Good Trouble's Series Finale Says Goodbye To A 10-Year Legacy

On June 3, 2013, The Fosters premiered on ABC Family, introducing the world to a television series about the importance of chosen family. Its premise showed the significance of love creating a family rather than DNA. For five seasons, The Fosters covered various topics from the foster system to sexual assault. The series was an important staple of Freeform, showing the tight-knit bonds and growing love that surrounded a family that mixed biological connections with adopted children.

Following the five-season success of The Fosters, Freeform continued its legacy, tracking sisters Callie and Mariana Adams-Foster on a new adventure as they moved into the Coterie in Los Angeles. While Callie is initially not thrilled with their lack of privacy given the communal bathroom and kitchen, this experience is ultimately a blessing in disguise, as Mariana and Callie inevitably form a new sense of found family with their roommates.

During their time on Good Trouble, Callie and Mariana faced new romances, friendships, and professional successes and failures. As of March 5, 2024, it is the end of an era as the Adams-Fosters and all of those whom they had welcomed as another chosen family officially said goodbye. But, how did Good Trouble's five-year run end, and did it offer this legacy a significant conclusion with its additional moments that allowed this initial season finale to become a series ending?

"What Now?" does a phenomenal job of making sure it ties up loose ends, and at least gives answers to all of the season's biggest questions surrounding the main characters, even if certain things feel unfinished. However, the series finale's biggest drawback is that it feels rushed like the events of the story were ensured based on a checklist of things that needed to be handled. Granted, that may be due to a lack of time to craft what was an intended season finale into a series sendoff.

Mariana has been at the center of two of season five's biggest storylines, and both get addressed in the series finale, even if they do come across as being a bit anticlimactic.

Silas has been a problem since his introduction, and it was only a matter of time before he was eventually caught or killed. The character had been dragged on far too long and overstayed his welcome on the series, so at least this being a series finale ensured that Silas would never be heard from again.

In the end, Mariana and Joaquin's determination to get Silas is only helped by Jenna's change of heart. But, even Jenna's change of heart comes a bit quickly. When did Jenna have the time to change her allegiance? Jenna had seemingly went back to Silas of her own choice. Perhaps the discussion surrounding Silas' involvement with Madison was enough for Jenna to see the villain Silas truly is. But, Jenna's mental and emotional state of mind surrounding Silas and her allegiances between Silas and Joaquin were never given enough screen time to justify Jenna's change of heart.

Still, Mariana and Jenna receive excellent moments in the finale, with Mariana hitting Silas with his own truck while Jenna shoots Silas in the back to save Mariana. While Silas does survive the encounter, it is suggested that he will be going to jail.

Otherwise, Mariana's other big mystery surrounding her love triangle between Evan and Joaquin also comes to a very anticlimactic and rushed conclusion. Evan barely appears in the series finale, as the focus lies primarily on Mariana and Joaquin's strive to see Silas imprisoned. So, when Evan does appear and eventually tells Mariana that he has gained his memories and feelings for her back, there is not enough time to really explore what that means.

At the finale's beginning, Mariana describes her willingness to move on only to go back on it by the episode's conclusion. The audience is not privy to understanding how far Mariana and Evan's talk goes, only that Mariana told Joaquin about Evan's memories and confirming that Mariana and Evan had ended up together.

Perhaps if the series had offered Mariana and Evan real time to grow back together by giving Evan his memories back earlier in the season and giving the love triangle stronger weight, than Mariana's decision could have been more backed up by season five's actions.

As it stands, Mariana's feelings surrounding Evan in season five have mostly been brought on by guilt about how he had followed her to the Farm with Joaquin, a decision which had ultimately resulted in Evan being shot. Evan had been suffering from amnesia since the beginning of season five, and the show, while portraying Evan falling for Maraina again, does not offer the duo any real scenes together when they both would have remembered their past.

It is uncertain if Mariana took time after Evan's confession to determine what she wanted after informing Joaquin, or if she had chosen Evan in that moment. The jump to three months ahead does not help in that matter, and it feels too rushed for a solid reunion between two characters who had bounced back and forth between being together and apart. Meanwhile, Joaquin reveals his plans to eventually return home with Jenna so they can put their broken family back together.

