No wonder our Verizon bill is six thousand dollars a month.
Callie: Jude, come here please and I will spray you with bug repellent. You know how the mosquitos love sweet elfish blood.
Jude: FINE.
Hayley: Surprise, Jesus! I am in the woods camping also and will have sex with you if you’ll come find me!
Jesus: FINE.
Stef: Everyone stay close and remember to pack away all your scrap food so a bear doesn’t show up in the night and eat your face off.
Mariana: FINE.
Brandon: The key to the perfect s’more is in the squishability of the marshmallow.
Jude: Actually, no. Everyone stop telling me my business. I can swim. I can put on bug spray by myself. And the key to making the perfect s’more is you have to put the chocolate on a graham cracker and sit it on a rock by the fire while you slowly roast your marshmallow so the chocolate will be melted just enough to form a seamless texture with the hot marshmallow when they are mashed together.
Everyone sings “She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain” while Callie straight up shreds on her hand me down guitar! Mariana suggests that Brandon play the love song he wrote for his girlfriend Lu. He says he didn’t write it for Lu! Stef and Lena say they didn’t know Lu was his girlfriend! He says that’s not why he asked to go on tour this summer and it’s not like they need to be in a van in Oklahoma to have sex! Callie says everyone shut up and sing “Oh, Susanna!” Jesus says everyone should go to bed right now since they’ll be waking up at sunrise!
Today’s the day the teddy bears have their picnic!
Not quite as dramatic as the campfire when the women from The L Word played “I Never,” but pretty close!
Once all the Adams Fosters are safely bedded down in their tents, it is time for Stef and Lena to have some camptime lesbosexy shenanigans. Ha, just kidding. Stef sneaks her phone out of her bag and wanders away to call Mike and check in on the status of his parentage re: Ana’s fetus. Mike doesn’t answer her call because Ana is falling asleep on his couch. They hung out for a while today after they went to the ultrasound together and found out Ana is having a baby girl. Mike tells Ana she should just go ahead and start sleeping over. Man, between Stef’s hot headedness and Mike’s inability to make a good decision, it’s a wonder Brandon can even walk down the street without darting in front of cars like an unleashed sheep dog.
Being perfect is exhausting. :(
In succession: Jesus leaves the campsite to go find Hayley, despite the protests of Jude. Brandon leaves the campsite to go find Jesus who has gone to find Hayley, despite the protests of Jude. Stef and Lena leave the campsite to go find Brandon who has gone to find Jesus who has gone to find Hayley. But who they find is Hayley. To be honest, Stef doesn’t really want to rescue her, but Lena insists, and they let her sleep in the tent with them. (It’s not like she could sleep in Mariana and Callie’s tent, what with the weathered oak French casement and widescreen TV taking up so much space in there.)
Early the next morning, Brandon tries to start a fire, and Callie douses it with a lighter fluid, and the whole campsite nearly goes up in flames. He goes, “That was such an on-the-nose metaphor for how you are!” Like that’s a thing he actually says. So they go down to to the lake to act eleven shades of weird around each other while promising to stop acting weird around each other. She says it doesn’t make her jealous to see him kissing Lu. He says it made him jealous to see her kissing Wyatt. And so Callie is all, “Well, Wyatt is taking a one-way cross-country road trip with a piece of drywall, buddy, so you don’t have anything to worry about.”
Don’t blame this on Jude. He is made of magic stardust and you are made of hormones and terrible decisions.
I’m just a regular human boy!
Back at the campsite:
Stef and Lena: Dude, you are not making good decisions. How are we supposed to trust you to drive around the country in a van all summer? Were you even telling the truth about becoming a heart surgeon while you are on tour?
Brandon: AT LEAST I’M NOT A NARC!
Stef and Lena: Don’t yell at Jude!
Brandon: Fine! You want some well-earned yelling? Check out Jesus’ tattoo.
Stef and Lena: JESUS HAS A TATTOO?
Jude: I’m going swimming, y’all. Brandon, I told moms you were lost, not that you were looking for Hayley. Callie, stop treating me like I am an infant. Thank you. I love you. I’m growing into a mature, responsible adult, and I want you to treat me like that with your words and your actions, please.
Brandon is like, “Whoa! I’ve never seen Jude go off like that!”
Hayley has a pretty shitty afternoon. First, Mariana teaches her the secret dystopian robot theme of her and Tia’s new dance team, and she realizes she chose the wrong dancers to side with in the Regionals war. Also, she tells Mariana about Ana’s bun in the oven. And then Jesus breaks up with her because she’s desperate and pushy and he doesn’t love the way he acts when he’s with her. So she storms off and goes home to wait for her mom who abandoned her to spend a weekend away with her new boyfriend. Poor Hayley. It’s no wonder she is the way she is. If only Stef and Lena could parent the whole world!
