Switched at Birth: “At First Clear Word”

*This episode contained discussion about sexual consent. Reader discretion advised.*

The Switched at Birth writers hit me squarely in the feels with this episode. This was such a tricky topic and I think the writers handled it very well.

After having a huge fight with Emmett, Bay went to the party at Daphne’s school and got black out drunk. The next thing she remembers is waking up in bed, naked with Tank. So what happened? At first Bay’s biggest concern was that she cheated on Emmett but after talking to Regina about it (strictly in hypotheticals of course) Regina suggests that the girl (Bay) was raped.

This leads Bay to question if she was and if she really gave Tank consent. Well there’s two sides to every story. According to Tank, Bay was making the moves and she kissed him first. Bay, from what she barely remembers, claims it went differently. She says he kissed her first.

Either way neither of them really remember exactly what happened and therein lies the problem. If Bay can’t remember what happened that night how does she know if she gave consent or not? Of course Tank is a good guy. We’ve all seen that but when you’re drunk things can be misconstrued and get really confusing. Even if Bay was making the moves shouldn’t he have realized how drunk she was? To be so drunk that you don’t even remember what happened, you had to be falling all over the place.

Tank claimed that Bay might just be feeling this way because she feels guilty about cheating on Emmett but I don’t think that’s it at all. From my one black out experience I can say it’s pretty terrifying waking up and not knowing what happened to you, and I definitely don’t recommend it. Trying to piece together what really happened to her is probably Bay’s top priority right now, and she has every right to feel concerned.

Moving on, things only get worse when Toby comes home and hears everything from Bay and Tank’s fight. Toby is conflicted because Tank is his roommate but Bay is his sister and he has to stand by her side. Tank leaves when he realizes Toby doesn’t believe him. Toby then calls his girlfriend, Lily, who he had a fight with earlier over trivial things, honestly, and they patch things up. Toby then asks for her help with Bay.

Meanwhile, Bay returns home where she finds Daphne, who had her own interesting night (we’ll get to that later). Bay tries to pretend she’s fine but Daphne can tell something’s wrong. Bay then tells her everything and tells Daphne she just wants to forget anything ever happened. Sadly for Bay, it looks like that’s not going to happen. Seems like the whole family will find out in the next episode. And so will Emmett. Oh dear.

Daphne’s situation wasn’t nearly as crazy as Bay’s but she had some of her own issues to deal with. Vimla, the girl in Daphne’s chemistry group that’s also dating Josh, butts heads with Daphne on their group project. Their professor then invites them over to her house for a party.

Not sure what to expect they go, although supposedly it’s not mandatory. Daphne and Vilma are joined by three other girls in their class and the professor instructs them to make ice cream. They decide to go at it alone and end up competing with each other and making a mess of everything. The professor comes in right when Daphne and Vilma come to blows and gives the girls a much needed lesson.

There are so few women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) so they have to work with each other and be willing to lift each other up instead of tearing each other down. The professor reminds them that she never said they had to make the ice cream individually but they just decided to go about it that way. She suggested from now on they learn to work each other so hopefully in the future there won’t be such a huge gap between men and women in STEM. You go professor!

Vilma and Daphne seem to patch things up and even agree to a “custody arrangement” when it comes to Josh. Let’s see how long that lasts.

Other Highlights:

• Regina tried to deny her feelings for Eric but that was very short lived. They end up hooking up again. Is #Reric a thing yet? Or is it #Ergina? Either way I ship it.
• Toby and Lily got into a fight over Toby’s spending/job. Lily decides to help him pay his rent but got mad when she found out he was spending money on DJ equipment that he could be using on rent. Luckily they reconcile and team up to help Bay.

Overall, this episode was well done and I’m excited/nervous to see what will happen next. Check out the preview below.