Does Stef Find Out About Lena and Monte? The Fosters Idyllwild Recap

Does Stef find out about Lena and Monte? The answer in Idyllwild

Does Stef find out about Lena and Monte? She does, in "Idyllwild," the ninth episode of The Fosters season 3. It aired on ABC Family on August 10, 2015, and was written and directed by Joanna Johnson, according to the Wikipedia episode list; 1.06 million U.S. viewers watched it. It sits between "Daughters" (August 3) and "Lucky" (August 17), in the middle of the season's first half-run of ten episodes.

So, does Stef find out about Lena and Monte? She does, though not through a confession. Jenna tells Stef that she and Monte have broken up because Monte is in love with a gorgeous vice principal with magical hair, a description that points at Lena. That night at home, Stef asks Lena directly whether she is in love with Monte. It takes everything Stef has to get the question out.

Lena says nothing is going on, but she cannot deny that she and Monte kissed. Her only answer is that Monte kissed her, and that it meant nothing. Stef takes a breath and replies, "If it was nothing, you would have told me." The reviewer said the exchange was so intense that they held their breath through the whole conversation, and called Stef's line heartbreaking.

How the Lena and Monte storyline reaches this point

In the cabin at Idyllwild, Lena and Monte end up alone with grass-fed steak, a fire and twelve bottles of wine. Monte tells Lena that although the sex with Jenna is great, she worries that Jenna is catching feelings. She is unsure whether she needs more time to take to the idea of being with a woman, or whether Jenna simply is not the right person. Jenna walks in at that moment and clearly senses that she is interrupting something intimate.

The review's account of the episode does not describe the kiss itself being shown. The scene turns instead on the build-up and on Lena's inability to answer Stef cleanly, and it lands harder because the audience already knows more than Stef does.

The twins' hit-and-run storyline returns

The episode's other major thread returns to the car crash the twins were involved in. The review points out that the story dominated the first episode or so of the season, vanished for seven episodes, and came back only after Mariana made an offhand comment. Stef, back on the case, tells Mike a new theory: a white man seen on surveillance video, the son of the car's owner, was buying supplies at a drugstore for a bloody man seen on a bus, who was Black.

Mike, who has just received his foster license, takes AJ to visit AJ's grandmother in a nursing home, where they run into AJ's older brother Ty. After some sleuthing, Mike realizes that Ty caused Mariana's crash. The reviewer admits not seeing it coming, and feels sorry for AJ.

Girls United, Brooke and Callie's recording

At Girls United, Carmen says she will delay joining the Army because Rita punched her, a story nobody believes. When Callie presses her, a new girl named Brooke starts shouting at everyone to mind their own business, then warns Callie privately to drop the Rita matter. Callie refuses to be intimidated and calls Brooke a joke. In return, Brooke's boyfriend tries to run Callie over with a car.

Callie then confronts Carmen and records her admitting that Brooke is blackmailing her into blaming Rita. In the same recording, Callie also admits that Brandon broke his restraining order. She now has to decide whether to share the recording to save Rita or delete it to protect her adoption. The review jokes that it apparently never occurred to her to edit out the incriminating part.

Brandon's performance and the closing scene

Brandon's piece is the one moment of grace. He tells the audience that camp was horrible but made him love music again, and that having fired his pianist he will break the competition's rules and play his own composition. The reviewer wanted to dislike it and could not: the piece is, in their words, pretty amazing, and playing piano is Brandon's one redeeming quality.

Back at the cabin, Callie tells Brandon about the recording. He surprises her by saying he does not care what happens to him, only to her. They decide to go to separate rooms, and then Brandon walks into Callie's room and they sleep together. The review reads the scene as the show undoing its own good moment, and complains that the writers seem to be competing to make an episode that does the most damage to Callie.

The Fosters Idyllwild review: a disjointed season

The review was lukewarm on the episode and on the season around it. The reviewer felt let down, and said the same of the entire third season: it felt disjointed, and the episodes did not come together in a way that left them wanting more. The hit-and-run payoff illustrates the problem, since a storyline set up in the premiere arrived in the ninth episode after seven weeks of silence.

The Stef and Lena scene is where the episode earns its place. It is built on two actors holding a long silence, and it asks the audience to look at the marriage at the center of the series without the usual comfort. Stef's line works because it does not accuse. It tells Lena that Stef already knows what honesty would have looked like.

Elsewhere, the review has little patience for the Brandon and Callie material and for Brooke as a villain, calling the character crazy and her escalation over-the-top. The Jenna and Monte break-up gets a more sympathetic read, though the reviewer objects to the phrase catching feelings, arguing that feelings develop and are not caught like a virus.

Around the main storylines, the episode keeps the family scattered. Mariana complains that she is basically an only child, with everyone else in summer school and Jude away at camp, a remark that prompts the review to ask when Jude left, since he was in summer school the previous week. Lena and Stef brush the comment aside to deal with bigger problems, including a call from Callie's social worker, who has noticed inconsistencies between the love stories Brandon and Callie each told and plans to question the girls at Girls United.

The review has fun with Callie's reaction to nearly being run over, saying she goes all Spencer Hastings on everyone. That line points to the episode's mood: a soapy, fast-moving teen thriller wrapped around a family drama, with the family drama giving the episode its weight. Read that way, the Stef and Lena confrontation is the scene the whole hour is built to reach, and the hit-and-run reveal, the blackmail plot and the music competition are the busy material around it. Anyone catching up on the season can safely treat "Idyllwild" as the point where the marriage storyline stops being a secret.

For viewers asking only the question in the title, the short version is that Stef learns of the kiss in "Idyllwild," and the fallout carries into the episodes that follow.

The Fosters after Idyllwild: season and series facts

The Fosters was created by Peter Paige and Bradley Bredeweg and ran on ABC Family, later renamed Freeform, from June 3, 2013 to June 6, 2018, for five seasons and 104 episodes. Season 3 had 20 episodes, split into two halves of ten; it premiered on June 8, 2015, and its finale, "Kingdom Come," aired on March 28, 2016.

Freeform announced on January 3, 2018 that the show would end after five seasons. The finale was a two-hour 100th episode, followed by a three-part limited event in June 2018. That event also introduced the spin-off Good Trouble, starring Maia Mitchell and Cierra Ramirez. The principal cast includes Teri Polo, Sherri Saum, Maia Mitchell, David Lambert, Cierra Ramirez, Hayden Byerly, Noah Centineo and Danny Nucci.

Sources

• List of The Fosters episodes, Wikipedia — air date, credits and viewership for season 3 episode 9
• The Fosters (American TV series), Wikipedia — creators, network, run dates, ending and spin-off