Previously on The Fosters, everything fell spectacularly apart in the woods when Lena and Stef found out Jesus has tattoo, Mariana found out Ana is pregnant, Callie found out Jude is not a kindergartener, Brandon found out Callie is reckless with lighter fluid, and Jesus found out Hayley is needier than iTunes begging you to update. And then everyone made up and went for a swim and no one got eaten by a bear.

DEAL WITH IT

I actually didn’t know tattoo removal is a real thing, but apparently it is and Lena has scheduled an appointment so Jesus can get Hayley’s giant name removed from his teenage torso. He tries very hard to convince Lena to let him get a dragon to cover it, but she puts the super special giant tattoo removal sunglasses on her face (and still looks like heaven’s most beautiful angel), and reminds him he’s lucky he doesn’t have some kind of blood disease on account of he got a tattoo at a street carnival from a random man with a needle. At home, the other kids mock Jesus for being dumb, but Stef says if they don’t shut it, she’s going to go around the table and lay everyone’s shit bare. Silence follows, for perhaps the first time ever in the Adams Foster household.

Brandon asks again if they’re going to let him go on tour with his band, and Stef and Lena say yes, as long as they can meet the parents of his bandmates and also as long as they promise to stay in hotels and also as long as he was serious about becoming a cardiovascular surgeon over the summer. Brandon tells his buddies him moms’ list of demands for them, and they’re like, “Uh, your moms’ list of demands for you. You’re the weirdo who has parents who actually parent.” Brandon is shocked right to his very core that his band would rather galavant from sea to shining sea without a shred of adult supervision than honor their commitment to not become Fleetwood Mac!

No, we did not get a dog. This is what my body spay smells like.

Inside, Jesus and Mariana talk about what it means if Ana really does have a baby, in terms of it will be their half-sibling and should they do something about that or nothing about that? Callie and Jude talk about her half-sibling and how maybe she could just pretend to like Robert and pretend to want to have a relationship with him, and maybe he’ll let Stef and Lena adopt Callie after all? Also:

Callie: Hey, remember when Connor used to hang out here all the time? What happened to that guy?
Jude: I mean, whatever. Bros doing bro stuff. Bros taking a minute. Bros needing some space. Just a couple of heterosexual boys doing heterosexual things like not seeing each other every day and talking on the phone every night and making out in tents. Bros, yo.

I can’t believe Aria posted Ezria fic on her Tumblr.

Stef Stefs it real good with Lena, and I don’t mean scissoring. No, Stef asks Lena a question, interrupts her answer, and launches into this angry tirade about Ana and Mike and them living together and AA and whatever other things she can’t control. And like I totally get that Stef is coming at this from a place of: “When I don’t micromanage everything that happens in Mike and Ana’s lives, individually, they both end up hurting our family in enormous ways. Can you imagine what a force of destruction they’ll be together?” But also, Stef, can you shutup about your ex-husband when you’re in bed with your wife? That’s actually kind what Lena says, and of course Stef has no idea what she’s done because she is honest-to-God in protector mode all day every day, even in her sleep, just trying to keep her children safe in a cruel, dark world. They’re both like, “I love you or whatever.” And they go to sleep.

T/F: Stef makes it worse the next day.

Stop pretending you do any adult thing besides produce sperm and carry a gun, Mike!

T! Stef goes to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting to have a sneaky conversation with Mike’s sponsor about the how he’s making more bad decisions with a woman he met at Alcoholics Anonymous. I wonder if Stef has ever reacted to something at a three, or if every reaction in her life is either zero or eleven? It seems like eleven. Stef “Elevensies” Adams Foster. Stephanie Thickskull Elevensies Adams Foster, Order of Mama Bear First Class. Also, though, I think you will remember that Anna’s boyfriend shot Stef in the gut and she nearly died. So.

That’s exactly what she tells Mike when he finds out she went to his sponsor. He blows up at her about minding her own business and letting him make his own grown-up decisions, and she reminds him that the combined grown-up decisions of him and Ana have resulted in: statutory rape, child abuse, and a gunshot wound. Not exactly an auspicious record of grownupness.

I need you to leave so I can call the cops and get back to my A-Camp application.

On the way to school, Callie stops in that one trinket shop where Jude stole Callie’s bracelet then went back and paid for it but the clerk gave it to him for practically free anyway because he radiates goodness and beauty from his very pores. Callie settles on some horse-shaped bobby pins and when the clerk spots the once-stolen bracelet, she glares at Callie real hard and asks a bunch of questions about the last time she was in here and then when Callie leaves, the clerk follows her from window-to-window throwing side-eye shade from the shadows.

