Favorite Characters: Jude Jacob (The Fosters)

I’m such a fan of Jude.  As I’ve said, hearing about him and his plot with Connor is a major reason I started watching The Fosters, and if anything, he’s better than the word-of-mouth.  Just a hugely loveable character, and I love seeing him grow throughout the show.  (Some spoilers.)

Jude has spent half of his life in foster care.  He’s been in seven different schools and numerous foster homes, and constantly moving around has left him behind grade-wise and with hardly any possessions.  His mom is dead, his dad is in jail, and for six years, his only sense of home has been his sister Callie, but even she’s not a guarantee.  At the start of the series, Callie is in juvie for what she did to protect Jude from an abusive foster father – she was removed from the house, and Jude was left alone with the man who beat him.  Time and again, the system has failed him.

That said, Jude is amazingly resilient.  He’s loving, gives so much of himself, and consciously, bravely chooses to hold to hope and happiness.  Despite his frequent uprooting, he quickly starts forging relationships with the Fosters and at his new school.  It’s some time before he considers the other kids his siblings or Stef and Lena his moms, but he isn’t holding back or wary of getting attached.  Similarly, while he doesn’t have many friends at school, he’s pretty all-in in his friendship, and later romance, with Connor. Jude, I think, is a “better to have loved and lost” type – although he’s lost so much in a short time, he keeps reaching out and making new connections.

That’s not to say his experiences don’t affect him.  They do.  He’s initially over-eager to do chores at the Fosters, thinking that pitching in will signify that he’s more than just passing through, and his fastidiously good behavior is a bid to be “kept” (in fact, one of Lena and Stef’s first indications that Jude feels like a member of the family is when he’s comfortable enough to be a little less dutiful.)  His fears and stresses can manifest in unconventional ways, like when, fearing that he’s going to be pulled out of the house soon, he starts hoarding food under his bed.

However, things like a desire to help out and obedience don’t send up red flags, and hiding food can go unnoticed for quite a while.  It’s not that Jude is untroubled; it’s that he doesn’t show it in the more obvious that Callie does, and as such, people can miss it.  The general thought is that Jude is be fine because he’s always fine.  He’s always good and caring and considerate and optimistic, so there’s no need to worry about him, when the truth is that he has the same kinds of feelings as Callie.  It’s just that he hides them more, and so he needs can go unmet because no one knows about them This holds true with Connor as well; for a long time, their relationship is, for Jude, confusingly and frustratingly undefined, but Connor doesn’t think about he might be hurting Jude because Jude pretends to be okay with it. 

As far as his sexuality goes, I love how authentic Jude feels.  He’s not a stereotype, but he’s also not self-consciously written/acted against a stereotype, either.  He can like video games and nail polish, and his mannerisms are unmacho without being particularly gay-coded.  He’s also young enough that he’s still figuring things out, which I really like (it’s great that he’s with the Fosters, who are supportive and reassuring – I love the conservation he has with Lena when he starts to wonder if he’s gay.)  This aspect is especially nice when you pair it with stuff like coming to school with painted nails, because even if he’s still questioning and doesn’t have a handy-dandy label prepared for himself, he’s still brave enough to be who he is, whoever that turns out to be.

Relationship Spotlight: Jude Jacob & Connor Stevens (The Fosters)

Hearing about Jude and his storyline was, honestly, one of the reasons I finally checked out The Fosters.  While, like most things on the show, Jude’s relationship with Connor can be written a bit haphazardly (more often, it feels, this season,) it’s one of the series’ more consistent ongoing arcs, and I enjoy it immensely.  (Relationship-related spoilers.)

With Connor and Jude, one of their plot’s best qualities is also its most maddening:  the slow pace at which it unrolls.  A lot of stories on The Fosters careen around at breakneck speed, which can make them feel inauthentic.  However, since the actors playing Jude and Connor are young enough to be constrained by child labor laws, their screentime, and thus their story’s momentum, is limited by necessity.  This can be great, because it allows this gentle story of a friendship that might be blossoming into first love to play out more naturally.  Jude/Connor doesn’t have a ton of improbably drama piled on top of it to up the ante every week, because there’s drama enough in the plot unfolding.  At the same time, though, weeks go by where all we get of their plot is tantalizing scraps.  So, it’s a conundrum – I want the series to take its time with them and give me a top-shelf story, but I also just want more Jude/Connor!

Jude and Connor intrigue me from their earliest interactions.  Jude is new in school, but, due to his penchant for painting his nails, has already been labeled “the gay kid.”  Connor, by contrast, is what would stereotypically be called more “all-American.”  He’s into sports and videogames (though Jude likes videogames as well, other kids are quick to reduce him to a single trait,) and he’s big enough that he wouldn’t make anyone’s easy target.  With all this going for him, I suppose one could argue that, when he paints his nails in solidarity with his new friend, he comes at it from a place of relative privilege.  I don’t care – that is a ballsy move for a 12-year-old boy, and whether he’s doing it out of friendship or maybe-like-like, it’s a magnificent gesture.

As their plot moves forward, we start to see the first tentative steps toward a deeper relationship between the boys.  Jude is startled by his feelings of jealousy when Connor expresses interest in a girl, and Connor continues to see Jude in secret after his dad forbids their friendship, assuming Jude to be afflicted with “teh gay” and not wanting Connor to “catch it.”  They make shy advances toward each other, physical contact that’s at first easily “explainable,” like jocular tussling, but soon gets bolder, like moving to sit closer to one another for no evident reason.  Their first overtly romantic gesture – holding pinkies at the movie theater while ostensibly on a double date – feels like something out of a Jane Austen novel, a tiny physical connection that, in such a repressed environment, is positively charged with unspoken attraction.

And although it’s hard, because I like both boys but especially Jude and want nothing but the best for him, I like that it takes them a long time to figure out exactly what their relationship is and where it’s heading.  It’s tough for them, inspiring confusion in both, fear in Connor, and insecurity in Jude, but it feels real.  I like that they dance around the idea of a “them” and struggle with what they mean to each other, but by the same token, I love it when Jude realizes things can’t keep going the way they are and confronts Connor about it.  For a sensitive boy, Jude can be pretty daring, and it’s so gratifying to see him finally stop accepting the on-off, behind-closed-doors relationship that Connor is apparently so okay with, and tell the boy he likes that he needs more than that.