Switched at Birth - Instead of Damning the Darkness, It’s Better to Light a Little Lantern - Review: “Spring Break!”

This episode of Switched at Birth brought a bit of a change of scenery as we travelled with Bay, Daphne, Travis, and Melody to Mexico for their spring break service trip. We were even given an extra dose of drama when Emmett showed up to spend time with his mom for his own spring break. It seems like Travis’s lie about Skye and Emmett might be more of a big deal than I thought according to the “previously on”, which included the lie and plenty of past Bay and Emmett scenes. I thought I was going to love seeing Bay and Emmett together again, hashing it out and maybe getting some closure, but by the end of the episode I was just kind of done with them.

I honestly used to love Bay and Emmett so much but now they’re just such a mess. They’re acting like children and it’s so ridiculous. Bay really overreacts to him being there and I don’t really blame her but the texting and the using Travis was way too over-the-top. I’m obsessed with Bay and Travis’s friendship so I was really hoping she wouldn’t do anything to mess it up. I honestly hate that Bay was using Travis to make Emmett jealous. I thought it was out of character for her because she always seemed to value him more that that. Why can’t guys and girls ever just be friends on this show without an awkward romance?!? Now we’re finding out that Travis really does like Bay which is going to cause problems for everyone in this random love triangle. But back to the real issue, even Bay’s personal storyline with the Frida art scholarship had to tie back in some way to her relationship with Emmett. Diego caused Frida the most pain and they both tortured each other because of their jealousy, which was a direct parallel to Bay/Emmett. Can she have her own life? Can she have her own storyline?? At this point Bay and Emmett are so dysfunctional, I don’t know if they could ever even come back from this, or if I would want them to. I’m really not an Emmet fan anymore. After the episode where Travis went to visit him in L.A. I realized that the Emmett we used to love was gone. But now, all of a sudden he’s back! This episode continued to confirm my feelings that they're destroying Emmett’s character. They can’t just pick and choose when he’s going to be a jerk and when he’s going to be back to his old, likable self, at their convenience. L.A is either changing him or it isn’t, and the writers need to decide which Emmett they’re going to go with.

Meanwhile, Daphne has seemingly found her life calling. She’s having a great time fitting deaf people with hearing aides. She’s changing people’s lives and you can tell that she genuinely loves it. However, her usual Daphne ways come out when she starts meddling in one particular case of a 15 year old girl who can’t sign, speak, read or write. The guy that has been helping all the volunteers takes a liking to her but even he has to remind her that she’s not here to judge, lecture, shame, etc. Someone should have told them that Daphne’s the wrong person for this job…I’m just kidding. I thought it was cute that she went so above and beyond for this girl but sometimes she does come off as a bit judgmental, I’m still waiting on that character development. Anyways, this show is obsessed with rehashing the same old storylines. What is this, the 6th time someone who works with Daphne has made a move on her? Can we please just do something different! I was really hoping they weren’t going to make Daphne fall in love with this guy and even though she didn’t, it’s still annoying how they always do the same thing with a male role model for her! I thought their more mentor/mentee scenes were really nice though.

Overall, I really liked this episode. It was nice for them to do something a bit different. They really immersed themselves in the theme. I loved the little change they made to the opening title graphic and I liked the spanish music that they used. The issues they discussed were also important and relevant to the story. If they had just taken out the excessive romantic story lines and focused on the characters I think it would have elevated this episode from good to great. What did you think of this episode? Let me know in the comments and thanks for reading!

About the Author - Kate Sidwell

Kate is a 24 year old, USA based, Psychology/Public Health Researcher - but that’s just her day job! In her spare time she is an avid TV watcher (some may even say addict!!). Some of her favorite shows are Jane the Virgin, Bates Motel, The Flash, Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, Rookie Blue, Silicon Valley, Beauty and the Beast, Sleepy Hollow, The 100, The Mindy Project, Pretty Little Liars, Once Upon a Time, The Royals, Orphan Black…so pretty much too many to count and a huge variety! She’ll give pretty much any show a chance! She also devotes a lot of time to her tumblr (eat-sleep-breathe-tv.tumblr.com) where you can find her reviewing and commenting on most of these shows and just generally fangirling! She’s excited to be writing for SpoilerTV on Complications, Baby Daddy, Proof, Switched at Birth, Secrets and Lies, and Minority Report!

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