Good Trouble – Torn

By: Marnie Faith

Following on from the closing of last week’s episode, in which we saw Malika (Zuri Adele) steal Callie’s (Maia Mitchell) security credentials in order to obtain access to Judge Wilson’s (Roger Bart) office, we discover exactly what her intentions were. She’s set on confronting him; marching into the office with a power stride, the deliverance of what she has to say was equal parts harrowing and breathtaking. Malika’s frustrations run deeper than just the Jamal Thompson case, made clear through her questioning of Judge Wilson’s morality. She highlights the fact that the jury were allowed to only hold one black juror on a case that is solely surrounding an African American life lost at the hands of police violence – an evidently questionable motive. From there she raises the question of exactly how he sleeps at night knowing he/the conservative law as a whole targets the demographics that are widely marginalized – from their lack of access to proper legal representation to the fact they’re too often penalized purely for the color of their skin, Malika’s outrage clearly speaks for a continually prevalent issue in the real world.

Wilson was set on pressing charges against her and told assistant Naomi to notify the relevant bodies in order to do so. This doesn’t go as smoothly as the Judge was likely hoping. Naomi (Denise Dowse) gets as far as his office door before deciding that now is her time to speak out. She confronts him, reminding him of the fact that for the last ten years she’s respected the fact she’s not employed to input her opinion;, however, now she needs that to change. She asks Judge Wilson to pull a favor, under the premise that she can’t stand to see Malika’s life being punished purely for “living whilst back in this country.” She goes on to remind Wilson that she understands he will not understand where she is coming from, as a white man., though she’s not asking for understanding. Knowing the implications of these charges will continue to stick with Malika for the rest of her life, she asks the Judge to let this one go. 

As for Callie, the implications of the situation were double edged. Beckoned to meet with the judge in his office, he reprimands her for the fact that she never disclosed her and Malika’s friendship to him, instead choosing to allow him to believe they just shared an apartment building. Having scorned Callie enough, she decides that she is done. Though initially viewers are led to believe that she was fired from her clerkship, it turns out this isn’t the case. Later in the episode she’s seen to also confront Wilson. She lashes the fact he should likely fire her and, even though he agrees, he discloses that he likes her character too much to let her go. Regardless of this, Callie decides enough is enough. She admits it was naive of her to expect to be able to change a conservative judge’s perspective on the law and that she doesn’t wish to learn said laws – she wishes to amend them. As a result of this, she quits her clerkship on the spot and sets out to seek other, better suited opportunities for herself.

Despite a number of successful interviews, which leave Callie sure enough to treat herself to an expensive new suit, there’s a major factor that stands in the way of her and new adventures. The bar exam. The final scene of the episode shows boldly that Callie failed her first attempt and as a result is unable to seek new chances. Of course, the opportunity to retake the exam is always there, but she still has bills to pay in the meantime. As a result of her quitting, as opposed to being fired, she’s not eligible for unemployment compensation and thereby leaving the responsibility of paying bills and keeping the pair afloat landing to Mariana (Cierra Ramirez). 

For Mariana, the environment of Speckulate continues to test her. In a bid to prove what an ally and feminist he is, Evan (TJ Linnard) sets out to introduce an annual Women’s Day for the company. Complete with manicures, pedicures and mimosas, he fails to understand why this is all largely insulting for his female cohort of employees. One responds to the offer of a mimosa with a quip that there’d better be a pay rise in them and thus the growing frustrations for females within the company is more prevalent than ever. 

When looking for feedback on his day, Mariana confronts him about where exactly he’s going wrong. She reminds him of the continued stark gender and race pay gaps, of the fact that the female employees are continually treated worse than their male counterparts and the fact that the men know they’re earning more. All of this is shrugged off by Evan, who says he can’t do anything until the board approve of changes. When it came to light that all of the board directors are male, Mariana understandably loses it. She informs him of how only 7% of private tech companies board members are female and that nothing is ever going to change if more isn’t done to help starkly improve these statistics. Again, looking at Mariana to fix everything, Evan appoints it her responsibility to form an employment support body in order to gain feedback on how colleagues believe their working conditions are. It’s frustrating to see how all of this is left on Mariana’s shoulders to bear because none of the men at Speckulate are decent enough to be an ally for women’s equality. However, if anyone is going to bring change it’ll be none other than Mariana Adams Foster.

As far as her relationship’s development, things seemed great until she started the episode with a dream in which she kissed Evan. She jokes that she felt as though she cheated on Raj (Dhruv Uday-Singh) to which Davia (Emma Hunter) was on hand to reminisce about the times she’s hooked up with people in her places of work. This gets the cogs in Mariana’s brain ticking and she ends the episode by hooking up with Raj in their office after hours. Evan, unfortunately, witnesses this. In an attempt to get back at her, he enforces a rule in which supervisors aren’t allowed to date their subordinates. Just when we thought Evan was finally going to get it, he took two steps back!

Elsewhere, Davia is attempting to help Dennis (Josh Pence) get his life back on track. Through the means of exercise, kale and meditation she attempts a number of routes to help him confront his grief. Eventually it becomes enough to wear him down to the point he agrees to attend a grief support group. Despite how positive things were finally starting to look for him, when Davia goes to meet him at the end of the group session the leader reveals that he left as soon as it commenced. At this Davia’s frustrations towards him boil over. She confronts him on the fact that he needs to start allowing someone in and that his means of self-sabotaging won’t get him very far very fast. He attempts to fend off her anger by suggesting that he’s too broken to be fixed, to which she reminds him how “selfish it is to think your life only matters to you.” It’s a hard pill for Dennis to swallow, but I can only hope that he’ll realize that Davia’s best intentions are there because she cares for him and wants him to live a fuller life, free from the mounds of guilt he’s clearly carrying. 

The drama doesn’t stop there for Davia. Jeff (Chris Sheffield) is still an issue. She admits to a drunken Callie that she’s yet to properly break up with him and isn’t sure what to do from here. Surprisingly, drunk Callie actually offers some sound, usable advice. Davia visits Jeff in his hotel room to finally put her feelings out in the open. She tells him of the fact she applied for a third year with Teach for America due to his earlier encouragements and that she really didn’t expect him to leave his wife. She admits that she has no desire to move back to Wisconsin because her life is in LA now. To this Jeff suggests him relocating to LA. He admits that he loves her enough to be ready to do that – not the breakup Davia was hoping for! 

That’s not all for the love life conundrums this week! Gael’s (Tommy Martinez) ex Elijah (Denim Richards) is back on the scene. He comes to visit Gael, largely to admire his art work. This clearly shakes Callie and when talking to Malika about it all she is forced to question who she’d rather comfort her at her most vulnerable times between him and Jamie (Beau Mirchoff). In the end, it appears that it turns out Jamie is victorious in that category as it’s him Callie calls for comfort when the news of her failed bar exam breaks. For Malika, her relationship status moved to official too this week!