The Fosters and Faith

Have you watched The Fosters?

It is a family oriented show for modern families which debuted on what was ABCFamily in 2013.  It’s now one of the flagship series for Freeform, the latest incarnation of what started as the Family Channel back in cable’s hayday.

I remember the buzz about it.  I hadn’t looked into it too much.  But because I knew a lot of people connected with the foster system I thought I would check it out.  So, picture it:  The premiere episode.  We meet a lesbian couple—a white cop and a biracial educator from a charter school—Brandon, the biological son of the cop, who, by the way, is still working with her ex-husband, the father of her child, on the police force, and the couple’s two adopted Latino children. Jesus and Mariana.  Then we meet Callie, a child they literally rescue from the absurdity of a foster system that has grown so large and so underfunded.  Eventually we meet Callie’s brother, Jude, who falls in love with one of his athletic classmates at the charter school and begins to identify as gay. 

Like I said:  A family oriented show for modern families. 

It was a dynamic premise for a forty something minute TV series.  There was always something going on relationship-wise with the kids, parenting-wise for Steff and Lena (the couple who have taken responsibility for this brood), and identity-wise for everyone.  The show has dealt with topics such as racism, addiction, sexuality, faithfulness, healthy boundaries, mental health, cancer, and…religion.

This poor family has dealt with more in three years than many families deal with in eighteen. 

And that’s where I’ve kind of settled on the show this season.  It just seemed that everything the writing team was throwing at the family was just too much.  Not unbelievable because everyone watching could identify with the struggles and challenges.  It was just becoming overwhelming.  I began to be afraid that either the writers had committed characters to storylines that were becoming weights around the neck of the show or…worse, they were trying to be too many things to too many people and failing everyone in the process.  This is why TV shows have “bibles” that set boundaries on characters and possibilities. 

To me, this season has felt less like a family oriented show for modern families and more like a telenovela of the Mexican variety:  Entertaining but way over the top in storyline and dramatic presentation.   

But then they aired the season finale last night and I remembered why I was first drawn to this show.

So after a season of melodramatic storylines, a painful episode featuring the culmination of a story arc about a Romeo and Juliet musical written by writers who had apparently never read Romeo and Juliet, and a few plotlines that seemed to go on and on like this current election cycle, driving us to a point where we really don’t care about Callie and Brandon and their poor boundaries….we’re punched in the gut with the reality of the foster care system:  Kids being placed in homes that are unqualified to take care of kids and in which the kids end up dead. 

This affects Jude profoundly because right before we learn that Jack, the foster kid who we’ve gotten to know this season, was murdered by the same foster father who had abused Callie and Jude, we see Jack kissing Jude.  Jack later confides in Callie that he felt it was a mistake because he’s not attracted to Jude because he, Jack, is straight.  Jack never has the chance to confess this to Jude. 

So the episode opens with a funeral/prayer service/informal gathering on the beach where Jude is delivering a sermon/eulogy.  This caught my interest right away because it was actually thoughtfully done and the words Jude was using to commend Jack to God’s care were words I’ve heard too many times in real funeral services.  This polished eulogy was coming from someone who has never really struggled with religion in the show’s run.  Jude has never explored it, questioned it, struggled with it.  But his sermon was spot on theologically.  In real life, if Jude was an actual person, one could clearly see that he was taking this seriously and had committed a great deal of thought and research to his reflection. 

So, as a student of religion and theology as well as psychology, I’m turning this scene over and over in my head for the rest of the episode.  I’m wondering where it came from and where it could be going because it was so unpredictable in a show that has become too predictable this season.

Fast forward to the last ten minutes of the show or so.  So, yeah, if you haven’t seen the episode and don’t want to know anymore, maybe you should stop reading now.  This is your warning.

Through the episode we see Jude talking with one of his female classmates and friends.  At one point we hear Jude expressing that maybe he’s not into guys.  Which, of course, the friend picks up on right away since she’s been crushing on Jude for about two seasons now.  But toward the end of the show we see Callie confronting Jude on his interest in the female friend.  Callie is confused because Jude has identified as gay pretty much since they came to this foster home which ended up adopting them.  Jude’s response?

“Maybe I’m not supposed to be gay.  I’ve loved two guys and God has taken them both away.”

I don’t know how other people heard that line but this is how I heard that line.  “I loved a guy named Connor and he moved away and our relationship ended.  I was falling in love with a guy named Jack and he was murdered.  I’m going to interpret this as a sign.  Maybe God is trying to tell me I need to get back on the straight path.”

I write about this a lot.  We story the events in our lives in an attempt to make sense of the things that we can’t explain.  When it comes to tragedy, as a rule, people will cite providential intervention as the reason things happen.  They will interpret that intervention as meaning this or that.  It’s how the individual copes.  I know that.

But here’s what I also know.  My theology informs me that God does not cause horrible things to happen.  God doesn’t need to.  Human beings do that well enough on our own.  God didn’t kill Jack in The Fosters.  The broken system operated by human beings killed Jack.  God certainly doesn’t punish people; that’s superstitious bullshit that should have died out with witch trials.  And God does not take people away from us or tear people away tragically to give us a message.   (I'm mentioning this in the middle of this review of The Fosters because I can't seem to stop reminding people of these important truths--especially a community and a subset of a community who tend to be victimized by such backward Christian nonsense.)

All of a sudden my interest in The Fosters has returned.  What sucks is that it’s from one of the most realistic characters that we don’t get to see too much of because of all the “kids” on the show the actor who portrays Jude is a kid and child labor laws impact his storylines.  But this is what The Fosters needed, I think.  A step away from the over-the-top-never-going-to-end drama of Callie and Brandon, or Jesus and his search for identity which, with a new actor, focused in a direction the character has never looked before (namely his birth father), or Mariana and all her teenage girl drama. 

Once again the show comes back to Jude. 

I don’t know where the writers are going to go with this but it’s pretty clear that in the time that passed between the horrible episode featuring Romeo and Juliet: The Musical and Jack’s tragic death and the season finale with the appearance of Preacher Jude, someone has obviously influenced Jude’s thinking on sexuality and God.  I really hope this is explored more next season because these are very real issues younger folks in the LGBTQ community struggle with.  I think that’s where they’re going considering the kiss Jude shares with his female classmate and the weird smile he has on his face afterwards. 

What do you think? 

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