The Fosters Recap 219: Monty Python And The Holy Grail

Previously on The Fosters, Lena spilled a few too many emotional beans in Monty’s direction while Jude and Connor made out with each other’s faces while Callie finally came clean to Stef about why she agreed to go live with Robert. Also, Brandon sold a baseball.

All Callie had to do was say the words “You’re my moms” (and they are!) to Stef and Lena, and they have tripled down on keeping her. They call their lawyer to their house for a strategy session, and this lady isn’t pulling any punches. She tells them it was always going to be a hard sell, and now that they’re having to factor Bro Code into it, it’s going to be very nearly impossible to convince the judge to side with them over Robert. All Stef wants Callie to do is ask Robert, in front of the judge, to let Callie live out her 180 days of foster custody with them. She thinks Robert will have to agree because he wants to look good. Both the lawyer and Callie are worried that Stef and Lena are spending dollars and hit points on a game they can’t win, but so was interracial marriage and same-sex marriage just a very few years ago, so they’re used to beating the odds.

All the Adams Foster kids are in the bathroom trying to brush their teeth, and like always when they are gathered in the same space, everyone starts shaking the secrets out of their hair.

Mariana: Everybody calm down. There’s going to be more room soon because Jesus is going to boarding school on a scholarship. But, well, that’s not exactly true because the baby will be small but will probably get her own room. Brandon’s room. Which means you’ll be moving in with Jesus, Brandon.
Callie and Brandon: Wait, Jesus got an academic scholarship?

Once Mariana has scooted, Jesus explains about Anna’s baby and says there’s no way Stef and Lena are going to adopt her.

The next morning, Stef and Lena go over the things they have to do today: Feed and clothe five kids, work ten hours at their jobs, reschedule with Jesus’ wrestling guy from the Testosterone Academy, hit up the judge at lunchtime to convince him to let Callie stay for a while, and get slightly passive-aggressive about how much say Stef’s ex-husband and Lena’s new boss get in terms of raising their children. Lena wants to have Monty over for dinner to scope out the scene there, especially because she’s a graduate of like every single Ivy League school, and Stef knows academia really gets Lena going. Lena does not want to have Monty over because the DVR is at 86% and if they don’t start watching and deleting stuff, it’s going to stop recording new episodes.

As soon as Lena has left for work, Stef opens up the laptop she shares with her wife* and clicks on a folder on her desktop** and inside it is a report from a PI about Robert Rich’s misdeeds, including: a mistress.

*Dumb place to hide a thing.
**Double dumb place to hide a thing. 

Mariana is still trying to recruit for her dance team, so she’s psyched when Jesus tells her Emma used to be a cheerleader. Mariana stalks Emma down at school like a lion does a zebra and yells about her being a cheerleader one time. Emma ducks her head down and her eyes dart around like Mariana just outed her as a Russian spy or something. Mariana explains that dance team stuff isn’t cheerleading stuff. They’re not on the sidelines; they’re the game! Emma seems like the kind of girl that is always moved by rousing pep talks in sports movies, and Mariana’s feminist monologue moves her just as good. She agrees to give it a go.

Courtyard.

Jude: Connor, hey, do you have some gum? The bathroom at my house was packed this morning and I forgot to brush my teeth.
Connor: Kiss me and I’ll tell you if your breath is okay.
Jude: Haha. Yeah, okay.
Connor: No, for real, do you want to study/make out this afternoon at your house?
Taylor to Daria at a picnic table across the way: Your boyfriend is gay, by the way.

Also, at school: Brandon’s music teacher tells him his classical music camp gave away his no-questions-asked spot, but he can still audition if he wants. And Lena peeps Mariana’s new literature teacher lulling everyone to sleep.

At the courthouse, the judge is pretty annoyed that Callie isn’t just adopted already by someone, but Robert pipes right up and tells him not to be too hard on these hysterical womenfolk and their indecisive ways. Menses, you know. He also offers up Callie to Stef and Lena for the rest of their 180 days and the judge is so taken with his selflessness, whiteness, and manness that he agrees and says Callie also needs to start spending every other weekend with her father so she can have good influences in her life.

