The Fosters Episodes 220-221 Recaps: Dystopian Robot Apocalypse

What Stef finds out is that someone is using Callie’s identity to open credit cards and buy designer handbags with them and then sell the handbags on the black market. I laughed about that. Like really hard. About a handbag black market. And my best friend was like, “Wait, you don’t think that’s real? That’s real. The designer handbag black market is super real. What’s not real is magical parrots who solve mysteries.”

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Stef, no. You don’t spell out “hashtag.” It’s just the number sign.

Stef explains to Callie about this “designer handbag black market” that is somehow more of “a real thing” than Tippi the Bird.

Callie spends her afternoon volunteering at the foster kids care center. She’s thrown a little bit when Sara shows up there. You remember Sara. She’s the girls Callie got moved away from the foster home she was living in because her foster brother, Liam, was using and abusing her, a thing Callie knew because he’d done the same to Callie when she was his foster sister. Callie told the truth about Liam raping her, and so Sara got pulled from his house. She hated Callie for it, remember. Raph agrees to deal with Sara so Callie doesn’t have to, and that’s really the least he can do after spending three hours telling Callie about how easy it is for foster kids to end up homeless after their identities are stolen.

But Callie notices that Sara has a designer handbag. There’s no way she could afford such a thing, so Callie pickpockets her designer wallet out of there and opens it up and finds like 20 credit cards with her name on them. Dammit, Sara!

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I’ll talk to Connor for you if you’ll give me Mariana’s phone number.

Taylor and Jude hang out for a little while at school and are flawless, as per the usual.

Jude: It’s weird that Connor told his dad it was all my fault that he got shot when it was really all your fault that he got shot.
Taylor: I mean. It was kind of my dad’s fault since he’s the one who opened fire on us.
Jude: Yeah, I guess. I just don’t understand why he won’t text me back.
Taylor: My dad and I are going to see him today to apologize for shooting him. Do you want me to tell him you love him?
Jude: Yes. What? No! Just, uh, tell him I said, “What’s up … bro.”

Instead, Taylor goes to the hospital and gives Connor her phone, and the first thing he does it text Jude. It’s one of my favorite ever coming out scenes on TV because it’s just what the world is like now for so many teenagers. Jude wants to know why Connor pinned the whole getting shot thing on him, and Connor goes, “What? I didn’t. But I told my dad I’m gay.” Just so breezy. Just over text message. Just telling the boy you love that you told your dad that you’re a boy who loves boys. Jude smiles so sweetly and happily, because he doesn’t care about the label; he cares that what Connor is saying is, “I want to be with you.”

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:)

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:D

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:’D

This is such an important storyline. The best eight-year-old boy in my life/the world is getting bullied mercilessly right now in his second grade classroom, and it’s breaking my heart into a zillion pieces. Because he’s working some stuff out in his young little brain. Because he wanted another boy in his class to be his Valentine. Because he also likes fingernail polish. Because he lives in rural Georgia and so many of the brainwashed Baptist kids in his class are horrible. And I’m watching Jude and Connor and I’m wishing the eight-year-old boy in my life was just a few years older, so he could watch them too. And what a world when he only needs to be a few years older than second grade to be able to see something of himself reflected on TV! With the exception of Ellen, I didn’t see my first lesbian character on television until I was in my mid-20s! What a time to be alive, y’all. Bradley Bredeweg and Peter Paige, I just want to hug you and buy you a drink (and hug you again)!

Mariana goes back to the bakery to see her grandparents, and to deliver Anna’s letter, which she has read now. Her grandma recognized her the first time; she looks just like Anna used to look. Mariana explains that she and Jesus have a wonderful home with wonderful moms and she’s a super genius and he’s going on a wrestling scholarship to Testosterone Academy maybe, but there’s a new sister on the way, and maybe her grandparents can adopt it and have a second chance at saving Mariana and Jesus. She thanks them for the Christmas presents. (Remember those signs that were their names that they got for Christmas but they didn’t know who sent them? They were from their grandpa. He has handmade signs of all his grandkids’ names hanging in his bakery.)