Just because I want a body pillow for by back doesn’t mean I’m building a permanent pillow wall between us!
Speaking of which, everything comes to a head when Mariana storms back to the campground demanding to know why no one told her about Ana. Jesus says Lena told him not to tell anyone except for Stef and Stef says she thought Lena didn’t even know and now it’s time for moms to have some alone time, after all — for fightin’!
Stef: The kids always come to you because you’re soft! And I have to be the stern dad!
Lena: First of all, that’s — quote — a super heteronormative line of thinking, lady. And yeah, I just said that on TV. Second of all, the kids always come to me because you’re kind of a jerk when you get angry. Wait, no. Hang on. Let me soften that. What I mean is, you protect the kids in ways I never could, but that fierce energy can be intimidating, so you’ve got to dial it back a little bit sometimes.
Stef: I can see that you’re right but that doesn’t soften the sting of being lied to and I’m also really mad at myself, so why don’t you go talk to Mariana; obviously it’s you she needs.
Lena: I love you, honey, but now is not the time to be a martyr. Being a parent means you don’t get to wallow around in self-pity for longer than five seconds.
Love these women. Love them, love them, love them. Watching lesbians on TV is like watching a live-action game of Frogger. Who’s going to get smashed, and when? It’s only a matter of time! But these two are in it forever, which means fights are inevitable, but that doesn’t mean it’s the end because that’s not what being a grown-up is all about. I LOVE THEM.
Do you think Lena might even be more perfect than Jude, though? Sometimes I wonder.
Stef finds Mariana and hugs her close and soothes her and promises her that it’s not her responsibility to take care of Ana or Ana’s baby. Sweet Mariana. The world sure is heavy when you try to carry all of it around on your own back.
Finally, everyone makes their way down to the lake for some swimming and rope-swinging and giggling and pushing each other off the dock. Aw, man. I made it all the way ’til the end and almost didn’t cry this week. Almost.
Next year, I’m going to A-Camp!
It’s like regular camp but without all you kids harshing our sexytime vibes.
Oh, one more thing. Ana’s baby isn’t Mike’s, but he still wants her to move in.
Next week, Jude and Connor hold pinkies, everyone! This is not a drill!
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This episode was magnificent, made only more so by this magnificent recap. My jaw is still on the floor from the #LenaTwerking business.
I know! Me too! It delights me to no end that ABC Family used to be the Family Channel as was founded by notorious homophobe Pat Robertson!
Stef and Lena are so wonderful, loving and sexy! I am forever disappointed by the lack of hot fanfic for them.
Yeah, where is THAT fan fic? I would read the hell out of that!
I’ve found a few sexy fics but not nearly as many as there should be! :P
Great recap!
One thing I love endlessly about the lack of sexytimes between Lena and Stef on this show is that it’s totally organic. There’s actually a clear running gag about how frequently their sex life gets thwarted since they have 34 children, and it’s refreshing that for once that just feels realistic instead of uptight about lady lovin’. That pan to a sleeping Hayley in their tent was beautifully executed.
I, too, feel a lot of the Coach/Tami vibe between Lena and Stef and I love it. I continue to think this show is wildly underrated.
I also agree that it’s widely underrated. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that it’s on ABC Family and also we, as a culture, are just super uncomfortable with so much earnestness.
I agree with you about it being underrated because it’s on ABC Family. When I first heard about Switched at Birth, I was wary of watching it because I had preconceived notions of the type of shows that would be on ABC Family. But it’s an amazing show and it deals with complex issues really well. Same thing with Chasing Life. I think that all three of those shows (The Fosters, Switched at Birth, Chasing Life) are very feminist. And I think that a lot of people are missing out on phenomenal shows because of their ideas of the network.
Oh, I completely agree. There are amazing feminist elements in all of those shows. Pretty Little Liars, too, but that’s a whole other beast.
Thank you for the recap! I also cheered when Lena said “That’s heteronormative” on television. This show is perfect, and your recaps are also perfect like Jude and Lena. And I am so looking forward to Jude and Connor being adorable next episode.
Lauren, I thank you — but no one is as perfect as Jude! :)!
When Lena said “That’s heteronormative” I started clapping. Then I had to rewind cause my clapping made me miss the next line.
Also, Lena twerking! She was hands down the MVP of the episode.
She’s the MVP of my life, honestly. I meditate on her serenity at least once a day.
Yay! Someone else cries during every single episode of this show!
I usually don’t even make it to the pancakes in the credits without bursting into tears.