The episode starts with Bay and Emmett texting back and forth when Bay wakes up and its Emmett’s first day of school at USC. Emmett thinks that it was a mistake for him to go to LA. Daphne wakes up late and has to run to get to Professor Marillo’s class on time for her first Chemistry I class. Daphne makes the mistake of showing up late and in sweatpants and gets the two strikes in the first five minutes. Bay goes to community service and because of what she did with the heroin; they cannot bring lunch so Regina takes Bay’s lunch to work instead. Kathryn sets up for the coffee meeting she has with the producer for her movie idea.
Then, when Regina and Bay go to East Riverside for Bay’s community service drop-off, Regina busts off the taillight of a motorcycle and takes it inside to the guy who is renovating the storefront across the street from Wes’s job site into a coffee house. Regina and the guy talk about the neighborhood and how he wants to create an environment where people can request the type of mug they want their coffee in. Meanwhile at the community service site, Tess freaks out when she finds out that Bay had something to do with why Robbie got busted for contraband and tells Bay that he doesn’t have a sister and Annie is his ex who is trying to get him into trouble. The officer watching them tells Tess that is the word, that Robbie got caught with contraband, and that he’s not getting out in a month and that she better find a new plan and one more write up and she will join him behind bars. Bay tries to apologize but Tess storms off.
At the coffee house, Juanita offers the owner of the coffeehouse some of her baked goods to try to make money back that she lost when the construction project folded. The coffeeshop owner sees what Juanita says and gives Regina coffee then asks her to leave. At UMKC, Daphne and Josh are deep into her first Chemistry I class where Professor Marillo is explaining acids. Then, at the end she tries to get into a study group with a few other people, but when she falls behind in what they are studying they get upset and leave and she discovers them studying without her. And at the Kennish house, Kathryn and John are talking to the producer who wants to turn Kathryn’s book “Batter’s up” into a movie. Then, he asks Kathryn to write the screenplay for the movie since she wrote the book and tells her that she will get an assistant that will come out of the production budget. The producer talks to John about the film being his success, even though he says that the book was all Kathryn’s doing.
Bay tries to go talk to Tess at lunch, which makes Tess give her the cold shoulder and gets mad at Bay telling her that she should “go back in a time machine, and stay away from Robbie like Tess told her to in the first place.” Then, Bay tries to tell Tess that she’s “screwed” too, but Tess doesn’t care because she is about to lose her son to foster care. A fight ensues between them until the officer watching them on the community service team comes over and tells them to stop. He then gives them a project that he claims will make them happy, when it will really only make him happy. Then, the probation officer makes Tess feel worse by saying that he doesn’t care about her son and he would not think twice about writing her up and throwing her in jail just so he doesn’t have to look at her.
Back at the Kennish house, John and Regina talk after John tells her that some mail of hers got dropped in their mailbox by mistake. He tells Regina she’s home early and then she proceeds to tell him about what happened when she dropped Bay off in East Riverside. John tells her to take the griping of those people in East Riverside with a grain of salt, and that she should steer clear of East Riverside for a while. While Bay and Tess argue back at the worksite about who will go get the dead animal they just found for the probation officer. Bay wants to get back in Tess’s good graces and so Tess tells her that she can go dig the animal out to “owe her one.”
So, Bay crawls in the tunnel and gets the animal out and later realizes she has missed texts from Emmett and has to tell him her phone was taken away and she couldn’t video chat with him at lunch. Then, when she is done for the day with community service, she expects Toby to pick her up but instead finds Tank who claims that Toby had an emergency and couldn’t pick her up. Then, Bay tells Tank about what happened at community service. Meanwhile, Daphne joins her study group but can’t keep up because they are trying to go through the material and are talking too fast for her to read their lips and Josh to interpret. Unfortunately, her pace angers the girl leading the study group who then calls the rest of the studying off for them to “do on their own” when in reality they are just going someplace else to study without Daphne. Then, Daphne and Josh feel terrible when the rest of the group walks out of the commons room.
At the house, Kathryn and John talk more about her book being made into a movie and how he thinks the characters need more depth but John has reservations about her work with the producer. John then tells her that he needs money for the budget for the movie, even though he told Kathryn he had four million dollars lined up. Daphne and Josh get into an argument on their way out of the room they were all studying in only to go into the lab and find her group studying without her. When she confronts them, Josh tells Daphne they are meeting without her. The group tries to tell her that it’s not personal and they think she’d be better in another group, but this angers Josh and he starts to get angry and talk about how it is selfish that they can’t take a few minutes to let he and Daphne catch up to them and feels all the anger over how his parents are treated (since they are deaf too). This makes Daphne upset because she is not asking him to speak for her only interpret, and in a hasty move she fires him.