Lena has a real hard time believing Robert just came in there of his own volition with Callie’s best interests at heart. Stef is all, “But that surprising, out-of-the-blue-clear-sky thing that I had nothing to do with has bought us some time for the next phase of my plan! Er, I mean the first phase of my plan! We have to get Callie emancipated!” Which means Callie gets to choose where Callie gets to live and anyone can adopt her if she says so and it’s a whole other court system so Robert doesn’t even have to know it’s happening, but it takes 179 days, so they’ve got to get started right now.

Lena doesn’t have time to process the depth or breadth of Stef’s scheming because they bump into Monty on the catwalk. Stef invites her to dinner this very night, and Monty gladly accepts. Lena is not too keen on it but she smiles politely anyway.

Dance tryouts! One of the funniest things ever! Emma shows up and crushes it because Emma can do any damn thing she wants and I hope she is Mariana’s vice-president (of the entire United States) one day. Callie shows up too, just to be supportive, but Mariana doesn’t know that. She thinks Callie is for real and she also thinks Callie is the best dancer in the whole world. It’s so sweet and ridiculous! She’s so blinded by love-eyes! Callie dances like left shark and Tia tries to approach it with this leading statement like, “And Callie was…” And Mariana legit goes, “AWESOME!” Tia’s face. She whips her head around like, “Whaaaaaa.” But Mariana doesn’t even see her; she’s rushing over to hug Callie and welcome her to the team.

I love that they’re making Mariana this unapologetic feminist. She’s like the face of Tumblr right now. “We’re every woman!” she proclaims during the tryouts.

Brandon is over at his dad’s practicing his classical music when Ana comes in crying. She apologizes for a lot of things, including taking his money when he bribed her to change her story about the night when Stef got shot by her boyfriend. She says she’s trying to make amends, including sending out these letters to the people she’s wronged, but some of them keep coming back. Brandon tells her not to worry about paying him, that Mike paid him for that and for his baseball and would honestly pay Brandon for a bucket of water in a hurricane if Brandon asked him to.

When Connor arrives at the Jonnor Bench of Feelings and Covert Flirting that afternoon, Connor is making out with Daria. He blows her off to go study and play footise with Jude, during which:

Jude: So, um, is Daria a thing that’s going to keep happening?
Connor: I mean, I guess? As long as my dad thinks I want to sproink her, I can keep, you know, hanging out with you.
Jude: Hanging out.
Connor: Yeah, like the four of us can do this very night. The girls want to sneak out and toilet paper someone’s house.

Jesus barges in and tells them to scram so he can do his homework. I’d be mad at him if he was anyone else but I also have ADD and cannot concentrate when other people near me are blinking. Connor and Jude hit up every nook and cranny of the house but they are all occupied with other teenagers, and also with moms preparing to feed the principal dinner at the fancy table. Jude walks Connor outside and Connor is like, “Just sneak out tonight and come do TPing with us and afterwards we can hang out in the dark by ourselves.” Jude’s never done a single wrong thing in his life, never even jaywalked probably, but dang man, he sure does like kissing Connor.

Stef and Lena explain Stef’s plan to get her adopted. Step one: She has to get off probation. Step two: She has to get a full-time job. Step three: She has to save up enough money to live on her own with her minimum wage-paying full-time job. Step four: She has to keep going to school full-time also. Step five: She has to keep her grades up. Step six: She has to keep seeing Robert every day for a third of the month. Step seven: She has to not tell him any of this stuff. Step eight: She has to not commit any more felonies, accidental or otherwise, to keep her friends out of trouble. Step nine: She has to get a judge to agree that she can be emancipated.  Step ten: Stef and Lena adopt her! Easy peasy!

All of this has to happen in like three weeks. D-Day planning probably seemed like a sure-er thing than this, but okay, Stef.

Dinner with Monty is super weird. Stef and Monty spend the whole time complimenting each other on how awesome they are at being awesome while Mariana gives a presentation about why Timothy should be allowed to come back to school and teach. But after dinner things get weirder because Monty starts saying all these things Stef doesn’t know she knows, like about how Timothy was their donor and about how Lena is having second thoughts about not taking Ana’s baby. So Stef just guzzles up her merlot and tells the story of how Jesus came home from school and found Timothy’s spunk in a cup on the sink one day.

Lena’s face: Did you seriously just say that to my boss?
Stef’s face: Oh, my bad, I thought we were telling Monty everything.

