@gried Thank you; it's a relief to know I'm not alone in my nonplussedness!
@granitoro Joanna Johnson confirmed in an interview with TVLine that it's a flashback to the previous Christmas: https://tvline.com/2019/12/16/good-trouble-spoilers-the-fosters-reunion-christmas-special/ I think she gave the wrong episode numbers though.
@wearenotmen Cheers for the link! Reading that just makes me even more mystified, to be honest. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy the Christmas special (I loved the first episode, especially), but how in the world did they think it would be a good idea to start the second half of the season with a flashback, without any kind of clear in-episode lampshading of the fact that it was a flashback? I'm not saying they should have done a hacky "oh, it's like that thing that happened last Christmas, do you remember that?" [cue wavy line transition and harp music]. But to me at least, having not rewatched the first half of the season, coming into the second half cold without any reminders beyond the "previously on" in front of the premiere... it's a baffling choice they made. Especially when they launched back into pre-flashback territory with this episode, again with no lampshading or explanations.
Btw, love your nick! We must repeat...
Shout by GranitoroVIP 6BlockedParent2020-01-17T10:08:26Z
I like to think of myself as having cognitive functions that generally work okay, but I have to admit that I've been thoroughly stumped by the relative chronology of these last three episodes. Did the two Holiday episodes exist in an alternate universe? Did they time skip ahead? If so, why did the time skip back for this episode? Were the Holiday episodes, in fact, a dream? I know Good Trouble has been doing funky things with chronology since the very beginning, but that's generally been within the confines of single episodes. Someone please explain this thing to me, because apparently I'm too dense to grok what's happened here.