Daphne and Josh then go outside and argue when she tells him that he’s only there to interpret and that he doesn’t get to have an opinion in what’s going on. Josh then basically tells her that he refuses to stand there and take what they are saying. Kathryn meets up with Renzo who tries to make her feel better after her conversation with John and tells her that the movie could still happen. Then, he tells her to have Lydia (her editor) take it to Broadway and make a musical out of it instead. It makes her laugh and they start singing and she decides she loves that idea.
Bay is at home cleaned up and eating some crackers and hummus when John comes in and starts to try to tell her he’s not sure how healthy all the texting between her and Emmett is. She counters with telling him that she had to convince Emmett to go without her and that he could change his mind and come home, but she wants to convince Emmett to make some new friends so he has someone to spend time with until she is done with probation and can go to LA. John says ok and for Emmett to tell Bay that they send their best wishes to him.
Back at their dorm room, Daphne tells Iris that she fired Josh and Iris questions who will interpret for Daphne now and she says that she will do it herself and asks Iris to help her try to learn some chemistry words by reading Iris’s lips. Unfortunately that plan does not work too well, as she gets through the first two words and then struggles to get the next few words and gets really frustrated. They try a few more, but only to realize she needs Josh’s help if she has any chance to succeed. Renzo visits the house where Kathryn has seen the whole musical idea play out in her head and couldn’t sleep because she was seeing dancers and lyrics to songs, which causes Renzo to think he is a genius. Renzo tells Kathryn that he’s only good for the big picture not the details.
In Chemistry class, the study group shows up and it’s really tense between them and Daphne. Daphne then finds Josh who has come to explain to her why he acted the way he did. Josh has deaf parents and had to start fighting his parent’s battles at the age of 5 because they could only sign. This makes Daphne realize that he is a really caring guy and wants to help her do the best she can and get the best help she can. He says that he has to get used to a deaf person who is empowered and can speak for herself.
The next day at the community service worksite, Bay and Tess get into a fight because Tess wants to use Bay’s phone and Bay is waiting to video chat with Emmett. The fight turns physical and Bay pushes Tess, then Tess smashes Bay’s phone because Bay wouldn’t let her use it to call Robbie’s lawyer about getting him out of jail. When the probation officer sees the argument he comes over and asks Bay what happened. If Bay tells him that Tess smashed her phone, Tess will go to jail too, so Bay tells him that she dropped it and the screen broke.
Regina returns to the coffeehouse trying to explain to the owner why she became a part of the construction project, and offers to have K&D designs design the interior for the coffee shop. She talks about doing an open mic night or have part of the coffee shop be an art studio. Back at the work site, Tess sticks up for Bay when the probation officer wants her to bag a dead rat and tells him that Animal Control is supposed to do it. Instead of calling Animal Control, the officer decides to do it himself. Kathryn has a piano delivered to the house so she can write the musical. And Bay tries to get Emmett to video chat since her phone was broken, but he is headed to a screening so he says later which makes her sad.
At UMKC, the girl in their study group then notices that Daphne and Josh have advanced notes for the next class, and ask her and her advanced notes to come back to the study group. She tells Josh that the only reason they are wanted back is because of the advanced notes, which Josh tells her to use to her advantage, and to tell her that she should work what she’s got because she can’t get by without a study group. They agree that the others will go slower and speak clearly in exchange for Daphne and Josh and the advanced notes.
Reflection on this episode:
This episode brought out feelings about this episode were changing throughout the whole episode based on who was in the scene and what was happening in the scene. The chemistry study group should have been more understanding of Daphne and Josh and they should have been open to trying to slow down a bit and let Daphne catch up. It was unfair of them to make the decision to try to meet somewhere else other than with Daphne or told her the truth in the beginning.
The situation between Tess and Bay seems to continue to cause issues for Bay, though yours truly really hopes that maybe when Tess stood up to the probation officer for Bay it might cool off and they can be friendly or at least civil. They both have a long time to do community service and it would behoove both of them to try to come to some understanding.
Kathryn is still trying to sell the idea of a movie based on her book, but after what John told her about the movie producer, the tone in the episode was so sad. So, it was refreshing to see when she decided to change and do a musical after Renzo gives her the idea. The musical will probably be more profitable anyway or at least more fun as Kathryn really seems to have taken an interest in dancing.
Regina is trying to soften things up in East Riverside and earn the trust of the residents there back as well as find K&D a new project when she offers her services to the coffee shop. Not much has played out there, so the decision on how to feel can't really be made right now though Eric seems standoffish at first after the confrontation between Regina and Juanita.
