S03.E02: Father's Day

[Tara Ariano]

Stef and Lena host a Father's Day brunch for Mike, and Jude invites Donald to the event. Meanwhile, Callie joins the Quinns for Father's Day and learns something unexpected; and Brandon lets go of some of his frustration.

[Valny]

So how fast are we thinking the foster kid Callie met will soon be living with Lena and Stef?

 

 

Well, I guess I got my answer that I pondered last week!  But I think we all knew it wouldn't take long.

 

When I saw Jude walk to answer the door when Donald came over, I said out loud, "holy shit!" because I got a good look how tall the actor got.  I like that they actually made comments about that.

 

Glad Marianna said she DID use the condom. At least the drinking duo knew to do that!

 

ETA- I did shed a tear at the end when Callie hugs Donald.

Edited June 16, 2015 by Valny

[chabelisaywow]

Call me whatever Miss Priss called Brandon's piece.  Anyone help with how to spell what she said? Thanks

[morakot]

Jejune - immature, simplistic

[Scarlett45]

I was happy to see Jude continue to have a relationship with Donald. And to see Callie and Robert's conversation- it felt very "human". Although I disagree regarding Donald not telling anyone about Callie's bio-father when he went to prision, if Robert had been violent or an addict I could understand it, but knowing her mother was dead and he was going away for who knows how long.....that was very selfish and short sighted.

Mike as a foster parent could be interesting.

[LisaM]

I liked this episode a lot - with the exception of the Brandon plot, which I could care less about -- because it was all about parents and children. Much better than last week.

 

Loved the Ana/Mariana bonding moments; Ana has certainly come a long way as a mother figure since the pilot when she used Mariana for money. Really glad that TPTB didn't kill off Ana so that we get to see this redemption arc. I hope that she doesn't regress. Particularly liked that she counseled Mariana to tell her moms about the hookup with Wyatt. Still not sold on the grandmother because I recall her possibly homophobic reaction to the baby living with Stef and Lena. Why did they only add Mariana's name to the wall and not Jesus' name?

 

Loved the Callie/Jude bickering about Donald. That felt so real - and was a long time in coming. The actor playing Jude has grown so much since the pilot; his facial features are now of a teenager and not of the little brother from the pilot. Loved the Father's Day brunch with the Jonnor reveal -- and Donald's reaction to it .Really glad that they aren't portraying Donald as an asshat. He made a terrible mistake, paid the price for it and realized that he was ill equipped to raise two kids. The one action I have a real issue with is that he was out of prison for a year and didn't track the kids down to make sure that they were safe and in a good home. I hope that we see him continuing to recur in their lives. Loved Callie going to find Donald at the end and their reconciliation. Thought that was very well done and have to admit that I cried.

 

Not surprised about the Quinns separating due to Robert's affair. I've always liked Jill's reaction to both Callie and Jude and hope she sticks around. Sophia still seems very brittle and on the edge; I would like to see her interacting with Jude since they are both Callie's siblings. Loved the Donald/Robert meeting - another scene which was a long time in coming.

 

Mike as a foster parent is a very good idea and a good use of the character. Don't love the plot contrivance which has AJ living in the house with Callie while Mike's license comes through. Hope that Callie tells the moms soon about being fired since Callie and secrets is not a good combination. Cheered when it was revealed that Callie told Stef about AJ and brought her into the meeting at juvie. Showed real character growth on Callie's part.

 

Finally, loved the opening with the moms/the shower/and the plumber. Cutting out Jesus has tightened up the show a bit since we don't have to endure his girlfriend storylines. Not missing him at all.

[butterbody]

Donald won me over with the best line of the night about how Connor being bullied by society isn't as bad as the bullying he endures at home. Connors dad needed a smackdown of truth, and it was glorious.

[Primetimer]

The Fosters takes a shot at a Father's Day tribute. It was a nice idea, but Al Lowe still has questions.

Read the story

[Slugabug Foster]

I admit I teared up when Callie called Robert dad and when she hugged Donald.

Edited June 16, 2015 by Slugabug Foster

[bybrandy]

I really liked Donald in this episode.  I liked him so much.  But I would like for Jude to have just one interaction with his Dad that isn't peppered with questions about Callie.   I always get the impression that Jude is an also ran for him.   Which I guess could make sense since Jude was so little, he would have known Callie so much better, but I'm still always sad for Jude who wants to hang with his dad only to hear, "where is Callie?"  or "been great seeing you, but....Callie?"

[dmmetler]

Kat is like so many kids I knew at music camps and in college. I feel for Brandon, but at the same time, he might as well get used to it. That's what the classical world is like-but at the same time, he doesn't need to impress Kat-he needs to impress his professors. Kat can't afford not to do her best with what he gives her, whether she thinks it's jejeune or not.

