The Fosters – Doors and Window

By starrymag | February 27, 2017

By: Taylor Gates

Brandon (David Lambert), Callie (Maia Mitchell) and Jude (Hayden Byerly) fight over the bathroom. The competition for it has gotten worse since their doors were removed, but Stef (Teri Polo) has no sympathy. Lena (Sherri Saum) tells Brandon to stop complaining and Callie to finish her Senior project. Mariana (Cierra Ramirez) doesn’t want to face Mat (Jordan Rodrigues) or the school since everyone knows they broke up again. She doesn’t want to attend therapy either, but Stef tells her to stop being melodramatic. Jesus (Noah Centineo) falls while walking up the stairs—he just wanted to be with everyone.

 

Mariana updates Emma (Amanda Leighton) on Jesus’ condition before interrogating her about the pregnancy test Brandon thought he saw her buying. Emma admits that she thought she might be, but the test came back negative and she got her period shortly after.

 

Callie and Aaron (Elliot Fletcher) visit Kyle (Adam Irigoyen) in juvie. They update him on the case: all they need to do is find a motive for Troy so they can order a DNA sample and prove he’s the killer. Kyle thanks them for all their hard work.

 

Jesus’ physical therapist (Miles Gaston Villanueva) mixes light weightlifting with cognitive exercises to help improve his balance and coordination skills. Lena tries to encourage him, but Jesus yells at her to shut up. This shakes Lena, but the therapist tells her outbursts like that are common and she shouldn’t take it personally. Lena wonders how much longer he will be like this, but the therapist warns her that some TBI patients never lose their short fuse.

 

Callie, Stef and Robert (Kerr Smith) meet with lawyers who want everyone involved in the accident—including Troy—to sign a contract saying they want all charges against Callie dropped. The plan is to essentially pay them all off. All the medical, automobile and pain and suffering bills will likely be around $300,000. The Adams Fosters don’t have that kind of money, but Robert offers to handle it. Callie doesn’t want to do this, but the lawyers are convinced they would lose in court. It’s a he said/she said and Callie’s file makes her look bad and unreliable. There’s also no way to prove why Callie would have been so scared of Troy.

 

After their meeting, Robert talks to Stef alone. He tells her what Sophia (Bailee Madison) said about a strange man following her at the music festival, accusing her of breaking into his house. He thinks that maybe, since Callie and Sophia look so much alike, he got her confused with Callie. Stef casually says she’ll look into it. When she gets in the car, Stef immediately snaps, interrogating Callie about breaking into Doug’s house. Callie tells Stef if she didn’t steal the toothbrush, they would have never known about Troy. Plus, his motive could have been financially motivated. Stef says Troy’s DNA could have been on the weapon because he helped Martha out and lots of kids hit their grandparents up for money. Stef tells her to leave the investigation to the professionals, but Callie reminds her the professionals on this case were crooked and unhelpful. Plus, it is her problem because proving his guilt could guarantee both her and Kyle’s freedom without paying anyone off.

 

Jesus and Emma flirtatiously joke around while he does physical therapy exercises, but the moment turns sour when Lena tells him to do the exercises again and he freaks out, knocking over the objects he was sorting. Brandon takes the broom from Lena, offering to clean and take Jesus to therapy the next day so she can get a break.

 

Mariana’s therapist (Trevor St. John) has her use a machine that engages rapid eye movement to help her talk about her feelings and reprogram traumatic memories. Mariana admits that Nick made her feel powerless, just as she felt when the robotics team turned on her and when she and Jesus were babies still living with Ana.

 

Stef researches Troy’s credit score and record, finding some unfavorable answers. She is interrupted by the sound of Mariana putting up a curtain, as her therapist told her to take back her power. She feels powerless having no privacy so she’s changing that. Mariana informs Stef and Lena that her therapist wants them all to come into his office together the next day.

 

Captain Roberts (April Parker-Jones) calls Stef saying she wants to have a meeting in her office the next day. Lena panics, as this is potentially about the subject Stef wants to take to internal affairs. It could possibly get her fired, which they can’t afford, especially since Lena is on leave now. Stef feels she has an obligation to Callie to bring Gray and Malloy to justice, but Lena tells her she has an obligation to provide for the family so they’re not living on the streets.

