The Fosters 4×07 – Highs & Lows – Recap

In The Fosters 4×07, Callie and AJ take their relationship to the next level, Jude only knows he’s high while Gabe’s feeling low, and Jesus nails it. Read on for our recap of The Fosters 4×07, “Highs & Lows.”

Callie & AJ & Brandon, oh my…

After a heart-to-heart in The Fosters 4×04 during which Callie told AJ “rape isn’t sex” and urged him not to treat her like a victim, AJ… well, took her advice. The Fosters 4×07 opens with a post-coital scene that reveals Callie has now slept with two of her foster brothers (although, OK, AJ’s being fostered by Mike, so it’s a different situation). Speaking of Mike, turns out the couple consummated their relationship at his apartment – and who should walk in but Mike and Brandon?

Any hope of covering their tracks is pretty much nixed by Callie’s bra slung across the couch. What could make this situation even more awkward? Brandon taking said bra and tucking it into Callie’s bag. Facepalm. Of course, Mike tells Stef about the encounter, then wonders aloud about the situation’s effect on Brandon. “They’re siblings now,” Stef scoffs. “Plus, Brandon’s living with his girlfriend.” That may be so, but tense Brallie moments are far from over, as The Fosters 4×07’s opening scene proved…

Parental advisory

Back at the Foster house, Stef and Lena are house-hunting online. Unfortunately, it’s looking like Lena’s father Stewart’s financial troubles will cause them to lose their home. Stef suggests reasoning with the IRS, while Lena wants Stef to talk to her mother, Sharon. Maybe everyone should take a page out of Brandon’s book and start taking the SATs under other people’s names? Stef eventually approaches her mom, which ends up being a no-go, while the IRS says it will stay the lien on the home in exchange for $2,000 a month in payment. That’s pretty much impossible, so Stef and Lena reluctantly agree it’s time to call the real estate agent and talk to the kids.

Speaking of the house, Gabe’s supposed to be fixing it up in exchange for Stef and Lena getting him off the Sex Offender Registry, but he’s gone AWOL. Jesus calls him, and he promises to come by the next day. When he ghosts, Jesus decides to take on the construction work in his absence. Remember how well (read: terribly) it went when Jesus attempted to build the sets for last season’s R + J performance? Something tells me his carpentry skills haven’t improved by The Fosters 4×07. Sure enough, he hits himself in the head with a nail gun.

In which Mariana gains an edge, while Jude takes the edge off

So Mariana’s under a lot of pressure as the first female leader of Anchor Beach’s formerly-STEM-now-STEAM club’s robotics team, especially after last episode’s uprising. With a lot to do and not enough time to do it, she plans to work at the kitchen table while the rest of the family is in bed. She heads over to the coffee maker, then has another idea. Why not take Jesus’ ADHD pills instead? Uh, flashback to the pilot episode, anyone? At least Callie doesn’t walk in on her this time.

Meanwhile, after losing his pot virginity in last week’s episode, Jude has apparently developed a taste for what he calls “green.” He approaches the resident dealer in his grade, who proceeds to expose how little he knows about what he’s getting himself into. Spoiler alert: It’s hilarious. (“I usually go with indigo.” “Indi-ca. Do you want it loose or rolled?” “…”) He’s also clueless about hiding the distinctive smell, so Callie busts him in one second flat and orders him to shower before their moms get home.

Brallie exposed… again

So apparently Mike wasn’t aware Brandon’s been financially supporting Cort until Stef tells him in The Fosters 4×07. He subsequently pays Cort a visit and asks her to encourage Brandon to move back home. Cort gets defensive, and pretty soon she’s dropping some harsh truth bombs.

Cort: “Do you have any idea why he’s living here? ‘Cause he’s not comfortable living at home.”
Mike: “Why’s that?”
Cort: “Because his moms are blaming him for everything that happened with Callie. They think it’s all his responsibility and he doesn’t want to live with them looking over his shoulder every day like he’s some kind of creep. … I’m tired of everybody acting like Brandon’s the one being selfish when really he’s just trying to make things easier for everybody else.”

Just one small problem: Mike didn’t know Brandon and Callie slept together. Oh, and also? He didn’t know Stef and Lena knew.

Highs & lows

Elsewhere, Callie visits Kyle in juvie to tell him about the breakthrough she had in last week’s episode. (As a reminder, a missing page in the case file of the murder he was incarcerated for suggests the killer was right-handed, but Kyle’s left-handed.) This could be enough for Aaron to get the Juvenile Justice Center to reopen Kyle’s case and potentially get him exonerated! Kyle tells her it’s been a while since he had any hope and, oh, boy, I hope this works out for him.