I actually think a therapeutic boarding school would be good for Sophia at this point. She is very brittle and fragile, and a separation and possible divorce means that she needs a lot of support and monitoring to insure compliance with medication that her parents are going to be less able to give.

I assume AJ is the next love interest for Callie-and putting him at Mike's avoids the problems with Brandon.

[DeepPoet117]

Seeing how Donald interacted with Jude and Callie made me really wish that the show had done an attempted reunification storyline with him. I like the idea of Mike fostering AJ, but I'm not that thrilled with him staying with Stef and Lena while he gets licensed, which could take months. This would have been a good time to introduce some foster parenting friends of theirs. Maybe another gay couple since AJ said two moms might be cool. 

 

I loved Callie and Jude's argument at the beginning. It was very real. I really wish Brandon would get sent away to some prestigious music boarding school. He's not even being that annoying this season, I just really hate his character. I'm glad Mariana and Ana had their talk and were able to make up a little from their tense moment last week.

[dmmetler]

Idyllwild has a boarding program...or he could go to something like Interlochen (which is safely on the other side of the USA) or even enter Julliard early. It's really not uncommon for really, really good musicians to enter conservatory programs early.

[Perfect Xero]

Is sober less than a year, single cop Mike really a good candidate to foster?

[omgsowicked]

I really enjoyed this episode. Lots of solid parent/kid and sibling scenes... that's what I'm here for. The conversation between Callie and Jude at breakfast was one of my favorites of the episode (Callie and Sophia after the separation reveal was another one). I just love those two together. And while I'd rather Jude be happy all the time, I like when he gets frustrated enough to speak his mind because what he has to say is usually very interesting.

 

I'm liking what they're doing with Connor's dad... they're showing him stumble during his attempt to get on board. It's much more realistic, considering where he started. I liked Donald's comment about bullying at home vs. from society. I felt bad for Jude, that Donald kept asking for Callie, but at least they had plenty of good moments. What I want to know, though, is what was up with Mr. Stevens' attitude with Stef? He seems to like Lena just fine, and was palling around with everyone else at the lunch... was his curtness supposed to suggest that he's uncomfortable with women in powerful, typically male-held positions? Since he was impressed with Mike being a cop but meh about Stef being one as well. Honestly, I really couldn't tell what that was about, it was so subtle and random.

 

I was pleasantly surprised that Mike was going to take AJ, rather than the Adams-Fosters, and yet he's still going to live with them while Mike gets his license. Certainly they have some foster family contacts who could house him for a few months, no? But then we wouldn't have the tension between Callie and AJ, I guess. Good thing Jesus is away at boarding school, so AJ has a place to sleep. Perfect Xero, I thought the same thing, that Mike's sobriety might not allow him to get licensed. And that Stef and Lena will probably swoop in and adopt him. If that's what ends up happening, then I really hope they don't play around with pairing Callie and AJ up... we've already gone through this! LOL. And I like their rocky vibe, Callie getting territorial, much better than any potential romance between them.

 

Ugh, Kat. I hope Brandon figures it out soon, that he has to focus on himself and his own success, because I hate watching him get kicked around. And I sincerely hope they're not planning to pair him and Kat up. Not interested. The chillax dude at the school... he was trying to screw Brandon over? I thought he was really being nice.

[LisaM]

 

Perfect Xero, I thought the same thing, that Mike's sobriety might not allow him to get licensed. And that Stef and Lena will probably swoop in and adopt him.

I don't see AJ becoming a permanent part of the Adams Foster family. If it doesn't work out with Mike, perhaps AJ's brother will be deemed to be a suitable guardian.

 

I watched the episode again last night. Noticed that Callie called Robert "dad" when she handed him the present - after Jude had commented on her calling him "Robert" during their breakfast fight.

[Eeksquire]

This episode was ok, except that I missed my favorite part of the show, which is Stef and Lena - there wasn't nearly enough of them in this episode.  (And arguing about the shower and conditioner was not my idea of a good showcase of either of them, though I did giggle at Lena chastising Stef for coming into the bathroom with the plumber in just a towel - it made me wonder if there isn't a locker room at the police station and she's just more used to communal bathrooms.)

 

I kind of wish Jill had a little more personality - it seems like the last season portrayed her as possibly being somewhat cold to Callie, but now it seems like, nope, she's a saint, but just terribly bland? I can't be invested in her and Robert breaking up because she's so boring.