Malika also had two big questions surrounding her professional and romantic futures, and both are summed up fairly quickly without much fanfare. Rather than constantly fight politicians, Malika decides to become one in the hopes of revealing the problematic nature of her opponent and doing some real good for the people.

As for Malika's relationship with Angelica, the duo end up together after a season of Angelica being on the back burner of Malika's storyline. While Malika and Angelica may be good together, and it is great they got their happy ending, if the goal was always to bring Malika and Angelica back together, then they should have spent more time on their budding dynamic instead of devoting so much of Malika's time to Isaac's recovery.

Gael's plot line against Yuri does not lead to anything significant. It appears to be swept under the rug and rather than have the public recognize Yuri as a plagiarizing fake, Yuri talks Gael out of making more moves against him by setting him up with a meeting to become an apprentice to a famous fine artist. Ultimately, Gael can not go through with it, recognizing the significance and beauty of his street art

Alice has had one of the biggest character arcs on Good Trouble, going from a woman who could barely stand up for herself, to someone who is taking charge of her life and is ready to step into the spotlight, confident in her abilities as a comedian. Although Alice's sitcom ultimately falls through before it can really begin, she does get to become the host of Ferrets and Friends. Alice and Sumi even make good on buying a house together.

As for Davia, she finally gets her shinning moment on stage and the confirmation that she will continue to be the lead of her show in New York City. It is an exciting full circle moment for Davia, who is finally experiencing her dream come true. But, Good Trouble also acknowledges a positive future for Dennis and Davia's relationship.

Dennis has almost nothing to do in the series finale other than cheer on Davia. However, he does get to reveal his intentions that he believes they will be together for the rest of their lives. Dennis is certainly in a much more positive place in the series finale than he was when initially introduced, still grieving angrily over the loss of the life he had with his ex-wife and late son. Still, it was an interesting choice to have Dennis, who had been a main character since the show's beginning, have almost nothing to do as he is the only one who had a closed storyline previous to "What Now?" with the success of his restaurant.

Luca, who also had a love triangle to contend with, faces the official conclusion of that as well. There is, of course, a quick reference to Callie being able to find Luca's alien ID number which allows him to be included in a viral dance video. Professionally, Luca's career gets its first steps of moving forward as he joins Olivia Rodrigo on stage. His career moving forward is not surprising, as it had been established that the dancers who get recorded tend to have their profession jumpstarted. It is the quick resolution to the love triangle that creates questions.

Luca's romantic attention has been placed primarily on Riley, but Mabel was also a contender as a good friend and someone who was falling for him, not that he noticed. Throughout the season, Luca balanced his shared of love dance with Riley along with his shared understanding of needing to work for a living with Mabel.

It was never entirely clear who Luca would end up with, and the love triangle was never the show's or Luca's most interesting plot line. However, Good Trouble omits the integral conversation Luca would have with Riley in favor of jumping ahead to reveal that Luca had ultimately ended up with Mabel.

In the end, Good Trouble concludes with one last family dinner, and the show's series finale could not be complete without Callie's return to the Coterie.

While Callie is partially used as a way to get information about where the rest of the Coterie members end up, as inorganic as the dialogue may be at times, her return is also an excellent way to mark an end of an era.

Good Trouble always counted on the sisterly dynamic of Callie and Mariana to help tell its story and ground itself in the heart that it had moved forward from The Fosters. But, for the first time, Good Trouble fully leans into its history with a flashback montage of Mariana and Callie's relationship from being teenagers on The Fosters to being adults on Good Trouble.

When thinking back to the early days of The Fosters, when Callie and Mariana did not get along at all and were only learning how to be family and then seeing them reach a point where they had become inseparable, the flashbacks acknowledge how far they have come as sisters and as individuals.

Mariana and Callie Adams-Foster have grown significantly, and are not the same people they once were when they initially met for the first time. While they could not outrun certain elements of their core personalities completely, their ways of making decisions had matured with them, offering the two women significant development.

At the end of it all, Callie and Mariana's relationship was the most important one to come out of Good Trouble, and it had been the focus of two shows over the span of ten years.

Both The Fosters and Good Trouble always worked to make the most of the storylines they could tell and characters they had by portraying many social issues and the importance of recognizing that a family is not just the people you are blood-related to, but the people you welcome into your life.