Honestly, I feel like Justin is just misunderstood. You can tell from the 'present' scenes of him and his home situation that the stuff at home affects him deeply. That he's been acting stressed the past few episodes because he feels powerless to protect the women in his life (e.g. his mom, and now Jessica). This is probably why he just sat there on the couch at the party, because this has happened before, where other men have harmed the women he loves, but psychologically, I guess, out of habit, he didn't feel like he had the power to stop it. Then, maybe coincidentally, but after he visits the home of a "regular family" - that interaction between Alex's dad and Justin broke my heart; the way Justin's eyes literally warmed up and gave Alex's dad a big smile when he got offered leftovers from their dinner - it sort of becomes the tipping point of when he realizes that he does have power to change things.
I really love the entire character arc of Justin, to be honest. The writers did a fantastic job in crafting his story, and the actor did an equally fantastic job in portraying all of Justin's character nuances.
This was a great episode overall. I love the fact that we got glimpses of what the families are like for a couple of the minor characters: Alex, whose dad is strict/firm because he works as a cop, but loving too, as we can see by Alex describing how both his parents cook (e.g. his mom cooks, his dad grills); Zach, whose mother is the atypical overbearing Asian mother, but he has an adorable relationship with his sister (e.g. eating his sister's veggies for her when their mom isn't looking); Mr. Porter, who we slowly begin to find out that everything, at both work and at home, is taking a toll on him; and of course, we get more of the families behind Clay and Hannah.
10/10 to the writers, director, and actors. Stellar job all around.
2018-01-01T00:00:00Z2018-12-31T23:59:59Z