Callie pays a visit to Girls United and is surprised by new developments including paranoid neighbors threatening the land lord to kick the girls out and a new resident with secrets that could jeopardize the safety of the group. Mariana and Hayley cook a romantic double-date dinner for Mat and Jesus. Stef receives a concerning letter from Ana.
I just love Girls United so much. I've said that ever since it was first introduced earlier this year. It has this collection of troubled girls who've all had to deal with so much in their lives already and makes them immensely sympathetic. There's a worldliness when it comes to those characters - being raped, having a mother who didn't take any responsibility, doing drugs, living on the streets, etc. It just puts all the other stories on the show into greater perspective. Pairing the struggles the girls are facing with Jesus' relationship with the manipulative Hayley makes the latter story seem even more trivial and dumb than it already was. And this happened to be a better week for that story. I'll always campaign for more screentime being spent at Girls United. This episode ends that story in a very complicated and messy place. I need to see all of them together again. It's all circumstance where this tragic thing is happening to all them - being sent back to juvie because of the house fire. But it sucks and it's a story worth fighting for and seeing more from in the future.The girls are at Girls United because they all have lifetime issues. They are there to make progress. Not all of them will get a happy ending like Callie. They won't have two families fighting over them. They will be lucky to find any kind of love at all and that is so devastating. Cole is a brave person for fighting to be who he really wants to be but that is also a very scary prospect. Right now, he's not seen as normal. He's seen as different and unlovable. Will he ever be able to make that honest and loving connection with anyone? We all want to scream yes because he absolutely deserves it. But right now, to him it seems like the world is conspiring against him.
Callie returns to Girls United because she needs their guidance and help yet again. She's living happily with the Fosters. And yet, she's still dealing with her own problems. She's trying to move on with her life but her past keeps pulling her back down. She was ready to be adopted and then the truth about her father was unveiled which has opened up a whole new can of worms. She was ready to be with Wyatt sexually and just couldn't do it because of her past rape. It's internalized struggle that she has trouble expressing. She comes back to the group home to find support and actually winds up giving it to the other girls. That only makes the ending that much more sudden and saddening. People are working to help these girls and one bad act forces them back into the system that is too overworked to care.
Some more thoughts:
- "Girls Reunited" was directed by Daisy Mayer with teleplay by Bradley Bredeweg & Peter Paige and story by Joanna Johnson.
- Relationship drama was the focus for the rest of the Fosters this week to varying degrees of success.
- Brandon and Lou almost kissed. This story has the potential to parallel nicely with Callie's because both sibling are trying to figure out how to be intimate and close to someone after a traumatic past experience.
- But hey, Mariana and Mat actually did kiss. So that plot thread at least had some progress.
- It's about damn time someone started giving some parental advice to Jesus.