 

I did really like Mariana's conversation with Ana at the end, and I'm going to give the show the benefit of the doubt that Mariana isn't pregnant because we already had the teenage pregnancy scare storyline with Jesus and Lexi in S1.  I do kind of wish that the show (or television in general) would allow girls to have sex and have it be NDB instead of always turning into some kind of crisis.  Even on this show, which is more sex-positive than most, we've seen Lexi with the pregnancy scare, Callie with her issues (understandable in the context of the character), Brandon's red-headed girlfriend whose name I can't remember having the video of her distributed at school for amusement, and now Mariana having a bad first experience.  Believe it or not, sometimes teenaged girls have sex and it's not terrible! Really!

[GenevieveS]

I really enjoyed this episode. I liked seeing all the non-custodial parents have good parenting moments/conversations with their kids.

 

I also enjoyed seeing Callie's growth in terms of being able to reach out to Stef for help with AJ (although I wished she'd done it earlier when all he needed was a place to sleep...) and the friction between Jude and Callie over whether Donald is welcome in their lives. That seemed very realistic, that siblings could feel very differently about the issue.

 

My third favorite thing was the fact that Sophia is still struggling. I like the realism that she's not magically "cured" and that finding the right combination of medications is taking some trial and error. The "my parents are planning to get rid of me, I know because of how they're behaving" misdirect was nicely done; she's not paranoid (they are keeping a secret and dropping topics when she comes in the room), but it's not about her (at least not in the way she thought it was).

 

I was confused by the Brandon storyline. When he said he thought he'd made a friend, but got stabbed in the back...who was he talking about? The other boy composer? Because I thought he was legitimately friendly, it just back-fired. Kat? And was Kat lying the whole drunk evening to set Brandon up? Why didn't he call her on it when they were with the instructor by saying something like, "I thought you cancelled our 8am session last night when you said you were going to sleep in today."? So confusing. I'm not sure if that was poor writing or poor editing or what. Part of the problem could be that I don't really care about this storyline...

 

Foster parent hat to talk about Mike's ability to get licensed: It should matter, because being a foster parent is stressful and it's important to know how to cope with that in healthy ways. Given how recent his return to sobriety is, it seems like there should be a red flag there. However, it is very hard to recruit foster families for teenagers. (I suspect it's even harder to recruit men, but that's just because of my own anecdotal experience; all the single foster parents I know are women.) Also I don't think anyone outside the family knows about his recent relapse, so he'd pretty much have to self-report it during the evaluation process. We were encouraged to talk about anything and everything that we could think of that might be our personal weaknesses/buttons/past trauma experiences; we were told it was unlikely any of them would cause them to reject us at that point, but that the kids would find them and it was important to know what our own red flags were and be prepared. I can easily imagine a caseworker burying this issue out of desperation for a place for AJ to go; this is especially true if AJ has no past issues with drugs or alcohol, which is what has been suggested so far. I'm also OK with the idea that the Fosters have to be the temporary placement. Again, finding homes for teens is hard; it seems completely reasonable that all the foster parent friends who do that age group already have full houses, too. (Although it would have been good to include a line or two to indicate that....)

[KaveDweller]

I really enjoyed this episode. I liked seeing all the non-custodial parents have good parenting moments/conversations with their kids.

 

I also enjoyed seeing Callie's growth in terms of being able to reach out to Stef for help with AJ (although I wished she'd done it earlier when all he needed was a place to sleep...) and the friction between Jude and Callie over whether Donald is welcome in their lives. That seemed very realistic, that siblings could feel very differently about the issue.

 

My third favorite thing was the fact that Sophia is still struggling. I like the realism that she's not magically "cured" and that finding the right combination of medications is taking some trial and error. The "my parents are planning to get rid of me, I know because of how they're behaving" misdirect was nicely done; she's not paranoid (they are keeping a secret and dropping topics when she comes in the room), but it's not about her (at least not in the way she thought it was).

 

I was confused by the Brandon storyline. When he said he thought he'd made a friend, but got stabbed in the back...who was he talking about? The other boy composer? Because I thought he was legitimately friendly, it just back-fired. Kat? And was Kat lying the whole drunk evening to set Brandon up? Why didn't he call her on it when they were with the instructor by saying something like, "I thought you cancelled our 8am session last night when you said you were going to sleep in today."? So confusing. I'm not sure if that was poor writing or poor editing or what. Part of the problem could be that I don't really care about this storyline...

 

I was a little confused by that too, but I think he was talking about the guy.  Either Kat or the instructor said that some other composer offered to compose for two pianists, so I think the idea was that he set up Brandon to get drunk and mess up, then jump in and play hero/get to work with the most talented player.  It didn't occur to me that the guy was being sneaky like that until Brandon said that, but it makes some sense.

 

I totally don't get what is going on with Kat though.  Was she just totally drunk and doesn't remember what she said to him at the party?

[GenevieveS]

I was a little confused by that too, but I think he was talking about the guy.  Either Kat or the instructor said that some other composer offered to compose for two pianists, so I think the idea was that he set up Brandon to get drunk and mess up, then jump in and play hero/get to work with the most talented player.  It didn't occur to me that the guy was being sneaky like that until Brandon said that, but it makes some sense.