School is as dramatic as usual. Emma agrees to be Jesus’ tutor again because the wrestling team really needs him to pass all his classes. He’s doing pretty okay academically, actually, since he broke up with Hayley and she stopped occupying every second of his life with her needs and feelings. Mariana kind of breaks up with Mat because she assumes he’s going to cheat on her/breakup with her when he goes on tour, and she wants to be preemptive about it. I mean, it’s not like she doesn’t have a full schedule. She’s coding for STEM now. She’s got her new dance team. Tia is a person who is taking up a lot of her time and private thoughts. Mat makes confused faces for three minutes before she excuses herself to each lunch without him.

Ah, and Jude. Little magical gay wizard Jude. Tiny Dumbledore. His pride swells up like a balloon when he walks into science class and Connor says, “I’ve been looking for you!” But then Connor deflates Jude’s whole deal by pinpricking him right in the soul! He wants them to stop being lab partners with each other and start being lab partners with girls! Daria and Taylor! Jude’s new lab partner says a bunch of amazing things like — and I’m quoting here, because it really is fantastic — “sucks when you get sexiled ’cause your friend leaves you hanging for a new Boo” and “If you ask Daria, they’re OTP.” Oh, man. I would love to see Daria go up against Tumblr in an fisticuffs w/r/t the other half of Connor’s OTP.

Is this what it feels like to be straight?

Is this what it feels like to be in love?

IS THIS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO HAVE A HEART ATTACK?

At lunch, Jude doesn’t really know where to sit until Taylor calls him over to sit with her and Connor and Daria. She invites him to go to a chick flick tonight with the three of them, and then the girls scamper off to do teenage girl bathroom things like talk about how if Daria ever wants to get to first base with Connor, she’s going to have to ban Jude from games of spin-the-bottle, probably.

Jude: So. Boos, huh?
Connor: What?
Jude: OTP Boos? You and Daria? I didn’t even know you were into girls … named Daria.
Connor: She’s hot. What can I say?
Jude: Oh, you can say a lot of things, but fine. “Hot.” Fine. Fine. You can tell the girls my moms won’t let me go to the movie, if you want some alone time with your your Boo.
Connor: Bae.
Jude: Yeah?
Connor: I’m saying it’s “Bae,” not “Boo.”
Jude: Oh, right. Okay.
Connor: Come to the movie, please. I don’t want to be the only dude in a chick flick.
Jude: We’ll be the only dudes in a chick flick, together. That’s what’ll make us different from the rest of the people in the theater. Why am I smiling so big when my heart is splintering inside my chest like shrapnel?

After school, at work, Daphne tells Callie she’s going to get to see her daughter this weekend, but she’s a little nervous that Tasha is going to remember being kidnapped. Callie is all, “Don’t be a fool. It’s not like she has a souvenir of the event or something.”

Why do you smell like a dog?

Jesus!

What 16-year-old person — nay, what person of any age! — do you know who could break up with someone at lunch, achieve a complete self-evaluation about why by the afternoon, and do the altruistic work of trying to keep other people from being inflicted with her brand of emotional wounds by dinner? Mariana Adams Foster, she’s the only one. She realizes the reason she got weird with Mat is because she has abandonment issues due to her mother walking out on her and Jesus on Christmas Eve to score some heroin, so she finds Ana at Mike’s and tells her plainly that she cannot allow her to inflict that kind of trauma on another child.

If the Pretty Little Liars were as emotionally and intellectually competent as Mariana, they’d be sipping daiquiris on a beach right now, talking about, “How sad would it have been if we hadn’t caught A and solved Alison’s disappearance the day after that one Labor Day when she went missing for 24 hours?”

Get a sniff of this!

There is truly no end to the tribulations of straight women.

At home, Jesus showers Jude with cologne before starting a study session with Emma that ends abruptly when he tries to kiss her, and starts back up just as abruptly when shows her his half-removed Hayley tattoo, thereby ensuring that she will literally never be attracted to him again and they can be wrestling teammates and study buddies in peace. Gal pals, if you will.

Also at home, Brandon looks for a temp job that will allow him to amass a small fortune for hotel rooms for traveling with his band, since Stef and Lena are being such dictators and insisting that he can’t travel around the country and sleep in ditches. NYADA is saving a space for him at their summer camp, but only for another day or two. Stef and Lena still don’t know about it. After band practice, he gives his classical music a go and makes it through for the first time since his accident. It’s a sweet and beautiful smile he smiles.

Hello, I’d like to order two large pepperonis and a slice of humble pie.

Also also at home, Lena makes tea and watches from the window as Stef tries to concel another hot-headed mess she’s gotten herself into. Oh, Elevensies. Just tell your wife.

Also also also at home, Robert shows up to pick up Callie, and both Stef and Lena consider chopping him into pieces and burning him in the backyard.

Robert: You have a beautiful home.
Lena: You have a sense of upper class straight white male entitlement that makes me want to puke.
Stef: Me too. I was just going to glower, but yeah. What my wife said.

