Previously on The Fosters, Stef and Lena tried to find the balance between saving all the world’s children and being sexy lesbian wives who are in love. Monty, the new vice-principal at Anchor Beach, made it weird the way straight girls do when they put their face close to your face and splash all their intimate feelings all over you like spilled champagne and act like it’s NBD WHATEVER because they’re straight. “Straight.” Lips touched lips. It was not good. Callie’s life was just one shitshow after another, until her birth dad finally checked his entitled straight white rich guy wanktitude and signed the papers letting Stef and Lena adopt her. Mariana learned to code and began her ascension toward the presidency of the galaxy. Connor and Jude held pinkies, kissed on the lips, played Minecraft in bed together, and only one of them got shot, and only once, and it was just in the foot, and that’s progress! Jesus wrestled and took off his shirt a lot. Also, there was a fatal car crash.

I love all of my children equally!

Stef wakes up from a PTSD-induced nightmare about what happened after the season finale, when she arrived at the scene of the car crash and Mariana was all bruised up but Jesus was getting wheeled away into an ambulance all covered in blood. Lena stirs and asks her what’s wrong and Stef’s like, “I’m having a hard time sleeping because I’m obsessing over all the things I can’t control that can hurt our children. ‘Hero’ and ‘Mom’ are two of the three main circles in the Venn diagram of my whole self, and I’m starting to realize there might not be as much overlap there as I thought.” Lena kisses her face and big spoons her and assures her that she is a very good hero and a very good mom and very good HeroMom and together they can face all the things neither of them can control.

I don’t really care for Brandon.

JUST KIDDING!

Stef: I’m good everything’s good I’m always good go back to sleep.
Lena: Fine. G’night.

Has there ever been a lesbian less interested in talking about her feelings than Stef? She’s the rarest species in the entire Queer Animal Kingdom.

Adams Foster Breakfast Express. Stef and Lena call Jesus at Wrestling Academy and pass the phone around to all the children so they can talk to him for a while, since he’s definitely alive and not dead from that car crash. In fact, no one is dead from the car crash. Ana got walloped, but she’s okay and so is her baby. Mariana will be helping her out for a while. Callie’s okay, too. She’s been approved to do an independent study at the foster kids center to help her fill out the credits she needs to graduate. Jude has grown two unicorn sizes; he’s also good. Everyone is good!

Quick smooch before the zoo opens!

Well, except for Brandon, who cannot believe he’s got to drive to his elite music camp, instead of taking a chartered jet or sleeping on site in the Jay-Z Suite.

While the standard morning hullabaloo is going on — I honestly don’t know how they do it; I need two hours of complete silence and two cups of coffee before I even interact with the cat — Monty texts to ask Lena kind of coffee she can bring her, and Mike arrives to talk about how he and Stef are investigating the car crash that hammered Jesus and Mariana. (Spoiler alert: Neither of these things are wise ideas.) Finally, everyone zooms off to their own summer business.

At Anchor Beach, for some reason. Summer school?

Are we going to announce that we’re boyfriends, or do you think people will just infer it from see us holding hands and kissing?

Connor: Hey, Boyfriend!
Jude: Hey, Boyfriend!
Jude: How about let’s tell no one about this, though?
Connor: Wait, for real? ‘Cause, like, your moms are lesbians and everyone’s cool with it. Monty is obviously super queer for Lena, and no one seems to mind. The Supreme Court is about to rule in favor of marriage equality. And I mean, have you ever even been on Tumblr?
Jude: I don’t know. I’m not feeling being loud about it.
Connor: You’re kind of stomping all over the sacrifice I made of getting shot to make out with you, dude.
Jude: I have to go do things somewhere else now, bye.

The so-very-true-to-life juxtaposition of Callie and Brandon’s worlds continues to be one of the least talked about but most interesting parts of this show. Callie is on her way to work at the foster center when she gets street harassed by this dude who turns out to be a foster kid himself, a thing Callie only finds out when he shows up at the center, hungry and looking to use a computer. So you know what she does? She makes him a sandwich and talks to him about his life in the system and his brother and how they made up a superhero to signal each other and communicate when they were trapped in separate homes. Afterwards, Rafael is like, “You’re so otherworldly empathetic and generous with your heart and but also hard in the places you need to be, I think you’d made a very good social worker.” He also tells her not to ever leave Chekhov’s Spray Paint Cabinet unlocked in the presence of the foster teens.