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I’ll sponsor you to shut up about Spew.

Stef is all femmed up and ready to buy a blackmarket handbag. She meets the seller in a parking lot, and the seller is Liam. Liam does not recognize Stef, but she sure as hell remembers him. She does the deal with the purse and then reveals herself as Callie Jacobs’ mom, and when Liam tries to run for it, Mike pops out from behind a fence with a gun and Liam is going to jail.

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I’m not A.

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Bullshit.

The next part is so good I was just crying and air-punching the whole time. Part of it was I was still very teary about Mariana and about Connor, and this really just sent me over the emotional edge (but like in a good way; like jumping into a pile of fresh-from-the-dryer towels). So Callie comes to the police station to confront Liam because he was the one behind her identity theft and Sarah was just his pawn. I know this isn’t how real police things work, but I don’t care. Stef lets Callie go into the interrogation room and look her rapist right in the face and explain how she busted him, how she got Sara to turn on him when they showed her that he’d stolen her identity and let another girl use it to do the same thing he was doing to Callie, and she wins and he loses and now he’s going to jail for a long, long time. This show is the antithesis of Glee in every good way. WHO RUN THE WORLD?

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I thought a box of dildos might help our communication problems.

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That’s a start!

On the way home from the precinct, Stef swings by Anna’s new apartment to drop off her prenatal vitamins. It’s a scary, dangerous place, and so you know exactly what happens: Stef brings Anna home so they can adopt her too.

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Heather Hogan

Heather Hogan is an Autostraddle senior editor who lives in New York City with her wife, Stacy, and their cackle of rescued pets. She's a member of the Television Critics Association, GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, and a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer critic. You can also find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Heather has written 1718 articles for us.

25 Comments

  1. YAY! I was waiting for this. It was definitely worth it!

    Fav line might be “Mike wouldn’t stop whining about how he never gets to have anyone’s extra babies.”

    Also, “Robert doesn’t find this ominous in any way because people who own actual yachts hear things differently than the rest of humanity.”

    And honorable mention to all of the photo captions and the listing of various gifts that each would teach to the baby.

    The finale had of the feels with the Jude & Connor stuff. I cant wait to see their lil romance blossom.
    :)

  2. I love these recaps so much because it is so clear how much this show means to you. You write about it with such immense love (and silliness) and I can’t wait for season 3!

  3. “Don’t be a Brandon.” I’m going to cross stitch that on to a pillow.

    Thank you for the double recap! I laughed hysterically and also cried, and it was just what I needed.

  4. I do believe this summary might possibly be better than the actual episodes. Fantastic job!

  5. It cracks me up to no end how merciless you are with poor, put-upon Brandon! :-D

    The #Jonnor scene in the hospital room actually comes after the part where Lena is comforting a crying Jude and then Lena tells Connor’s dad what’s what. This is significant because it holds out the hope that Connor’s dad might at some point not be a total douchecanoe about the fact that Connor has an incurable case of Jude Fever.

    Okay, I hope I’m not stepping on any toes by doing this, and I’m pretty sure I’m not breaking any rules, so here it goes. Quite a few fans of the show have didn’t like it that what transpired between Jude and Connor in the hospital room happened off-scene. It occurred to me that perhaps the producers of the show were faced with time-constraints and just decided to leave the filling in of those details to enterprising gay male fan-fic authors such as yours truly. So feel free to let me know what you think either here or in a guest-review on the linked site, even if you think it’s garbage and I shouldn’t have posted a link to it here:

    The Conversation In The Hospital Room by Venuspluto67

  6. It was predictable that Robert would give in when the battle went too far (or he would get run under by a car.) I hope they’ve a storyline for them next season – I liked his guilt and their relationship. And, Sophia being Callie’s mini-me amazes me probably too much.

    Mariana is the best, I wish she would start dating Emma – but, I guess the show has maxed out their gay quota (or – “same story” quota.)

    I re-watched the Lena & Monty kissing scene, and the kiss is actually 3 seconds (hmr, counting the duration of kisses is usually a sign of shipping.) So, my guess is that storyline is far from over – but will probably end up with Monty imploding. I think Monty is great (aside from the kissing of married people) and Stef not so much, I really didn’t like her railroading Callie.