After band practice, Mat stops in to see if he and Mariana are still broken up. They’re not, which is good because he says he loves her. She says she loves him back and is going on tour with him. Not so good.

Could you stop writing Sparia fan fic for a second and talk to me?

Nope.

Out at dinner at some fancy wine bar or whatever, Robert asks Callie if she’s ever done any of the things you get to do if you’re a teenager whose parents own a yacht. Callie has not done any of those things — museums, horseback rides, having enough money to develop actual film from a non-digital camera — because she is a teenager whose last few years have been consumed with finding a home for herself and her little brother where they are not constantly being abused or molested. Robert says he can start taking her on these adventures right away! Sunday even! They can start Sunday! She says okay and gives him a gift she bought for Sophia, and when he finally relaxes, she’s like, “So have you decided to stop invalidating my personhood and accept that I am an autonomous human being who does not exist simply to make you feel good about yourself? Have you come to understand that I am not a chartered plane? Have you signed my adoption papers?”

This is a face I make when I want Sophia to laugh.

This is the face I make before I stab you with my fork.

He has not, has not, and has not. He is the worst.

Callie would like to go home now, please.

Okay, guys! Here it is! The moment everyone with a heart has been waiting for! At the movies, the girls sit on opposite sides of Connor and Jude, and Connor puts down the armrest between them, and Taylor is like, “You can have some of my popcorn if you need the distraction for when they start sucking on each other’s faces.” Jude does not tell her that such a thing will make him lose his appetite for infinity. Nor does he have to. Because during the movie, while his hand is sitting casually on the armrest, Connor deliberately reaches over and touches their pinkies together. Jude just about jumps out of his skin. He whips his head around to look at Taylor, who is chowing down on that popcorn, as promised, but she’s into the movie. Daria doesn’t seem to be paying attention either. Jude is breathing so heavy he looks like he’s about to pass out, and so is Connor. Finally, Connor grins and wraps his finger around Jude’s in a gay little pinky hug and for the first time in my life I understand why people post “I’M DONE!” GIFs all over the internet.

Is this what it feels like to die!?

No, dude. This is what it feels like to live.

:’)

Lord, I cried cried cried during this scene. I was never brave enough to hold another girl’s hand when I was 13, but when I finally did — in my 20s! — it still felt like this, like running a marathon or jumping off a cliff and cutting out your own heart to feed ot the birds on the way down. I don’t know one single gay person who watched this scene and was not so moved. Our whole senior staff, my sister, my girlfriend, all of Tumblr and Twitter, my dear friend Lucy Hallowell who has been recapping this show from the word go. It’s just so real and so true. And it’s directed and edited brilliantly.

There’s an eight-year-old boy in my life who is struggling with some complicated relationship feelings and getting bullied so much that he doesn’t even want to go to school. He said he doesn’t want to go to school on Valentine’s Day especially because he wants his Valentine to be this one boy and he’s afraid that’s gay. It doesn’t matter that he has been exposed to gay people his whole life, and cherishes all his relationships with the gay adults in his world, or that he has parents who use the word “gay” as nothing more than a descriptor like “left-handed.” He’s eight. His peers are what matters. And he’s terrified of going to school on Valentine’s Day. Who knows where he’ll land on the gender/sexuality scale when he’s old enough to understand and start exploring the full spectrum of things. But man, I wish he was old enough to be into this show. Or that other family shows (and cartoons) would grasp that gay feelings are so much more than gay sex feelings. No first grader is asking how Ariel and Prince Eric fuck!

I also love that this show is exploring how Jude can struggle with this on a personal level despite the fact that Stef and Lena are his heroes and his moms and he has no ethical conundrum with gay people. More realness and more truth.

Just watch it:

The next day, the cops visit Callie at work. Remember that snooping lady in the trinket shop with the side-eye? She remembered that Callie bought a toy dog at her shop at Christmas. And Callie gave that to Daphne, remember? And Daphne gave it to Tasha. And Tasha had it when she walked on home from being kidnapped. So I guess she did have a souvenir after all. Whoops! Callie tells them she’s calling a parent since she’s a minor. And the person she calls is Robert. Double whoops!

She could have called Lena but Lena is busy at school doing paperwork and unwisely blowing off steam about Stef to her principal who is recently divorced and obviously in love with her. Lena, you be careful, girl.

What are you doing?

Using my mouth without using my brain. I think it’s called “pulling a Stef”?

Finally, back at home, Ana visits Stef and Lena and asks them to adopt her baby and never have sex again, a thing that was obviously Mariana’s idea.

Next week: Callie tries to stay out of jail while Robert regals her with tales of riding on gondolas in Venice. Stef swings at everything that comes near the plate, instead of waiting for strikes. Lena fires Timothy and gets closer with the tricksy principal. And Mariana builds a functioning hoverboard on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

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