When Callie gets back from juvie, Brandon’s home for once, attempting to simultaneously babysit Mason and practice for his Juilliard audition. She thanks him for putting her “you know” in her bag, but turns down his request to help out with babysitting. Left to his own devices, Brandon kills his piano piece, but loses Mason in the process. Luckily, Mason hasn’t gone far – but he has got into some blue eyeshadow in Stef and Lena’s bathroom.

Once Mason has been appropriately wrangled (which takes just one stern order from Stef, much to Brandon’s chagrin), Stef and Lena sit the family down for a Big Talk. Between Jesus’ headache, Mariana being hopped up on ADHD meds, and Brandon on edge about Mason, the kids don’t react well to the news about the house. After Stef insults Cort’s parenting skills, Brandon storms out in a huff, Mariana freaks out about the idea of living in an apartment, and Jesus tries to stand up but ends up falling down. No, literally.

Nailed it

The Fosters plus Emma and minus Brandon head to the hospital, where Emma theorizes that Mariana’s headache could be “twintuition” (“What? It’s a thing!”). Be that as it may, the ADHD pills Mariana’s been taking are a more likely culprit. “You don’t need to take pills – you’re brilliant,” Emma reassures her, and with that, the small but loyal contingent of Mariana/Emma shippers rejoiced. Brandon appears just in time to hear the news that Jesus has a nail embedded in his frontal lobe. What did I say about his carpentry skills? Called it. Stef and Lena rush off to see him, and when Gabe shows up, he incurs the wrath of the Foster kids (minus, of course, Jesus). “If he’s not OK, it’s on you,” Mariana tells him coldly, then orders him to leave.

Super Callie in overdrive

In a whispered conversation in the hospital waiting room, Callie learns that Jude’s pot habit is more serious than she realized. Inspired by Noah, who has a medical marijuana card for his anxiety, Jude got high before taking a test at school. “If I know that you’ve done it again, I will go straight to moms, and I am not kidding,” Callie hisses. Really, the key phrase there is “if I know” – and something tells me Jude’s not going to part with his “green” so easily.

As if Callie weren’t already upset enough about Jude, she gets a text from Aaron saying the missing page in the case file isn’t enough for the JJC to take Kyle’s case. It’s basically the worst possible time for Mike and AJ to show up, which of course means they do. Needless to say, Callie and AJ end up having a tense exchange.

AJ: “I love how much you care about people, Callie, but maybe this time, you ought to just…”
Callie: “Give up and let Kyle go to a maximum-security prison where he’ll be beaten and raped and treated like a piece of garbage for the rest of his life?”
AJ: “…I didn’t mean it like that.”

Callie heads off to the restroom to cool down, and bumps into… guess who? Noah and his mother, Nicole, who’s one of the volunteer chaplains at the hospital. Well, this will end badly. “It’s your business if you want to buy pot for your son, but I don’t want him giving any more of it to my brother,” Callie tells Nicole.

“Home is where we’re all together”

Of course, word of Callie and Nicole’s confrontation gets back to Jude via Noah, and Jude is pissed. He reminds Callie that he never told anybody about all the stupid stuff she’s done – and, well, he has a point. He vows to stop sharing personal things with her and tells her to stay out of his life. Damn, remember when he was younger and cuter and a pleasure to be around? The teenage years are no joke.

Here’s one bright spot: Jesus is OK, and already cracking jokes. Turns out the nail went up his nose and into his brain – and, as Mariana points out, “There’s a lot of extra space up there.” In more good news, Mariana tells her brother that Emma’s decided to give him a second chance. Next, Stef gathers everyone together at Jesus’ hospital bed to make a speech.

“I know that we’re all upset about the house, but it doesn’t matter where we live. Home is where we’re all together.”

Lena notes that she kind of sounds like a greeting card, but, hey, Stef speaks the truth.

Handling it

It seems the news that his son almost killed himself with a nail gun is enough motivation to get Gabe back at the Foster house working on the remodel. Stef is hostile to say the least, taking him to task for acting unappreciative and breaking his commitments. After Gabe admits he’s been having a hard time lately – to the point where he struggles to get out of bed in the morning – Stef softens, telling him it sounds like he may have depression. Eventually, he opens up, revealing that he’s having trouble handling the idea that so much of his life was wasted while he was on the registry. “The only thing you can do is get help – make sure you don’t lose any more [time],” Stef advises, but it doesn’t seem like he’s quite ready to take that step.

As The Fosters 4×07 draws to a close, Callie approaches the alibi witness in Kyle’s case – the one who made a deal not to talk in exchange for getting his own charges dropped. He’s not cooperative, so Callie loudly announces at his place of work that she knows he was arrested for lewd and lascivious acts with a minor. After his manager gets involved, Callie backs down, but threatens, “This isn’t over.” In the final few moments of the episode, the witness makes a phone call. He tells the person on the other end of the line that Callie “knows about the deal we made,” and the disembodied voice asks for her full name before saying, “I’ll handle it.”

Well, that’s not too ominous…