‘Good Trouble’ Season Finale Recap: Decisions, Decisions

Good Trouble wrapped up its first season on Tuesday night in a jam-packed hour that saw some big decisions being made and several storylines being set up for season two, which is set to air this summer.

First of all, Dennis (Josh Pence) is alive! It was pretty touch and go at the end of the last episode as he looked ready to end it all after his conversation with Jen went awry. As it turns out, he checked himself into the hospital for a 48-hour psychiatric hold. I’m glad they did not off Dennis because shit would have really hit the fan with the fandom of this show. He’s one of my favorite characters.

Davia (Emma Hunton) comes to visit him; they have a much needed conversation and it appears the two of them may have feelings for each other — at least in my opinion. I guess we’ll find out in the summer. Seriously, forget Callie’s dance sequence! I wanted more on this storyline.

Anyway, let’s move on to Callie (Maia Mitchell) and touch on her relationship drama first. Anyone who has watched this season knows she’s had some hot sex with Gael (Tommy Martinez), but then also got involved with Jamie (Beau Mirchoff). So basically, she is now torn between choosing between them. We knew this, so we really didn’t need a daydreaming dance sequence to tell us this, despite it being pretty cool. Callie does not pick a guy in this episode, but I’m secretly hoping she chooses Jamie.

Callie also makes a big decision in regards to her job in the finale and it really showed just how much she has grown up. She seriously considered stealing Officer Griffin’s sealed file out of Judge Wilson’s (Roger Bart) desk because she thinks it contains proof that Officer Griffin heard the Chief of Police saying its “cheaper for the department if police shooting victims die”, which would be a huge break in Jamal’s case. On The Fosters, the old reckless Callie would have stolen the file because she was living in the ‘now’. However, this new grown up version of Callie did not steal it. She did get the file anonymously sent to her and she may have leaked it to Jamie, but that’s a totally different issue. Callie has grown and it showed in this moment.

Let’s move on to Alice and Sumi, shall we? Last week, we saw Sumi (Kara Wang) confess to Alice (Sherry Cola) that she is still in love with her. If you guessed that this wedding would not happen, well then you would be right. Sumi calls off her wedding with Meera via text. Okay, breaking up with some over text sucks, but now imagine choosing to call off a wedding that way. Cold, Sumi. Very cold. Alice finally stands up for herself and admits she is honestly over Sumi but they will always be best friends. It’s about freaking time that Alice moved on because seeing Sumi hurt her early on in the season was really tough to watch.

That’s not all Alice has to deal with this week. Her parents make a surprise visit while she was hanging out with Joey (Daisy Eagan); Alice panics and introduces Joey as Joanna. Joey realizes in this moment that not only is Alice not out to her parents, she’s also not fully out to herself, which ultimately leaves Joey to break things off with her. Alice again stands up for herself and FINALLY comes out to them. The shocker? Her parents already knew she was gay and were just waiting for her to tell them. Alice’s fear of not being accepted by her family is now gone and I cannot wait to see her live it up next season.

Tuesday’s finale truly brought some heartbreaking moments, but none more than what Malika (Zuri Adele) was going through this week. Her mother has a brain aneurysm, leaving Malika and Dom (J. Mallory McCree) to take her off life support and finally let her go. Dom is taking it bad as you’d expect, so Malika chooses to be the bigger person and be there for him. But privately, Malika breaks down in front of Sandra (Nicki Micheaux). Adele does a great job of conveying the emotion that Malika is feeling in this moment.

Malika wanted a relationship with Dom and sadly their mother’s death may be the thing that brings them closer together. Also, remember when we thought we saw the last of Issac (Sarunas J. Jackson)? Fear not! He returned, which leaves me feeling hopeful that Malika can finally get some happiness as we head into the show’s second season.

We can’t end this recap without talking about the biggest winner in the finale, right? I’m talking about Mariana (Cierra Ramirez)! She has the toughest decision to make by far as to whether she wants to go public with her spreadsheet now that she has the male employee salary information. At first, she feels this may not be the best idea after she got her app greenlit and feels like she finally has Evan’s (T.J. Linnard) ear. But Mariana has always done what is right and continues to do so by ultimately releasing her spreadsheet.

Josh (Charlie Bodin) and Angela (Heather Mazur) call an emergency, company-wide staff meeting where Josh demands to know who is responsible for the spreadsheet. No one comes forward but someone does suggest raising the women’s pay to equal the men’s. Josh claims that didn’t know about the pay gap and tries to blame the issue on Angela, as the Head of HR; he even goes so far as to fire her in front of everyone. Mariana doesn’t want Angela fired so she admits it was her who released it. All of the girls in Mariana’s BYTE club, and Raj (Dhruv Uday Singh), stand up along side Mariana and claim that it was them who released the spreadsheet. A few girls even take it a few steps further and admit Josh tried to kiss them. Evan walks in, hears all of this and immediately fires Josh’s ass like he deserved.

Mariana meets with Evan and admits it was her who put together the pay gap spreadsheet. She says that considering everything, she feels it might be best if she moves on from Speckulate. Evan really does not want her to leave, but says he can’t stop her if that’s what she really wants. But he does inform her that if she goes, she can’t take her activism app idea with her because Speckulate owns it. Talk about getting stuck in a sticky situation. However, Mariana’s biggest moment comes on the roof as Mariana and Raj are talking when she tells him that she really wants to kiss him. And she does! Finally! As a fellow nerd, I’m excited to see where these two go in the future.

Episode Notes:

• I’m very curious to see how the situation with Judge Wilson pans out for Callie. The Jamal trial has only just begun and I feel like I’m going to be very invested in this plot as we move forward.
• Jeff (Chris Sheffield) shows up and tells Davia he left his wife. Can she please kick this douchebag out her life for good? She deserves better than a shitty guy like Jeff.
• Gael loves Callie. Cue the love triangle!
• Overall, Good Trouble really proved to live up to the hype during its freshman run. Counting down the days until we meet again.

What did you think of the season and the finale? Let me know in the comments below!

Good Trouble returns to Freeform for Season 2 on June 18 at 8/7c.