice. Naturally, this isn’t well received by Meera and she tries to sour the mood by revealing that Alice was on Joey’s radio show, talking ill of Sumi. However, this didn’t have the reaction Meera presumably wanted when Sumi admits the fact she used a fork as a make-shift mirror one night and proceeded to laugh about it. Poor Joey sat awkwardly in the corner nursing a glass of red and trying her best to enjoy the bread salad throughout the entirety of these awkward exchanges. It seems that Joey breaking the news to Alice that Sumi is still madly in love with her serves as a lightbulb moment, in which she realizes Joey may be right. 

For Mariana things seem to finally be looking up for her this week! Her goal of setting out to prove Spekulate’s gender pay gap problem is slowly coming along. However, she encounters an issue in the fact that Raj (Dhruv Uday Singh) is the only male member of the company willing to come forward and have his pay included in their research. This doesn’t stop Mariana though. Throughout her data collection she’s realized another pay gap – a racial one. She discovers that her white female co-workers earn a significant amount more than she does. When she goes to her Byte Club to relay this they don’t seem all that interested. It’s peak white feminism. They try and gloss over the issue under the premise that they should tackle “one issue at a time.” It’s equally as frustrating to watch as it must have been for Mariana to hear them ready to give up the fight. Even Casey (Chloe Wepper) seems reluctant to pursue it, instead choosing to side with their white coworkers on this one. Thankfully, after having enough time to rethink her approach, Mariana gathers the Byte Club on the Spekulate roof to explain how they “can’t say they’re fighting for women when we’re leaving those who struggle most behind…women of color.” It’s an admirable fist bump moment when she manages to convince her fellow Byte Club members that they must take an intersectional approach to their fight to ensure they fight for all women. Everyone is on board aside from Casey, who’s reluctant to disclose her race due to the fact it’d mean sacrificing her anonymity. Thankfully, when Mariana tells Raj of their troubles he doesn’t hesitate sacrificing his anonymity to disclose his race and making him easily identifiable as the only Indian in the company. Raj remains an incredible ally and “Miraj” remain the cutest duo!

Outside of her fight to close all of Spekulate’s evident gender pay gaps Mariana continues scoring victories this week! Alex (Dustin Ingram) and Sam (Max Cutler) are still teasing her and Raj. When Mariana notices a glitch in Alex’s part of their team’s app development, he immediately goes on the defensive and punishes Mariana for pointing it out, delegating her to stay late that evening and work to fix it. However, it seems as though she’s finally finding her voice. She fixes the issue, but in the staff briefing it’s Alex who’s ready to take all the credit for it. When he’s unable to explain how it is he made it work due to the fact it was Mariana’s work, she seizes this as her chance to shine. She confidently explains how it is she resolved the glitch and in turn impresses the rest of her colleagues. At the end of the meeting, company owner Evan (T.J. Linnard) asks her, his assistant Josh (Charlie Bodin) and Angela (Heather Mazur) from HR to stay behind. He questions why it is she never pursued securing a pitch meeting for an app idea, to which she admits that Angela told her not to bother Evan, especially in her first few weeks. Wanting to save her own back, Angela feels indifferent in admitting it was Josh who told her to ensure Mariana doesn’t pester Evan. Understandably, Evan doesn’t take too well to these revelations. He chastises both Josh and Andrea, going on to promise Mariana a meeting for her to finally pitch her app.

Back at Judge Wilson’s house, once everyone is comfortably in the living room together, he goes on to make the most awkward toast known to television. He praises Callie on what an incredible woman she’s grown to become, despite her history with juvenile detention centers. It’s obviously aimed at his son Tate (Zachary Gordon), who’s also present. To add insult to injury, Tate later informs Callie that the charges against him have been dropped. This enrages Callie since she’s certain Wilson is being lenient with the L.A.P.D to work in favor of helping his son and so works even harder to prove that the Batson challenge should be upheld throughout the Jamal Thompson case. She spends her weekend creating a memo to prove that there’s a distinct pattern of racial discrimination throughout the case; however, due to the fact that this is typically the work of a lawyer opposed to a clerk Wilson is unsurprisingly furious about it. He believes that Callie has lost objectivity in this case and to continue having her clerk it would be reckless. As a result, he makes the decision to remove her from the Jamal Thompson case entirely and instead replaces her with Kate (Dianne Doan), Judge Handelman’s former clerk. Following the accusations made towards Handelman, he retired which left Kate without a clerkship. Wilson was initially reluctant to take her on as Rebecca’s (Molly McCook) replacement, but he eventually changed his mind. It could be assumed this came as a result of him realizing that whilst Callie was no longer a suitable clerk, he still needed a liberal perspective for the case. Either way, it’s a hard blow for Callie to receive.

Not the only one struggling with the way the case is going, Malika (Zuri Adele) is really going through it this week. Old videos surfaced of Jamal this week which shows him saying awful things about black women. Due to this Malika is hit with an abundance of doubts as to why she’d continue to fight for a boy who clearly thought so little of her. Thankfully, Malika is stronger than to succumb to such ignorance. She reminds everyone who questions her that regardless of what he said he was unjustly gunned down and deserved justice. She even went as far as reminding Davia (Emma Hunton) that this case is about more than just Jamal as it’s about all of those who’ve been on the receiving end of police brutality. She wants justice for all her community, irrespective of how low they may have thought about women of color.

Malika goes to Sandra Thompson (Nicki Micheaux) to check in on her – she isn’t handling these old videos well. She explains how she’s read comments online of people blaming her for Jamal’s derogatory views towards women of color. Whilst Malika is quick to remind her that people just need someone to blame, Sandra can’t help but take these comments to heart. Bearing the weight of everyone else’s problems clearly starts to become too much for Malika. Following her argument with Davia she questions “why it’s always on me to educate my white friends,” which is a very fair question to raise.

The end of the episode see the moms finally be forced to confront what’s bothering them – Lena’s election campaign. Stef (Teri Polo) explains how she no longer feels apart of it and how she feels distant from Lena (Sherri Saum). The last time we saw her, Lena wore her signature curls up and was dressed comfortably. This week her hair has been straightened and colored as she adorns a suit. Regardless of how good it looks on her, it’s not Lena. Stef explains how she fears that should Lena win it’ll only drive them further apart due to there being more distance between them. Of course, Lena is quick to reassure her that they’ll always be sure to maintain their connection, in spite of any amounts of distance. They kiss and make up before their girls join them to watch the Los Angeles night before them.