    One of the people, who were in the car, tweeted on twitter that they won’t be returning next season, whether she or he is the fatality or not, I don’t know – but, next season will be sad (too sad if it is Mariana who dies, really.)

    Thanks for the recaps, Heather :)

  7. Next season I really want to see some drama related to the very complex chore chart depicted in the opening credits.

  8. Going on a tangent here, but is it just me or is Tia a total babe? I lowkey ship her and Marianna

  9. also “and Brandon can bitch about how much space it is taking up” after all the heartwarming stuff everyone else will do with the baby was easily the best line of the article. I laughed.

  10. I have become obsessed with the Fosters, marathoned it on youtube in 2min clips. I just wish I’d been able to watch it when I was 14! It makes me so happy that this kind of show is what is out there now for the next lot coming up.

    Anyone know if it’ll be on DVD in the UK?

  11. How I imagine each of Jude’s siblings reacting to learning of the official genesis of #Jonnor:

    Callie: “Jude, are you sure you aren’t filling in the blanks with your imagination here? This sounds kind of hard to believe.”

    Mariana: “Oh Jude, that’s *great*! You two are *such* an adorable couple! I’m so freaking *happy* for you both!”

    Jesus: “Okay, if I come back on vacation from boarding school and walk into my room to find you two making out, I have to tell you that I’m going to royally freak.”

    Brandon: “That’s great, I’m happy for you. Now back to talking about me.”

    I actually find myself dreading the fatality in the car crash being Jesus or Mariana because I really don’t want Jude to be sad anymore right now.

  12. “What’s not real is magical parrots who solve mysteries.” – Former Best Friend, I hope!

  13. I’m like 99% sure it’s the other driver who’s dead. It won’t be Ana because she just decided to keep the baby and we already lost a baby this season. It won’t be Mariana cuz she just broke her ankle (let’s be real, that’s how TV logic works). If it’s any one of our characters it would be Jesus seeing as the truck slammed right into him, but he just got into bording school and I don’t think the writers would risk losing all the teenage girls who show up to see his abs (my little cousin being one of them.)

    • I think you may be right. They’re just not going to kill off Mariana, period-end-of-sentence. And having a baby get killed right before it was going to be born (which would be very likely if Ana were killed) is just, well, “Law and Order”-worthy. And I would hate to see Jesus die, even if the actor who portrays him is a habitual drunk-driving jerk-face. (I’ve also heard scuttlebutt that Jake Austin doesn’t really get along very well with his co-stars.)

      If the other driver is killed, that driver’s family seeking legal retribution would be plenty of the sort of drama-fodder on which “The Fosters” apparently thrives!

    • And here’s another thought: If that scuttlebutt about JA not getting along with everybody else is true and Jesus is toast as of the end of the finale, it would be difficult not to conclude that the producers decided to kill off his character so that they could totally wash their hands of his sorry, drunk-driving, diva ass.

      But I still don’t want them to end poor, silly Jesus. :-)

  14. I know I really shouldn’t ship this, but I’m kind of hoping for more to happen between Lena and Monty. Not in a “I hope they get married” way, just in a “this is really hot to watch like Bette and the carpenter” way. I’ll see myself out.

    • omggggg …. i ship monty and lena too. i love stef, i truly do, i feel like I am so much like Stef and Lena is so much like my girlfriend. but there’s been so little lesbian action this season (thanks to the one million foster kids) that i find the Monty-Lena romance/friendship cute. I think Monty really does care for Lena and if the Fosters were’t married, I would totally be up for Monty-Lena as end game. now i’ll see myself out too :)

    • SOMEONE ELSE WHO LOVED BETTE AND THE CARPENTER. I cringe too much to notice the hot with Monty/Lena but maybe I just need to, er, watch their scenes again? I just love Stef/Lena so much that everytime I see Monty I hiss like a cat.

  15. Finally watched the season, and these recaps are the best ever. Can’t wait to watch Season 3!

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