The Fosters season 4, episode 15 review: Callie’s fate; Jude’s education

The fourth season of The Fosters has never been a show to shy away from a learning experience, and this is precisely what they brought on the new episode that aired tonight. Several characters did everything they could in order to help themselves in the present, but on some occasions, it ended causing more hardship than help.

Take, for instance, the powerful story that Jude found himself front and center with over the course of the episode. As a young LGBTQ youth, he found himself in a difficult place realizing that there was no sex education at school. With that, he tried to use a dating / hookup app in order to find some of his own. He showed up to a guy’s apartment who he met online, but this guy sent him away when he realized that he was a young child and not someone he wanted to be with. As a matter of fact, this led to him thinking that he was trying to him arrested.

So while Jude emerged from the episode okay, he may have learned a thing or two more that he can take with him as we move along in into the rest of the season.

Consider Jude’s close call good news … but probably the only good news that there was over the course of the hour.

Callie’s world crashes down again

Right when you started to think that everything was going to be okay for Callie — her art project found a place to shine on campus, and she even got an interesting honor that could help shape her entire future — she then learned that she was going to have to go to trial. Despite Robert Quinn’s best efforts, they were not going to be able to get the settlement they want.

Emma’s reveal

The news that she had an abortion is clearly something that threw us for a loop, but it’s also something that will inform and shape several different characters as we move forward towards the end of the season. For example, how will Jesus handle everything when he finds out? He’s already having a hard enough job dealing with the idea of something going on between Emma and Brandon, and that caused him to snap at one point during the episode.

The episode as a whole

“Sex Ed” fulfilled one of the best things that The Fosters does, and that is tell stories that lie within a gray area of what is right and wrong. Jude was doing the right thing for himself in his mind, and couldn’t imagine the danger that he was facing. Even with Mike, who decided to adopt AJ even though it was potentially just a means to an end with Ana, he was thinking about himself as much as he was having an adoptive son. The show plays these moments well, and it keeps us hooked … even if we want to see these characters have some victories here and there. Grade: B.

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