The Fosters - Welcome To The Jungler - Review + POLL

Hi guys. I'm filling in for Ida this week. This is actually my first official solo review so here goes.
This week, Callie gets more involved with on campus protesting, something with Aaron has a different viewpoint on. It's great that The Fosters is trying to tackle a topic as important and current as immigration issues but with the possibility of a storyline causing trouble for Callie yet again, I'm not sure how in depth they're going to be able to explore this.

Stef is also close to landing herself into trouble if she's not careful. After a break in the case she's working on, and with Kyle now out of prison, Stef is on a mission to put Pat Molloy in jail where he belongs. Stef is absolutely tenacious, a character trait that Callie shares, but I have a feeling that after the setback she suffered with not getting the required evidence, she's going to keep pushing and taking more drastic measures that will quickly ensure the situation is out of her control. Stef and Callie are both characters who try to do the right thing but sometimes end up going about it the wrong way or go above and beyond what they should be doing. Yes, Stef is obviously more mature, but that doesn't mean that she's always excellent at knowing when something needs to be dropped.

Jude actually had a bit of a storyline this episode. I'm not sure the writers really know what to do with him at the moment so he's focusing on his gaming again. Noah ends up getting involved with it too, as I presume he's realising that this is something that's important to Jude, which is understandable as we've seen Jude liking gaming since the very first season. Noah, however, isn't very good at gaming but he still wants to find a way to spend time with his boyfriend, so after viewing a misogynistic and homophobic gamer on YouTube who posts his own gaming videos, the three of them decide to post their own videos and call out the misogynistic gamer. Of course, this backfires on them, as the other gamer has some very enthusiastic and hateful fans, and Jude is left incredibly hurt as a result. Frustrated, Noah takes the video down, especially after it comes to light that Jude broke the pact that they previously made. Jude doesn't want to back down though, so Taylor and himself take to Twitch to broadcast a gaming session live, and the response is much more positive. It's good that the show is giving Jude a bit of a focus on online bullying, but at least for me it feels like they're unsure on what to really do with his character or with his relationship with Noah.

Speaking of relationships, Jesus making Emma a promise ring and telling her that she's the one and he wants to marry her was just a little bit too much for me. They're 16, they're way too young, he's obviously still suffering from his TBI, and it just seemed to come out of absolutely nowhere. I understand that he's probably feeling insecure in his relationship after all the tension that we've seen between them in the past few episodes. Maybe he thought a commitment was going to solve all of their problems. Either way, I'm glad Emma turned him down and said that she needed to grow. I really like Emma and I think she's making some pretty mature decisions for her age. It's almost the complete opposite to Jesus, who point blank announces to Lena that he actually isn't dropping out of school because Emma won't marry him if he does. I don't know about you, but I can see a breakup on the horizon for Jesus and Emma pretty soon because they seem to be getting way too intense for a pair of 16 year olds.

Oh Brandon, you're so oblivious most of the time. I'm really not sure how you thought spending an evening with your ex and your current girlfriend was a good idea, especially when your current girlfriend is probably feeling a little bit pushed out with your ex living with you, but okay. I know he's trying to be the good guy, but surely he must be able to see that having Cortney and Mason around, especially without telling Grace, is not healthy for his relationship.

Mariana was really the only character this week not to have a storyline that revolved around relationships. After informing Lena about her desire to compete in roller derby, she's quickly turned down because of the dangers of it. That doesn't change the fact that she forged Lena's signature to try out in the first place, which comes to light when Callie mentions this to Ximena. After some convincing from Ximena, Lena relents a little and says that she'll discuss Mariana's future on the team with Stef. Hopefully Mariana will get permission to be on the team because I really do like the idea of highlighting sports and activities that girls can do that allow them to be strong and empowered.

Brandon (and to a certain extent Jesus and Mariana) are suspicious that Ana and Gave may be getting back together, after neither Ana or Mike tell them about their engagement initially, and Gabe reveals his feelings for Ana to Jesus. I could tell that they were trying to set it up to seem as though Ana and Gabe were getting closer again, but in the back of my mind as soon as Gabe gave that donut to Mason I had a feeling that they were going to explore Cortney and Gabe. As we saw at the end of the episode, they did exactly that.

Gosh, the relationships on this show are messy messy messy. We have Gabe who is still in love with Ana, who he considers to be the one that got away, and then we have Cortney who appears to me to still have some residual feelings for Brandon. I'm not sure why the writers are pairing these two random characters up, but I have a feeling it won't be lasting very long and it'll be blowing up in their faces in some way before the midseason finale.

What did you think about this episode? Did any of the characters say or do something that you didn't entirely agree with? How do you think decisions made in this episode will influence the last three episodes of this half season? Let me know in the comments below.