The Fosters season 5 episode 13 review: Is Ximena free?
We are speaking here mostly of Ximena, as we had a chance to learn in the closing minutes that she will be able to free herself from the church. ICE was banned from deporting her until her DACA status was decided, and now, she has a little more of a voice than she ever had before. After her video went viral she had a chance to speak to the press outside of the church and state her case.
Yet, know this: We don’t think that Ximena is out of the woods. ICE is still watching her, and there is a reasonably good chance that they may find another way to come at her.
What this means effectively is that Ximena can start to immerse herself more in the world around her — which, interestingly enough, is something that some other characters are also trying to do. Take, for example, Emma decided that she wants to join the roller derby team as a means of spending more time with Jesus. She recognized, thanks to their conversation, that Jesus needed to have some things that he was good at and he couldn’t just spend the rest of his life feeling as though Emma was all that he had.
Emma deserves some credit — she was salty for a little bit over Jesus spending so much time with the roller-derby team, but as a whole she may very well be one of the most understanding people that is out there.
The latest on Brandon and Grace
What the two parties had tonight was Brandon’s attempt at a senior prank, as he decided to fill much of Anchor Beach with sand alongside many of his classmates. In the process of ding this, we also had another reminder that Brandon really isn’t all that great when it comes to finding ways to care for himself over others. The primary reason in which he opted to do this was to offer up a way in which for Grace to feel like she was achieving something. Once again, he put the needs of someone else over the needs of himself. There are situations in which this is a kind and admirable trait, but there are also many other situations in which it’s something that is detrimental to his own health.
The more that Brandon does this, in turn the more challenging it is going to be on him in the long-term. He’s creating a dynamic where Grace gets whatever she wants and he doesn’t get anything. That’s just not altogether healthy.
Related – Want to preview more of what is coming on The Fosters next week?
As for some other interesting news this week, we basically saw more evidence that Jenna is trying to hook up with Tess, who is starting to make her husband wary with all of the time and interest she has in being around her. While we typically love the Lena / Stef stuff, seeing Stef freak out over much of what is going on here is probably the weakest part of the season at the moment. It feels fairly obvious as to where the writers are going with this, but it’s moving a little too slow and we’re not invested enough in the Tess character for any of it to really matter all that much.
CarterMatt Verdict
Another very good episode, but we’ll say that the moment that really defined it the most was Mat making his speech about how these days in high school could be the best of the characters’ lives. (For the record, Mariana and Mat now seem to be done again.) This one speech was a nice microcosm for where we are at the moment with The Fosters, as the series is ending and we start to look more ahead to what may lie on the horizon ahead.
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