Switched at Birth Recap: “And It Cannot Be Changed”

This episode infuriated me to no end. Just all of it, every second. I hated it.

The episode begins right after Bay stupidly takes the blame for Daphne and Bay goes to Emmett’s house to try explain but he’s not really having it, and rightfully so. They had plans, how could she do this? Meanwhile, Daphne’s at the Kennish’s house telling all the parents about what happened and John is over the moon with the idea.

The thing that makes me so mad about this is although Regina and Kathryn are kind of against it at first they are easily persuaded into believing this is a good thing. Daphne is not punished for her actions. She doesn’t get reprimanded for allowing Bay to take the fall for her. This is a huge deal and no one really seems concerned.

The episode then jumps forward 10 weeks when everyone is getting ready to start college (except Bay but she was never going to college anyway). At first everyone seems to have accepted Bay’s decision and is cool with it. She’s put on house arrest and has to serve community service.

However, both Toby and Emmett are mad at Daphne for letting Bay take the fall for her. Toby is more vocal about his anger but Emmett keeps it in until later.

Melody has opened up her upper education deaf program and both Natalie and Travis will be attending. Meanwhile Daphne and Emmett are preparing to leave for college. Daphne starts wondering if she should really go to Gallaudet, especially after Toby calls her out for just living her life while Bay has to suffer for her mistakes. Emmett also struggles with the idea of leaving for L.A. without Bay by his side.

Bay is able to convince Emmett to go to L.A. and she’ll be with him for Christmas as soon as her probation is over. However, that plan is dashed when after accidentally passing a inmate some hidden heroin she’s slapped with another 100 days of probation. Ouch!

This great injustice leads Emmett to confront Daphne and tell her what we were all thinking: she messed up. Emmett then tells her she can never forgive her for what she did and letting Bay take the fall. The heroin situation also forces Bay to realize how serious what she did was. She realizes she will always be seen as a criminal now even though she wasn’t the one who committed the crime.

While Bay’s dealing with the consequences of her actions, Daphne, after deciding not to go to Gallaudet, has to find a interpreter who’s also fluent in chemistry for her to take the chemistry class she needs for pre-med at UKC. Of course what should be an impossible task becomes easy for her when she learns her new roommate has a cousin who has two deaf parents and used to be pre-med.

The show has to pretend they’re actually giving Daphne a challenge though, so at first he’s completely against the idea, telling her he hates the pre-med program and the professor. However, Daphne is able to persuade him after giving him a heart felt speech about her struggles in the past year and how he should want a deaf person to become a doctor to help people like his parents. He then agrees and all is right in Daphne’s world, as usual.

Back to Bay; after a heartfelt speech from Melody, Emmett found the courage to go to L.A. without Bay, which sucks for Bay and the Bemmett ship but is good for Emmett. After having to say goodbye to her boyfriend with no guarantee on when she can reunite with him Bay is fairly in a terrible mood. When Daphne pays her visit, Bay is thoroughly pissed off and doesn’t want to talk to her and asks her to leave. You go, Bay!

Overall, as far as the script and the acting goes the show was fairly well done. I just hate seeing Bay suffer for this when she didn’t do anything while Daphne continues to get everything handed to her. She was grounded and all the parents seemed to just accept that what Bay did made sense. I understand they both could of got in trouble if they confessed that Bay lied but she still wouldn’t be in as much trouble as she is now. Also, as Toby pointed out Bay could’ve got serious time for Daphne’s crimes and it’s lucky she didn’t.

I just wish for once Daphne would get punished for all the things she does. Even when she got probation for the Chip Coto thing, it wasn’t as bad as what Bay is going through now. I just hate that the Switched at Birth writers just won’t let Bay be happy. Honestly, if this doesn’t get better soon I’m not sure I want to keep watching.