There are numerous plot threads in every episode of this show, but The Fosters 2×06 mainly centers on one very sad storyline. Read on for our recap of “Mother”:
The Fosters 2×06 opens with Stef and Lena cooing over their new baby girl. A flash forward? Nope, just a dream that Lena is awakened from by the sound of the twins bickering. Mariana tells her that Jesus is sleeping with Hayley, and Jesus retorts by saying at least he’s not still a virgin like Mariana. Lena tells them both to stop slamming doors, and as she stands up, she stumbles. She insists she’s OK and just got up too fast. Consider this foreshadowing.
Meanwhile, Stef’s where we left her at the end of last week’s episode – at a motel with her ex-husband, Mike, and the twins’ birth mother, Ana. It turns out that despite all the drama Ana brought to their family, Mike has been helping her stay sober. Stef points out that he could be charged with witness tampering and says she wants no part in what he’s doing. Just then, Mariana calls – Lena’s been taken to the emergency room. She’s eventually allowed to go home, but is put on bed rest. Consider this foreshadowing too.
Remember last week when Callie freaked out after she and Wyatt tried to take their relationship to the next level? She’s been ignoring him since then, prompting Wyatt to consult an unlikely source for help: Brandon. He asks if there’s still something between them and Brandon insists they’re brother and sister. He tells Wyatt that he can’t be their couples counselor and recommends simply giving Callie space.
After they hear Lena’s on bed rest, Mike and Dani bring over dinner so Stef doesn’t have to cook. Given that Brandon told Lena about his tryst with Dani in the previous episode, this has the potential to get awkward. When Mike tells Lena that he and Dani have been talking about having a baby, the Awk-O-Meter rises.
Speaking of awkward situations, Stef and Lena are trying to sell the bed Stef’s mom bought them as a wedding present, opening the house to a parade of strange characters that brings some much-needed levity to The Fosters 2×06. In between bickering with Mariana, Jesus plays salesman. At one point, Mariana brings up the comment he made about her being a virgin, not realizing Brandon’s bandmate Matt is in earshot. Later, Matt asks Mariana out.
Stef gets the full story from Mike, but not Brandon
While Mike is over at the Adams Foster stronghold, he and Stef find time to speak in private about the situation with Ana – and this time, he tells her the full story. He admits that he did want to kill Ana the night he tracked her down at the halfway house, and when he passed out and woke up with blood on his hands, he wasn’t sure if he had. He eventually tracked her down at a crack house and, as penance, vowed to do anything he could to help her.
Later, Stef and Lena discuss baby names, and Lena says she wants to honor Stef’s late father by calling the baby Francesca – Frankie for short. Then she says she has something to tell Stef about Brandon. Cut to Stef approaching Brandon in the garage, where he’s working on a new song. Did Lena spill the beans about Dani? Nope, just that he got high in the woods last episode. Stef tells him the Fosters are “not pot people” and that she freaked out when she tried it too.
Bad news
The next day, the kids get pulled out of class to the news that Lena’s preeclampsia has worsened and she needs to deliver the baby immediately. Frankie is 20 weeks old – too young to survive. Lena wants to wait another two months, even though this means risking her life.
Lena: “I saw her in a dream. She was in our bed with us and she was beautiful and she was healthy. I can feel her inside me. I have faith, even if it takes a miracle, she is going to be all right. She is going to make it.”
Stef: “I don’t have faith.”
Lena: “That’s OK because I have enough for the both of us.”
Opening up
Lena’s mother, Dana, (who, incidentally, is played by Lorraine Toussaint a.k.a. the fearsome Vee in “Orange is the New Black”) rushes to her daughter’s bedside. Lena admits that sometimes she feels left out because everyone in the house is blood-related to another person except for her. Dana consoles her, maintaining that some things are more important than biology.
Love will always be a stronger bond than blood. Trust that. And those children out there love you. They need you. They can’t lose you. Their needs trump your wants. And that’s what’s being a real mother is all about.
While Lena and her mother talk, Callie and Brandon sit outside the hospital on a bench. Brandon tells her Wyatt asked to meet him the previous day but didn’t give him details. Callie explains that they tried to have sex but she freaked out. Brandon encourages her to tell Wyatt about Liam, her former foster brother who raped her, and she says she doesn’t want to talk about it. He points out that “keeping stuff inside doesn’t make it hurt less; you just hurt the people you shut out.”
Callie takes what Brandon told her and applies it to Jude, whose selective mutism is still in effect. She implores him to talk to the people who love him and not to shut them out. He finally breaks his silence with a simple “OK.”
Back at home, Callie breaks her silence with Wyatt as well. She tells him she thought she was over the rape but she still has some stuff to work through and needs space.
While still in the hospital recuperating after losing the baby, Lena wakes up to a little girl holding a stuffed unicorn, which she gives to Lena. Lena asks its name, and the girl says, “Frankie.”
The Fosters 2×06 closes with the family planting a tree in the backyard in memoriam. What did you think of this sad episode?
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