The episode begins with a recap of the previous 10 episodes: Callie and Jude moved in with the Fosters. Mariana and Jesus had issues with their birth mom. Callie, Brandon and Wyatt triangulated. Stef got shot and then proposed to Lena and then they got married, Callie and Brandon kissed and Jude witnessed it and went all Don Corleone on Callie. Callie ran away to Indiana.

I’d also like to do a recap of my 10 recaps: I was funny and charming and people liked my digressions and then everyone got mad at me for wanting more hot lesbian mom sex.

And here we are again, watchers of The Fosters!

Oh, what a beautiful morning…

The show opens with Stef and Lena in bed and I love the color of their sheets and the way Lena’s arm is draped over Stef and I feel all warm and fuzzy but it could be the herbal tea and the hoodie. They exchange greetings by saying to each other, “Good morning, Mrs. Adams-Foster.” Kinda cute until Stef says, “No hyphen,” like she knew I hyphenated it in my mind. Whatever, Stef. Put on your uniform so you look the part of the grammar police.

Digression 1: Stef and Lena are lucky they live in the TV because their names go really well together. That’s rare in the real world which is why my partner and I did not wake up the day after out wedding and say, “Good morning Mrs. Reich-Brandão.” Instead, we said, “Did you hear that? I think the kids are up and screaming about donuts.”

Stef and Lena snuggle and Lena kisses Stef’s bare shoulders and I can definitely appreciate shoulder kisses. Stef suggests some real kisses and Lena says, “Come here, woman!” and Stef says, “I love it when you call me ‘woman’.” Lena springs from the bed in a tunic made from saber-toothed tigers and drags Lena back to her cave for roasted mammoth and a make-out session.

Downstairs, someone’s in the kitchen with Annie. Someone’s in the kitchen, I know. Annie Potts is back and organizing and cooking and grandmothering and I love her and want her to stay forever. All the kids are there but Callie. Brandon asks Jude where Callie is and he says that she’s at her guitar lesson. Obviously, nobody knows that she’s taking guitar lessons in Indiana. The kids are eating pancakes and they are using Aunt Jemima syrup and I call foul! I have never been to a lesbian household that doesn’t serve natural maple syrup from free-range grass-fed maple trees.

This is my ‘not amused by your syrup choices’ face.

Digression 2: Last weekend, we were at a friends’ cabin and we forgot our natural grass-fed syrup and there was a real, live bottle of Aunt Jemima there. My daughter put it on her pancakes reluctantly and then said, “Mom, it doesn’t taste right. It tastes like chemicals.” And this is how lesbians will take over the world by a pancake syrup uprising. Power to the maple!

While I focus on maple syrup, there is a lot of talk of tables and glasses and Mariana and Jesus are fighting over who gets to spend time with Lexi and this is a love triangle that I can get behind! Stef and Lena enter the fray and Stef’s hair looks completely different than when she went to bed a few months ago. Mike comes in and then there is more talk about tables and glasses and loading and unloading cars and why does it get so much screen time? Why am I recapping it? Annie Potts who I will now call by her character name, Sharon, chooses this time to question Stef about the adoption because moms are good at asking “What they hell are you doing with your life?!” at the most inopportune times.

Next, we see Wyatt putting gas in his car at a gas station with a lovely mountainous backdrop. I would visit that gas station just for the view. Of course, I live in the tundra and my view consists of the ice dam on my neighbor’s roof so I can’t be trusted. Callie comes out with a plastic bag and I yell, “I hope you got jelly bellies!”

Digression 3: Here is a parenting pro tip. Always take a bag of jelly bellies on road trips. Dole out 6 to 8 jelly bellies to the children every half hour or so. Force them to identify the flavors. This makes them slow down and taste them and also gives them something to do. Added bonus: you get first pick and can keep your favorite flavors and give the kids the icky ones because they have unsophisticated palates.

As Callie tries to get into the car, Wyatt pulls slightly forward and oh my god – I hate that game! He finally tells her that he won’t let her in unless she tells him why she ran away. She gets in and tells him, “It wasn’t working out.” Wyatt asks, “Did you do something bad?” and she says, “Maybe.” Oh, Callie. I want to give you a hug and hand you some jelly bellies and I wouldn’t even stick you with the popcorn flavored ones.

Brandon and Jude are in the Great Lesbian Kitchen with a bunch of napkins – cloth, not feminine. Brandon says things at the wedding got “weird” and he wants to know if Jude is doing okay and Jude says, “No, you just want to know if I’m going to tell.” Brandon is all, “I don’t know what you’re are talking about and my furrowed brow should be conveying genuine concern for you right now.” Jude tells Brandon that he’s just like Liam and Brandon gets mad and yells, “I love Callie!” I asked recappers to rate Brandon’s current likeability and one out of one recappers rated it at Gross%.

Cue the opening montage and theme song and artfully arranged colored pencils!

Sharon bought Stef and Lena a craftmatic adjustable bed. She’s paying the delivery guy with money from her bra when Jude enters. She says, “If Sleeping Beauty had this bed, I don’t even think she’d have wanted that prince to wake her up.” She tells Jude that she is dating a guy just because she likes his bed and Jude suggests that she ditch the guy and buy her own bed and then they pose for a #365feministselfie and post it to instagram. After their heart to heart, they start playing with the bed and Jude lifts the head and foot on his side and says, “Look! I’m a taco.” And I laugh because “taco.”

#tacogram

Lexi and Mariana are working on a school project together and Jesus comes in and asks to hang with Lexi and Marianna gets cranky and jealous. Mariana then challenges Jesus to a duel at high noon. Her weapon of choice? Finely sculpted eyebrows and deeply cutting sighs.

Then, we cut to a close-up of a lizard. The lizard gets more screentime than Stef and Lena have so far. Wyatt and Callie wander around an alien crash site in the mountains. I know this because of the many signs that say, “Alien Crash Site.” They talk about aliens and ghosts and time travel and get giant green snow cones from a food truck that also sells stuffed aliens – plush, not real. True alien taxidermy is a lost art. As much as I love snow cones, buying one instead of a stuffed alien is a poor life choice. You can’t cuddle a snow cone, kids.

You can’t cuddle a lizard either.

Digression 4: Snow cone or sno cone? Discuss.

Wyatt thinks that Callie would be good at time travel because she wouldn’t mess everything up and Callie says, “I wreak havoc wherever I go.” See? She needs a cuddle.

Back at the Charming Craftsman, Jude sees Callie’s guitar in the living room and you can see the lightbulb go on above his head – not literally because the lighting in that living room is always dreadful. He runs to her room and sees that all her stuff is gone. He turns to Mariana, Lexi and Jesus and says, “She ran away.” Cue the Law and Order music.

The family is gathered around the kitchen table and on that kitchen table is Callie’s guitar. The guitar is just laying there like Exhibit A from a badly organized murder mystery dinner party. Stef says, “No one knows anything?” Nope. Stef and Lena bicker about calling Callie’s probation officer. Jude then says he’s worried about Callie going back to juvie and I say, “Well, you should have thought about that before you went all mafia boss on her!”

Wyatt made Callie an offer she couldn’t refuse.

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