All American has devoted so much of Amina's arc to striving to uphold the positive aspects of her mother as Coop and Preach struggle to determine just when or how much of the truth about Monique's death to tell Amina as she has grown older and is asking questions. However, in "Just a Friend," the series undermines all of the emotional tethers to the storyline by having Amina discover the truth about her mother off-screen and then having her describe her findings to Coop. During Amina's trip to Baltimore, she realizes that Monique had loving parents who wanted to support her, a family who wanted to see her at her best and still threw it away after Tyrone's death. However, this moment for Amina would have been much more powerful had All American actually shown Amina's realization rather than just the aftermath of her return home and how she verbally describes it to Coop.
Yet, that is not the only issue here. Amina does have a better understanding of her mother, but its execution comes at the expense of the audience having a better chance to connect with Amina. Also, why is Coop deciding that now, during a time when Preach is once again absent, this time at a teacher's conference in Arizona, is the moment to discuss the truth about Monique? Why is Preach not present for this conversation when he, as Amina's father, should be there when Coop wants to talk to Amina about Monique? All American's narrative choice, potentially on accident, paints Preach as an absent father who is never present for emotionally significant moments in his daughter's life, not because he does not care, but because the storylines literally do not include him in them. This role, instead, as it has been all season, remains with Coop. Preach's absence prevents the ability to witness a growing father-daughter bond and instead strives to make the audience understand Amina and Preach's relationship through implications, except when Preach is present, he appears as a protective and caring father, and other times he is missing entirely.
Amina is also placed once again as the main confidant for both KJ and Khalil as the storyline insists that Amina be KJ's main emotional connection while she is also simultaneously the key to fixing all of Khalil's problems, even when he tries to keep her away from them. Amina, when giving advice to others, comes across as clear-headed, but when it comes to her own issues with Coop, she tends to mostly shut down. While there can be a difference in how a person reacts when there is a separation between them and the event versus when it is personal, All American's writing and Amina's characterization is dangerously inconsistent, wanting to place her as a mature problem-fixer for the boys as if to heighten the love triangle while she struggles to determine how to make choices about her own life. Placing Amina at the center also makes the roles come across as unbalanced, as what is the point of connecting Tori to only KJ and barely allowing her to interact with Amina and Khalil? Allowing Tori to become more involved with Amina and Khalil would at least merge her more strongly into the series. Instead, the narrative is blatantly obvious that she stands on the outside looking in, even though Tori is a far more interesting character than one who should be sidelined in the show's new teenage main characters. With the exception of being there for KJ, Tori does not have a real plotline of her own.
Otherwise, All American's stakes surrounding South Crenshaw High School's football team have been nonexistent in comparison to the focus on Beverly High School's team, which is a fairly strong contradiction to Jordan's concerns at the beginning of the season about if he had what it takes to help elevate the team or if he risked bringing them down. While Jordan is not actually present in the episode, "Just a Friend" continues the trend of spending more screen time on Beverly's football team, now from the perspective of a juggernaut underdog that came out from behind and stole the show, now placed as the guaranteed number one seed for the playoffs. It is an accomplishment for Beverly's players, but "Just a Friend" presents the storyline in a way that hurts South Crenshaw's lack of focus on the team's growth and how Beverly rarely shows the team playing games and bonding as a unit. All American has yet to make any of KJ's teammates a significant character that could hold emotional investment from the audience. So when one of KJ's teammates gets hurt toward the end of the game, it is more of a minor inconvenience than anything that holds legitimate stakes. It does not help that the event that led to the player's injury is entirely about Cassius and not at all about the player himself.
"Just a Friend" also offers a difficult choice in terms of how great Beverly's team is supposed to be in comparison to their opponents. At the end of the half, Beverly is leading with 20-10 over their opponent. Such a score suggests that while Beverly is better, the other team is at least competitive enough where the score is close. The second half, though, is all about dominating and demolishing the opposition as Beverly's score rises, but their opponent remains at 10 points. This is a choice in terms of showing Cassius' competitive attitude and desire to prove something to his father, but it also begs the question of how much influence the boosters had earlier in the episode if they were strongly suggesting that KJ and the rest of the starters should allow the second string to take the lead in the final regular season game, especially as Cassius is never seen discussing the choice with anyone.
Otherwise, Layla's storyline is mostly disconnected from the rest of the main plot, being all about trying to reach Elle, while Coop's priority remains mixed between connecting with her professor and trying to help Khalil get out of a dangerous situation at his and Amina's requests for help. With only a few episodes left in the season, All American is finally teasing and getting to the real reason why Cassius and KJ are in Beverly. While All American has done the work to try and develop its newest additions, unfortunately, some of those developments may have come too late.