After last week’s spring break trip to Mexico, Switched at Birth returned to Missouri – and there proved to be just as much drama stateside. Read on for five things we learned during Switched at Birth 4×16.
1. Bay’s taking the plunge.
As Bay’s in the middle of telling Regina she isn’t ready to move on, a shockingly attractive guy walks into the Cracked Mug with Travis and makes her instantly reconsider. His name’s Garrett, he went to the Carlton School for the Deaf, and he seems into her too. Travis – who, as was revealed last week, has feelings for Bay – does his best to keep the two apart, but not even Daphne’s warning that Garrett is a player can dissuade Bay from visiting Garrett at work, where he asks her to dinner.
2. Meeting the parents doesn’t always go according to plan.
Daphne takes a plunge of her own by inviting Mingo and his parents to John and Kathryn’s Grill Night with the goal of getting all the meet-the-parents awkwardness over with in one fell swoop. There’s just a tiny problem: It turns out Mingo’s father Larry is the business manager responsible for the Kennishes’ current financial difficulties. Awk… ward.
John: How did we not know this?
Kathryn: How were we supposed to know? It’s not like we run background checks on all her boyfriends.
John: Well, we have to start.
Things go from bad to worse as Larry and John compete in a pick-up basketball game while Mingo’s mom Nancy tells Kathryn that the bad financial decisions Larry made were all at John’s request. After a four-person yelling match, Larry and Nancy leave early, and Daphne’s left wondering whether her relationship with Mingo can still work. Fortunately, Mingo believes their parents’ issues have nothing to do with them. The depths of his understanding even extend to Daphne’s confession about kissing that cute charity worker while in Mexico over spring break, but is he really as cool about it as he seems?
3. Gabe & Melody are getting married.
This isn’t entirely unexpected on the heels of the couple deepening their commitment in last week’s episode by agreeing to adopt a child together, but it’s still very sweet. “Turning on someone’s ex-husband’s cochlear implant is not the typical way to meet the love of your life, but that’s what happened to me,” Gabe says in his proposal. Awww. Melody accepts, but she gets overwhelmed upon learning that the adoption process may take only a few weeks – not to mention the fact that the birth mother who’s interested in them is looking to place twin babies, not a single, older kid like Melody had wanted. Melody heads to the Cracked Mug to talk things over with Regina, but she ends up running into – and bonding with – Toby instead.
Melody: A month ago, I was a single, middle-aged empty-nester. My head is spinning.
Toby: Honestly, if someone would have told me six months ago that I was gonna be a dad to a Down Syndrome kid, I would have told them they were nuts, but now it’s just my new reality. I feel like I’m too young to do it, you feel like you’re too old… No perfect time, I guess. Maybe [Gabe’s] excitement will be enough to carry you through until you find yours.
4. Tank’s a waiter now.
And he just so happens to be working a shift at the restaurant where Bay and Garrett go for dinner. The theme of Switched at Birth 4×16 is “awkward dinners,” apparently. The up-side is that Garrett figures out they have a history but doesn’t seem bothered by it; instead, he asks if Bay wants to go somewhere else and reassures her that she doesn’t have to tell him what happened between them if she doesn’t want to. Bay chases after Tank and finds out that things haven’t been going too great for him since he got expelled from UMKC. “Do you know what it’s like to realize that for the rest of your life, when someone searches your name, the word ‘rape’ comes up next to it?” he asks Bay. She apologizes to him and he returns the apology, saying he wishes he could turn back time and make different choices. Back home, Regina tells Bay she shouldn’t feel guilty, but she does anyway.
“Sometimes, things get broken and they can’t be put back together. This is one of those times. I hope he gets back up on his feet, but this is not for you to fix, Bay. You need to let this be.”
5. Last but not least, Mingo’s real name is Greg.
Shockingly, his parents didn’t actually christen him Mingo. I know, I’m still processing this bombshell too.
Switched at Birth returns to ABC Family next Monday at 8/7c.
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