All American Season 2 | Episode 7 “Coming Home” Review

Grab your tissues, folks, because this episode of All American brings all the emotions. Separately, the Baker family and the James family tackle their issues head on. It’s a raw episode full of honesty, vulnerability, pain, heartache and healing that’s been long in the making. While Grace, Spencer, Dillon and Darnell go to convince Corey to come home with them; the Bakers work through therapy to mend their broken family. Both families finally speak the words that have needed to be said for a long time. Hearts are laid on the floor and feelings are heard in this beautifully heartbreaking episode.

The Bakers

You know that saying of “the key to any relationship is communication”? Well, that saying couldn’t hold truer for the Baker family. Ever since the cheating scandal broke, this family imploded and stopped talking to each other. The only way to get them talking is to have a mediator, aka family therapy. It gets off to a brutally honest start as Jordan straight up says he doesn’t think his parents should get back together anyways since Laura hides her tears in the shower and Billy can’t get past his guilt. Olivia misses her family though and Laura is tired of living her life on hold. She’s ready to move on. They start discussing a fond family memory of when they went to Orlando during a biweek for Billy. The only problem is that Billy wasn’t there. Even though he had the week off, he chose to stay behind and study plays. This leaves Jordan wondering if his mom was right about football being more important than them, but Billy assures him that they were always top priority. “Really? Even when you cheated?” Laura asks, and so starts the discussion of the affair while Olivia and Jordan go upstairs for their own assignment.

The twins’ assignment? Draw pictures of what their family looks like vs what it feels like. When Jordan sees Olivia’s incredible drawing of their family, he’s taken aback because he’s not in it. She confesses that it feels “like you’re missing from my life a lot of the time.” They were inseparable as kids, but once Billy retired, Jordan got into football and Olivia felt abandoned and unneeded. Then Jordan confesses that he got into football because he didn’t have a bond with their father like Olivia did as “daddy’s little girl”. Plus, she started doing her partying thing and thought she wanted to be left alone, but she never wanted to lose her brother… her best friend. She selfishly admits that with him starting a new family now, she’s going to lose him again, but he promises she won’t.

The Affair

Up until this point, we’ve never gotten the details of that night with Grace and Billy. The problem with the not knowing the details is that no one can really move forward until it’s discussed. No matter how much Corey and Laura don’t want to know, they need to know. So, Grace tells Corey at the lake house and it’s juxtaposed with Billy telling Laura during family therapy. In her words, Grace felt dismissed, unneeded and abandoned when Corey would stay gone for long work stints. So, one night, she went for a walk to clear her head and Billy was drunk at Willy’s door, and considering how Willy felt about Laura, talking to him would have made matters worse. So, she offered him an ear, and he did the same for her. Billy explained that Corey was probably still down about having to leave the game and was worried Grace would stop loving him. Back in the present at the lake house, Grace assures Corey that no matter how upset she got, she never stopped loving him.

It was a similar situation for Billy. He’d just lost football and Laura suggested that he quit playing. He’d already felt like he had failed his family, and this made him feel betrayed and like she didn’t believe in him. Billy assures Laura that he never stopped loving her, he was just too blinded by his own pain, so he leaned on an old friend. He says that Grace got him to understand where Laura was coming from – she saw what holding on to this shattered dream was doing to him. Unfortunately, he wasn’t in the right mindset to listen and he, too, felt dismissed by Laura.

That night, Grace and Billy made each other feel needed and they slept together, but that didn’t mean they stopped loving Laura or Corey. Billy and Grace assure them both of this. Billy gives Laura a speech about how he makes her a better man, promises to be the man that she can trust and depend on again and apologizes for hurting her and their family. Just before the James’ are about to leave for Crenshaw with Corey, he gives Grace the deed to the house to give to the boys, and she gives him the DNA results revealing that Dillon is his son, not Billy’s. This is the most at peace Corey’s felt in a long time.

The James’

I can understand not wanting the last memories your family has of you to be of you dying. What I don’t understand is dying alone or leaving your family to believe you don’t care about them. Fortunately for Corey, his family doesn’t give up easily. Grace, Spencer, Dillon and Darnell take a road trip to Corey’s family lake house in attempt to bring him home. He refuses, but Grace won’t take no for an answer, instead choosing to stay for the weekend until he’s changed his mind. This is when things get super emotional as Spencer finally breaks his silence and Grace shares the story of her infidelity.

After some advice from Darnell, Spencer finds Corey once he’s had a walk and is ready to do possibly their last weekend together right. He tries to give Spencer his old high school jersey to remember him by, but Spencer doesn’t want it. He wants his father. When he apologizes for lashing out, Corey encourages him not to stop because it’s the first honest thing he’s said since arriving. Finally, Spencer gets real, “I hate that your first instinct when things get bad is to run.” He calls him selfish for always leaving, but this time it’s going to be for good and Spencer doesn’t know what to do with that. ☹

Later, Corey teaches Spencer how to fish – because he’s never had anyone to teach him – along with the life lessons of realigning yourself with nature, practicing patience and centering your thoughts. Corey also admits to being afraid of dying alone, but Spencer tells him that it doesn’t have to be that way. They want him to come home. They can get through it together, the good and bad days. It’s then that Corey tells his son one of the things he loves most about him is his willingness to show vulnerability because he was never taught that. He says it’s an honor and blessing learning from his own son that there’s strength in vulnerability and gets him to promise to instill that in Dillon.

Finally, Corey is ready to go home with his family. They’re all happy and fresh off a food fight as they pack up the cars. When Spencer forgets something, Corey volunteers to go in to get it. He takes a little too long, so Spencer goes to check on him. He finds Corey unresponsive in a chair. The episode ends as Spencer screams and cries for him to wake up and Grace, Darnell and Dillon walk in.

Heartwarming Moments

• Darnell volunteers to be Spencer’s punching bag and they have a nice talk that leads to Spencer admitting he’s afraid to lose Corey and Darnell advising him to talk to his father before it’s too late. Darnell also tells Spencer that even though he didn’t grow up with Corey, he still got the best of him.
• Spencer also has an emotional conversation with his mom when she’s feeling guilty about her affair costing him and Dillon so much time with Corey, and now they’ll just have her. But he assures her “there’s no ‘just’ about it.” She’s the one who raised him to believe in his dreams, and she’s the one he’ll be telling the world is his MVP when he gets to the Super Bowl. Ugh! Spencer & Mama Grace talks always hits me in the family feels!

Like I said, this episode is beautifully heartbreaking.

All American airs Mondays at 8/7c on The CW!

Featured Image: IMDb