And Brandon, he goes to fancy music camp in the woods, where he finds out he wasn’t accepted for being a pianist, but was, instead, accepted for being a composer. So he stomps to this classroom to be by himself and play the piano angrily and sulk, when this whole other composer named Kat comes in and compliments his mad “rock star” skills — okay, but that’s before she finds out Brandon is going to be her composing partner for the summer. She has a fit! It is a fit worthy of Brandon’s fits! They should hook up and get married and have so many fits about how hard impossible is when you don’t get praised for doing classical music the way you want to do classical music!

Mad Max is a propaganda film that promotes a matriarchal society!

It’s misandry!

Yep.

In the real world, Stef and Mike do some investigating about the car accident. The guy who owned the truck that smashed into Ana’s car, well he reported it stolen after the accident, and also he’s got a son he conveniently did not tell the police about when he called in his missing truck. Stef wants to murder him right there on the spot, one less person in the world threatening her baby bears, but Mike guides her away before she can dismantle him. Their next stop is the son of the guy who owns the truck. He gets squirrely with Stef and so she decides he’s the one that smashed into her kids, and so she’s going to deal a swift blow of justice to his face. She’s halfway there when Mike, again, talks her down by explaining that this kids’ prints are not in the truck. So, thwarted once more, Stef just goes to the junkyard where the two cars are being kept and sets the truck on fire.

Anchor Beach some more.

So. Let’s go stay in a hotel together.

Girl, what?

Monty: I want to go to an academic conference in Washington! Let’s go together and go back to being best friends! We’ll learn about standardized testing, you’ll overshare about your marriage, I’ll caress your hair intimately; it’ll be like the simpler days!
Lena: I don’t feel like that’s a good idea.
Monty: Well, I do, because I am super straight. I was married to a dude!
Lena: Yeah, so was Stef. And Wanda Sykes. And Meredith Baxter. So was Portia de Rossi!

Jude and Connor canoodle and say their goodbyes after summer school. They agree to meet tonight at the school-sponsored beach party. They agree they’ll miss each other during the three hours when they’re apart. They still don’t agree about being gay together out loud, which is why it gets pretty weird when Daria rushes up as soon as Jude bounces to shout at Connor about how he broke up with her. Daria seems like the kind of girl who monitors her social media followers and when like one person unfriends her or whatever, she launches a full-scale investigation and follows it up like: “Just emailing to see if you saw the Tumblr ask I left about the Facebook message I sent about the Instagram video I uploaded about the Snapchat I tweeted asking why you unfollowed me?” She seems like she’ll grow out of it, though, which is more than I can say for half the adults I know.

What do you think would happen if we put a werewolf on the moon?

Shit!

Anyway, Connor is like, “We’re thirteen, Daria. This is life.” But Taylor’s all, “Just tell her you’re in love with Jude, asshole.” Which, I mean: Fair, but complicated.

Mariana spends her day taking care of Ana’s new baby while watching Judge Judy with her on the couch. And then she goes home and reads five books on parenting, codes a program to teach a robot to breastfeed, plays two games of chess with herself, records and uploads a YouTube tutorial about proper eyeliner technique, knits a couple of sweaters for the new baby, gives herself a manicure, cooks dinner, plays a little Model UN online, and has a nap. When Mat arrives, he reminds her that they haven’t had sex and so therefore she can’t be pregnant and so why is is reading books about babies? She says because of how she’s the mother of Ana’s new baby, kind of, and she’ll see him at the beach party after she drops off the breastfeeding robot for her new brother/son.

Okay, but Ana doesn’t want the robot! In fact, she is no longer feeling any of the broken rib pain of her car accident and would like Mariana to skedaddle so she can bond with her newborn child!

Stef said if I get hurt again I have to live in a hamster ball, but for now I can just wear these football pads.

Mariana’s feelings are hurt, from many angles, quite rightly.

SCHOOL-SPONSORED BEACH PARTY, YO!