Elsewhere, Brandon breaks the news to the band about not going on tour with them and Mariana gives Callie dance lessons. It’s like Mariana has accepted that Callie dances like a clumsy Tyrannosaurus, but she wants her to at least kick it up to sexy clumsy Tyrannosaurus. She tries to show her hip-shaking stuff and hair-whishing stuff but none of it works. Finally, Callie fakes having homework so she can get out of it.

In the bathroom, Callie and Brandon bump into each other and do not make out. They act like brothers and sisters who love each other and just need to come clean about all the lying they’ve been doing. Callie to Mariana about the dancing. And Brandon to the band about how his moms won’t let him go on tour. They shake on it instead of kissing and groping. Progress!

Stef and Lena have A Serious Conversation.

Stef: Lena, honey, you cannot Pull a Stef. There is only room in this relationship for one person who Pulls a Stef.
Lena: I know.
Stef: I love that you have a cool new friend, but you cannot let me hear from her about your deepest fears, okay?
Lena: You’re right.
Stef: That was sexy; say that again!
Lena: But should we take Ana’s baby? I don’t want Mariana to hate us.
Stef: We can’t get a baby because we feel guilty.

They smooch and agree no more secrets. (Hear that, Stefanie? NO MORE SECRETS.)

Well, the next day Timothy is back at school because Monty offered him his job back and he guesses she’s not an emotional tyrant, after all, and still does not take one single bit of responsibility for his belligerence, deliberate obtuseness, and giant baby temper tantrum that got him fired. Lena thanks Monty for it, though, because at least it means Mariana’s going to dial it back to third gear for a second, and they hug for way too long and agree to have lunch.

Um. Lena. You literally just agreed not to Pull a Stef three hours ago. USE YOUR BRAIN.

Mariana and Callie keep being cute as kitten gifs with each other.

Callie: Hey, uh, I can’t practice dancing today because I, uh, broke my butt.
Mariana: Oh, wow, yeah. Broken butts are the worst. You definitely can’t dance with that.
Callie: Like probably not for years. Broken butts take years to heal.
Mariana: I’ve heard that, yeah. Gosh, I’m so sorry.
Callie: I mean, like, you might even want to find someone to replace me on the dance team.
Mariana: I hate to do it. You are my number one choice. But maybe you’re right.
Callie: I didn’t break my butt.
Mariana: I know.
Callie: You gotta get a different dancer.
Mariana: Yeah, for sure.

They hug and laugh and are such sisters.

Stef and Lena, assuming their shit is in check and they are telling each other whole truths, go to Mike’s to tell Ana they’ll take her baby. Mike’s face is so Classic Mike. Just WHY DO LESBIANS GET EVERYTHING. But while that is happening, Brandon is telling Mariana all about how Stef and Lena will never take the baby and he scooped Ana’s private mail out of his dad’s garbage and here’s her grandparents’ address and so go meet them what’s the worst hat could happen maybe they can take the baby and you can at least get to know it a little bit why are you crying. Brandon. Good grief. I was just starting to really like you for the first time ever. Affection retracted!

That night, Lena can’t sleep because she’s excited about baby cribs, so she gets up and opens up the laptop she shares with Stef to shop for one, and — whoopsie daisy! — she sees Stef’s investigative report on Robert. When Stef comes downstairs, Lena gives it to her real good and stomps off.

Okay. Whew. Hang onto your hearts. The Tween Scene is ready to go with their plan of TP-ing some girls house. Jude rides up on his bike with his helmet and his headlamp and my god could he be any more perfect? They TP the house and that’s fine, and afterward, Jude and Taylor are sitting on this bench and she’s like, “I guess Daria and Connor are having sex.” And Jude goes, “THEY’RE HAVING SEX?!??!!?” But Daria was just testing him. Question number two is: Will you kiss me? And he won’t, and that’s how come she knows he’s got a crush on Connor, and she tells him so.

So then Daria and Connor come back and Taylor’s just sort of had it with everyone but her getting some action, so she invites them all to come over to house to rummage through her dad’s liquor cabinet and have a foursome. Connor’s feeling it a lot, and his eager little face coaxes Jude into going, even though Jude keeps saying what a bad idea it is the whole time.

And Jude is right. No sooner do they start swigging whiskey does Taylor’s dad come running downstairs, literal guns-a-blazin’! He shoots the kids! Just shoots them with a gun! And that’s the end!

Next week: Jude is okay and Connor is not and Stef and Lena better get their little act together and I mean it.