 

I totally don't get what is going on with Kat though.  Was she just totally drunk and doesn't remember what she said to him at the party?

Oh, that makes sense. I didn't remember the other composer's name, so didn't make the connection. Thanks.

[LeGrandElephant]

I'm not sure if these kids have enough parents! They probably need another couple non-overlapping parents. Let's see, we could meet the twins' dad, but then it could turn out Ana slept with two guys and isn't sure which is the dad, so they all bond while waiting for DNA results, but then it turns out they are each the dad of one of the twins and the twins don't have the same dad either! Then we get two more dads on the show. Can anyone think of a way we can have more moms pop up out of the woodwork? Maybe Donald and Callie's mom used a surrogate to have Jude and never mentioned it?

Edited June 18, 2015 by LeGrandElephant

[LisaM]

I actually like how many different parents are involved; I think it is pretty realistic given the history of all of these kids. I also liked how Mariana mentioned that she has "x number of birth uncles, x number of birth cousins". I'd imagine that a blended family like this one has a pretty messy family tree.

[tennisgurl]

Thank God we don't have to deal with any Marianna/Wyatt teen sex drama this week! For that alone I give this episode an A.

 

Thought this was a really good episode. I was thrilled to see Donald again, and see that he is going to still have a relationship with his kids. In fact, it was just nice seeing all the kids reconnect with their bio families. 

 

Marianna and Anna have come so far since the first episode. Their conversation was great, and I hope they continue to focus on Marianna reconnecting with her bio family, and not on teen drama. 

 

Loved that they ended on the kids tells Lena and Steff how they were their parents, even with all their various dads and moms. Awwwww

[KaveDweller]

I'm not sure if these kids have enough parents! They probably need another couple non-overlapping parents. Let's see, we could meet the twins' dad, but then it could turn out Ana slept with two guys and isn't sure which is the dad, so they all bond while waiting for DNA results, but then it turns out they are each the dad of one of the twins and the twins don't have the same dad either! Then we get two more dads on the show. Can anyone think of a way we can have more moms pop up out of the woodwork? Maybe Donald and Callie's mom used a surrogate to have Jude and never mentioned it?

They could have Callie and Jude's mom come back from the dead. Then reveal that she used both an egg donor and a surrogate for Jude.

[LeGrandElephant]

I think the only parent that's really unrealistic is Robert. It doesn't make sense that neither Donald nor the state would have pointed him out as a possible guardian instead of foster care. Having him pop up out of nowhere and get in a custody battle undermined the plausibility of a lot of storylines, even though I like his character. 

 

So, Callie has two live dads, two live moms, and a dead mom (and arguably some kind of stepmom in Jill?). Jude has one dad, two live moms, and a dead mom. The twins have three moms (and I suspect will have a dad pop up soon when they need another storyline). Brandon has two moms and one dad. 

 

Donald came off pretty well in this episode - it makes me wonder why he didn't stay in touch with Callie and Jude in the first place. Hard to reconcile his character now with a guy who would just not write letters or check in on his kids to see if they're ok once he got out of jail.

Edited June 18, 2015 by LeGrandElephant

[Slugabug Foster]

Just got to thinking... I wonder what happened to Callie's "I have a father, his name is Donald" spiel? Unless she was just doing it to spite Robert back when they first met. That seems pretty likely.

[Glade]

I'm really glad that John stood up to Connor's dad, he is a bully.  It's a travesty that no one reported him back when Connor had a black/cut eye.  I take it he's still beating his son, just not leaving marks on his face anymore.  I wonder if nothing's being done so that eventually Connor will end up in the system when his father goes too far?

[Perfect Xero]

Donald came off pretty well in this episode - it makes me wonder why he didn't stay in touch with Callie and Jude in the first place. Hard to reconcile his character now with a guy who would just not write letters or check in on his kids to see if they're ok once he got out of jail.

 

This bugged me a bit, even if I'm willing to write off his driving drunk and getting his wife killed as "worse luck" (and sorry, having an affair isn't as bad a mistake as that IMO), there's the fact that he cut off contact with his kids while he was still incarcerated and was out of prison for a year (IIRC) without contact before Callie found out and tracked him down. Now he shows up for Jude, has the exact right words for the situation, and has Robert going to bat for him with Callie?

[HeatherinThailand]

This was maybe my favorite episode of the series so far. I like that we got to see the kids have good interactions with their bio-parents and that Lena and Stef were not territorial about it at all, but encouraged the relationships. I really like that this show is expanding and redefining the meaning of family because that's the ever changing world in which we live. All my other thoughts have been expounded on already up thread.