 

Callie is in the backyard looking over her file with Aaron. It paints her in an extremely unflattering light and is exactly what’s wrong with the system—it says all the stuff she did but not why she did it. She admits she was put in solitary and the two begin constructing a model of the cell for her new Senior project. AJ (Tom Williamson) arrives home from basketball practice, offended she didn’t ask him for help with the construction work. They get into a huge fight about her growing relationship with AJ and the fact Callie thinks AJ is accusing her of taking advantage of her rich, white privilege.

 

Brandon tries to encourage Jesus at therapy, but Jesus sends him away. Brandon wanders into the hallway, stumbling upon a music therapy class. The class is led by a woman named Grace (Meg DeLacy) and Brandon finds her and the therapy intriguing. Afterwards, he asks her out for coffee for them to discuss Jesus’ condition and his potential for music therapy. Grace declines the date, but invites him to sit in on one of her classes to observe and help Jesus.

 

At the meeting, Roberts tells Stef she made detective in the human trafficking department. Roberts advises Stef against saying anything that could put her career in jeopardy. Stef goes to talk to Gray (Alex Skuby), asking him if he knew Troy was having money problems and that Martha took him out of her will just days before she was murdered. He gives her access to all Martha’s case files, saying that—whether she wants to believe him or not—he does his job.

 

Brandon teaches Jesus and Emma some basic piano skills. Brandon puts his hand on top of Emma’s to help her and Jesus sees this and gets jealous of their budding relationship.

 

Stef tells Callie there’s proof Troy was at work the time of his grandmother’s murder. Because of this, there’s no way to prove why Callie would have been scared of Troy. Callie still wants to go to court since she did nothing wrong, but Stef and Lena tell her no—they’re taking the deal. It’s not right, but things aren’t always fair in life. Sometimes you just do what you have to.

 

The therapist tells Stef and Lena that Nick brought up memories of powerlessness from Mariana’s childhood. The therapist does an exercise that demonstrates how we cannot assume our perspective is the only one. Stef says that communication isn’t the failure in their household, the secrets are. The therapist says that bedrooms doors weren’t the problem—a lack of trust was. Although the moms encourage the kids to talk to them, they sometimes act as if their feelings and issues aren’t as important as ones the other kids are dealing with.

 

Brandon walks in on Emma crying in Mariana’s bedroom. She admits that she is, in fact, pregnant but isn’t sure Jesus could handle the news. She’s on the pill so she doesn’t know what happened and she can’t tell her parents. All she knows is she doesn’t want to be a 16-year-old mom. She can’t tell Brandon’s moms without also telling Jesus and she’s afraid Mariana wouldn’t be able to keep a secret. Brandon reassures Emma he’s always here if she needs to talk. Jesus makes it halfway up the stairs and sees Brandon and Emma come out of the room together, making him even more suspicious. He gives her the cold shoulder when she delivers him cards the volleyball team wrote, even taking a dig at her makeup.

 

Callie goes to tell Kyle the bad news. She’s going to try and keep looking for the killer, but she’s not sure what else she can do at this point. She reveals she got a deal for her own case, accidentally rubbing salt in Kyle’s wound.

 

Stef tells Lena she thinks she’s going to take the promotion at work. She’s not going to give up on pursuing Gray and Malloy, but now she’s going to investigate them from the inside. The two decide to put the kids’ doors back on.

 

Callie puts the finishing touches on her senior project—hanging up pieces of her file all over the walls of the homemade solitary cell. Aaron comes to visit and Callie tells him she feels guilty about Kyle going to prison for the rest of his life while she gets off free. He motions to all the papers on the wall, telling her the girl they’re about deserves a break. They almost kiss, but Callie stops it at the last minute.

 

Mariana starts an anonymous Twitter account wherein she confesses her secrets and urges others to do the same. Jesus selects a card from his stack and tries to read it, but the letters get all blurry and jumbled. He attempts to rip it in anger, but he can’t manage to do that either. He cries in frustration.