The Fosters Lets Jude And Callie Come Apart, And Get Back Together

With a large ensemble cast, The Fosters has a difficult job servicing the various interrelationships between the characters, and they don't always get it exactly right: as I said last week, it's possible that Callie and Jesus have never had a conversation (and this week he couldn't even be bothered to be present for Callie's return to the household/had to be written out because Jake T. Austin is doing a movie or something). But there are two pairs the show's producers must get absolutely right in order for the series to work, and so far they have: other than Stef and Lena, it's Callie and Jude. And the latest episode demonstrates how very much thought has gone into their relationship.

Even though we didn't meet Jude right away, it was concern for him and her desperation not to be separated from him that animated all of Callie's decisions -- most of which were bad -- as the series began. All of her moves were in the interest of keeping him safe, and when we did get to know him, we could see not only how he had come to depend on her but that she had legitimately earned his trust.

It's for that reason that when Callie kissed Brandon in the midseason finale, Jude is just about the very worst person who could have walked in on them. If it had been Stef or Lena, they would have taken reasonable steps to nip the attraction in the bud -- maybe having Brandon temporarily move in with his dad, as he (very sensibly) does in the latest episode. If it had been Mariana or Jesus, they probably would have just narced to their parents and led to the same result. But Jude was not yet secure enough with the family to risk making any moves that might lead to his and Callie's ejection, besides which his primary loyalty was always going to be with Callie anyway, so that his only option was to...scream at her in righteous fury and shine a spotlight on her selfishness and recklessness -- and because she knew he was right and still had enough sense not to want to put him in jeopardy, she made another bad decision by running away, the wrong thing for the right reasons.

Now that Callie has returned, Jude is in an understandably difficult position. Most of him, no doubt, is happy she's back and relieved that she didn't permanently ruin her own chances at joining a loving family. But it also wasn't so long ago that she abandoned him to people who were still kind of strangers: it's reasonable for him to be wary of her and hesitant to pick up their relationship where they left off -- or rather, where they were before they left off. He's spent their time apart learning that he can also depend on all kind of new people -- his moms, his brothers, his other new sister -- besides which he probably isn't finished punishing Callie for forgetting her obligations to him.

Callie, of course, understands Jude's feelings better than anyone could. Because of a mix-up with Jude's birth certificate (due to the fact that he was born at home), only Callie knows that Jude's official birthday is not his real birthday, and she creates a special scavenger hunt for his birthday, scrambling the words at the end of his beloved Hansel & Gretel book to remind him of the happy moments they had spent reading it with their late mom. Unveiling the climax of this plan gave Maia Mitchell the opportunity to show us arguably the first true smile Callie's had since the show came back from hiatus.

And when Jude points out that she forgot to include "happiness" among the words Callie left around for him to find, she explains that it's downstairs...and takes him to see the family gathered to surprise him; though his real birthday has always been their secret, they don't need to keep secrets anymore. The beauty of the plan is not just that it both gives Jude some space from Callie while he deals with his confused emotions, or that it reminds him of what they've shared throughout their lives together, but that it affirms their part in a larger whole, and their belief in the new kinds of happiness that are yet to come for them both. Maybe not "perfect happiness," as in the fairy tale, but more than they could have hoped for when the two of them were on their own.