Recap: Good Trouble 1×10 “Re-Birthday”

Eating jalapeño wings, dancing on tables, stealing disco balls, everybody making out with each other — just a typical night out with The Coterie squad for Davia’s 25th birthday. Here’s what went down in Good Trouble episode 1×10, titled “Re-Birthday”.

The One Where Davia and Dennis Learn To Respect Themselves 

It’s Davia’s 25th birthday, or “re-birthday” as she calls it since she’s making big changes this year, starting with respecting herself. She celebrates it by throwing quite the extravangaza — where plus ones are mandatory — complete with “drivia” (Davia trivia, duh!), an Amazing Race-style competition and bar crawl across all of DTLA.

Although Davia is trying to have fun, she keeps checking her phone, hoping that Jeff did something to acknowledge her birthday. “The fact that I haven’t heard from him all day confirms that he didn’t love me,” she hopelessly admits to Dennis. “Probably never did.”

But as we see in a flashback, Jeff did do something for Davia’s birthday — something pretty extravagant. He flew in to surprise her, but runs into Dennis first since Davia is not home when he shows up. Dennis ends up knocking Jeff out, telling him to leave her alone.

Back in the present, Davia finally takes matters into her own hands and texts Jeff. He immediately calls her and tells her what went down with Dennis. Davia is p-i-s-s-e-d and starts yelling at Dennis right there on the street in front of the club.

“You want to know what I told him after I hit him?” Dennis tells her. “I told him you’re trying to move on, that you are trying to learn to love yourself, respect yourself, believe that you are worthy of love, fully and exclusively, Davia, because you are. I told him if he can’t be that person, if he can’t give you everything that you need, that he should leave, which he did.”

After taking a moment to collect herself, she yells back: “What do you know about love and self-respect? You hate yourself, Dennis. How about I start treating myself with respect when you do.”

Dennis takes that step towards self-respect by asking his ex-wife for half the sale of their house. Feeling proud of himself for a brief moment, that moment of bliss is soon ruined when she texts him back and tells him to talk to her lawyer.

Davia ends her birthday reunited with Jeff in bed, but ultimately takes that self-respect as well, telling him she can’t be in a relationship with someone that continues to go nowhere year after year. However, Jeff one-ups her by dropping quite the bomb: “What if I told you I’m leaving my wife?”

“[I] don’t have to be lonelyyyyyyy tonightttttt” – Brandon, probably

Every single member of the Adams-Foster family has appeared on Good Trouble now that Brandon has reunited with his sisters; us fans are truly blessed. But in my opinion, Brandon’s reunion was the most underwhelming. 

Brandon runs into his sisters on their wild night out because he’s driving for Coche — the show’s version of Uber. He doesn’t want his brother-in-law Jamie to see him because as it turns out, Eliza doesn’t know that he’s driving for Coche when she’s not home. Brandon says it’s because she doesn’t want him to work so that he can just focus on writing music. But he says he feels uncomfortable letting her pay for everything with her money.

Leave it to Dennis to knock some sense into Brandon. “Let me ask you this: if you were bringing in all the bacon and your wife wanted to take a class, would you think she needed to ask permission?… You know what that makes you? An ass.”

“I don’t know how to make a marriage work, obviously,” Dennis later admits to Brandon as Brandon finishes driving him around the block to avoid Davia’s birthday celebration. “But I do know how to screw one up — keeping secrets, not talking, retreating into your own corners when things get rough, letting all those little resentments build up.” 

While I did like that Brandon was right in the middle of things as all of the characters were constantly getting in and out of his car all night, I was hoping that we’d get a little more of Brandon hanging out one-on-one with his sisters. However, we at least got that one-on-one at the end between him and Callie, where Callie re-affirms what Dennis told him. “Brandon, I know that you have a hard time not being the caretaker, but I’m sure you take care of her in ways far more important than making money.” Brandon also admits to Callie that it’s not just about the money; Eliza is on the road quite a bit, so Brandon likes driving because it makes him not so lonely.

As he’s leaving, Callie tells him to not be a stranger; there’s always someone he can be around at The Coterie. Listen to her, Brandon — please come back soon!

The Love Rectangle

Tensions are running high between the love rectangle of Callie, Gael, Bryan and Jamie. Things are made even more awkward when Callie and Gael end up on the same team for Davia’s Amazing Race-style competition against Jamie and Bryan. What could possibly go wrong?

Although he tries not to show it, Gael clearly is intimidated by Jamie. Hell, the only reason he even decides to do the wing-eating contest is because Jamie has a smug look on his face as when says he’s going to.

After Bryan casually mentioned it in their Coche ride earlier, Jamie asks Callie why she never mentioned that she had stopped seeing Gael; Callie brushes it off, saying it’s “irrelevant to us.” However, this prompts Jamie to ask Callie to define their relationship; he’s cool being friends if she just wants someone to go to for legal advice and a confidant. “But friends with sometimes benefits on your terms when you want, it’s not working for me.” Sounds a lot like what Gael told Callie last week, no?

One of the challenges of the night is kissing a total stranger or someone you’ve never kissed before. Noticing that Gael had been sending some longing looks in Callie’s direction all night, Bryan tries to establish some sort of upper-hand and asks Callie if she’d be up for a kiss; this prompts Gael to get angry and leave, abandoning the competition entirely. “Honestly, now that I’ve kissed her, I really don’t know what the fuss is about,” Bryan snarkily tells Davia afterwards. 

Later that night, when Callie sees Gael back at The Coterie, she apologizes for making him feel used. “You weren’t just a distraction and it wasn’t just about the sex, which probably scared me. And I’m sorry I made it all about me, which I guess is something I have to work on.” They end their conversation on good terms, agreeing to get to know each other as friends since they kind of skipped that step the first time.

When Gael actually makes it back to his loft, Bryan is there waiting for him and addresses his insecurity about feeling like a second choice to Callie. “I don’t want to play the ‘what if’ game, but I did chose you Bryan,” Gael reassures him. “And I don’t regret it. If you can’t trust that, then this won’t work.” Callie also tells Jamie via text that she wants more than just advice and friends with sometimes benefits with him. So for now, Gael seems happy being exclusive with Bryan and Callie seems confident in her choice to choose Jamie. But I have a feeling this love rectangle will continue to be a rectangle for the foreseeable future. 

Episode Notes:

• I found it freakin’ adorable that Issac says he’s trying to court Malika and wants to know her intimately. Zuri Adele and Sarunas Jackson have this INSANE sexual chemistry. I’m shipping these two sooooo hard.
• I low-key love that it’s been Dennis of all people that’s connected right off the bat with Jesus and now Brandon. I’m going to need a scene where Dennis is invited over to the Adams-Foster house for the holidays ASAP.
• When I first saw the episode stills, I had so many questions about what could have possibly led to Jamie dancing on a table with a go-go dancer. But the actual scene definitely lived up to the hype.
• I’m really digging Maraj, as Mariana and Raj have dubbed themselves. Their flirting tonight was effortless and natural, and Mariana’s smile as she proudly posted the picture of them on her Instagram made me SO HAPPY. 
• Sumi is still stringing Alice along and I can’t take it anymore. ALICE, PLEASE PUT SUMI IN HER PLACE.
• Line of the night: Mariana – “Can you get me on your shoulders?” Raj – “I’ve been to Coachella.” 
• I was DYING when everyone comes out after stealing the disco ball and climbs into Brandon’s Prius. Full blown clown car right there.

Good Trouble airs on Tuesdays at 8/7c on Freeform.