Connor is hopping across the sand, making love eyes at Jude, when some random teen rushes them yelling about if they’re homosexual for each other now. Jude’s eyes panic but Connor is chill as fuck. He stops on a dime on those crutches, turns slowly to look at the random guy, and goes, “Yes. We’re gay for each other. Is that a thing that is a problem to you in any way? My biceps are curious.” Random teen says he doesn’t care, no big deal, whatever, everyone is gay now, it’s all good. You think it’s Daria, right? Like sweet revenge? Well, no, though; Daria’s just a teenage girl navigating a world filled with impossible beauty standards and being battered every day from every direction that her main mission in life is to be fuckable, and a her first boyfriend just broke up with her! She just feels shitty! But then when she finds out he broke up with her because of being gay, she is absolved, and everything is okay!

It was Taylor who told everyone. She’s only trying to comfort her best friend with facts and show Jude and Connor how it’s totally not an issue, but, again: Not your place, sweet elf.

No, for real, they made an Entourage movie.

Also at the party? Stef, out of the blue clear sky.

Lena: You okay? I’m surprised you’re giving up your one alone night in the house that you get every five years to hang out on the beach with our angsty teenagers.
Stef: I am so good, though.
Lena: Stef.
Stef: Like so good.
Lena: Sweet love.
Stef: Oh god, I’m a mess, Lena! We came this close to losing Callie, this close to losing Jesus and Mariana. I don’t have control over anything and I’m terrified every second! If we lose them, Lena, I’ll be lost too, forever!
Lena: Oh, I love you.
Stef: I love you.
Lena: I love you.
Brandon: Can I talk to you guys a second? I was supposed to be doing this one rich white kid thing and now I am having to do this other rich white kid thing. I’m so upset! Everything is terrible!

After Lena comforts her whole-hearted Gryffindor wife — you know, being married to Stef would be an awful lot like being married to actual Harry Potter — she finds Monty and tells her she can’t go to Washington to share a hotel with her right now, or probably ever actually. Monty is like, “Because of your wife standing over your shoulder?” And Lena is all, “Bitch, yes! Of course it’s about my wife!”

Ugh, I hate knowing Stef is going to find out about that kiss at the absolute worst possible time! Probably while she’s watching Callie get eaten alive by an alligator!

Also at the beach, Mariana tries to have sex with Mat to remind him not to cheat on her when he’s on tour this summer, but Mat’s not interested in where sand goes when you get naked in it, so he takes a hard pass. You know who shows up to comfort Mariana? Like a monster from the sea? Wyatt and his damn perfect hair. He uses it to seduce Mariana. She’s had a bad day. Sometimes shiny locks is all it takes.

You ever think about how Neil Armstrong’s name is Neil A and when you spell it backwards, it’s “Alien”?

Farther down the ocean, Connor hobbles up to Jude.

Connor: Dude, storming off dramatically is part of being our age, I get it, but give a brother a break; I’m on crutches!
Jude: It’s significant that I feel safe expressing anger to and at you, but I probably won’t realize that until I’m in my mid-20s.
Connor: Do you like me, man?
Jude: Uh, I like you like I like the sun. In that you warm and light my entire world and keep me from floating out into the abyss.
Connor: But do you like me-like me, in a tongue-kissing way.
Jude: Yes, duh.
Connor: But you’re not gay?
Jude: I just want to try to not be the kid with all the labels all the time. Jude the Dead Mom Kid. Jude the Foster Kid. Does I have to be Jude the Gay Kid now?
Connor: Okay. I get that. But you’re my boyfriend?
Jude: So much your boyfriend. So much.

Callie talks to her new buddy AJ at the beach, the new foster kid, and even offers to put him up in the foster center for the night, let him sleep on the couch, because he’s in a dangerous situation and he needs a place to crash until he can get placed in a new home and find his brother. But AJ steals that spray paint. And Raphael is so mad about it. He fires Callie on the spot.

Back at home, Stef and Lena cuddle in bed and smooch on the lips and promise to make time for themselves. Then the literal ceiling falls in and they realize they will never take a vacation together FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES.

Let’s take a five-second imaginary vacation before the next thing explodes.

Next week: Mariana feels weird about doing it with Wyatt for a couple of different reasons, but opens up and talks to Callie anyway, about the hard stuff, because somebody’s gotta show Stef it won’t kill you dead to express your feelings. The ATM gives Brandon four 50s instead of ten 20s and he sets the bank on fire. Jude and Connor make the most of Jude’s new living situation, before the show can recast Jesus. And Monty brings Lena breakfast in bed while Stef is on an all-night shift, because what? That’s what friends do!

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