‘The Fosters’ season 4, episode 11 review: Is Jesus alive? Brandon’s breakup; Callie’s conundrum

During the summer finale for “The Fosters,” the writers painted many of their characters into difficult corners, and it certainly made you wonder how in the world they were going to get themselves out of these sorts of predicaments.

Tuesday’s winter premiere “Insult to Injury” took on some of these predicaments, and it turned out to be every bit as difficult as you would have expected. As it turns out, some situations are going from bad to worse.

Jesus – The good news for him now is that he’s still alive, but that may be the only good news given that his brain injury was so severe that it required surgery. He is now in recovery, and the unfortunate news is that when he wakes up, he may have to answer more questions about the incident with Nick. Because of some of the things Mariana said, the picture is painted to the police that Jesus violently attacked Nick without being provoked. These officers are likely not thinking of the full scope of the situation, given that this is someone who threatened Mariana and an entire school previously with some of his actions.

Mariana – Meanwhile, she has to come to grips with the reality that many of her own actions, which included seeing and communicating with Nick long past the point of it being health for her to do so, have led to Jesus’ current state. Not only that, but her relationship with Mat may be in jeopardy. At least the ADHD medication doesn’t seem to have severely damaged her in any way — with this episode and especially this episode, you have to take the good news wherever you can.

Brandon – He didn’t find out about Jesus’ health problems until the last minute; before that, he went on quite the romantic roller-coaster with Cortney. They went from being broken up to not broken up to then broken up again. Brandon clearly got too caught up in trying to help Cortney and Mason when he didn’t always do things to help himself. We feel for both people in this situation. We understand that Brandon did many things in order to help her, but they are also things that she didn’t ask for. The two seem to be done for now, which is good given that his life doesn’t need to be messier.

Jude – It’s a good thing that Brandon was around in order to save Jude and Noah from a pretty bad pickle they got themselves in aboard a yacht. They threw themselves a little part on someone else’s ship, only for said someone to turn up. They escaped before they were caught, but we have a hard time thinking that this story is over.

Callie – By far, Callie wins the award for person with the most stuff going on, though this is an award that she may not actually want to win. It starts with the fact that she escaped the danger that she was in with the cliffhanger over the summer, but at the same time, she escaped it thanks to a car accident where she ran away from the scenes. There’s one felony violation to go along with some of her other crimes. She eventually went to the police to give a statement, and that may be the beginning of her problems.

Also, her relationship with AJ may be on slightly better ground after Mike encouraged him to apologize to both her and Aaron. The problem is that in the process, AJ made it clear to Aaron that he knew he was transgender, a secret that Aaron didn’t want her spreading around. Her friendship may not be permanently damaged, but it’s bent.

Stef and Lena – At the center of everything, we continue to have these two loving, caring women just trying to find a way to keep things together. Lena’s scene where she looked to prayer for help may have been the most powerful moment of the whole episode.

Our verdict – “Insult to Injury” was very good insofar as “Fosters” family drama goes, provided that they keep things realistic. We hate to say it, but Callie probably should face serious punishments as a result of her actions. Those have to mean something in order for the world to make sense. Grade: B.

Next week – We’ll have a preview for the next new episode over at the link here shortly. (Photo: Freeform.)