‘The Fosters’ Season 5 Spoilers: Episodes Focus On Hate Versus Free Speech

“The Fosters” Season 5 recently aired an episode centered on hate speech.

The show’s official Twitter account shared a brief summary of episode 6, titled “Welcome to the Jungler.” In the installment, Aaron (Elliot Fletcher), a transgender, confronted the issue of hate speech on university campuses. Callie’s (Maia Mitchell) boyfriend believes in free speech as long as it is done with respect.

While speaking with Variety, Fletcher said that reading the script for Season 5, episode 6 brought back so many memories. “I wasn’t surprised that Aaron felt that way, but I did as much work as I could intentionally with the character to develop why he felt that way and what had happened in his past to make him feel like it’s always good to hear from both sides,” he said.

On his Twitter account, Fletcher clarified that he and his character in “The Fosters” share a very different stance about hate speech. The actor said that hate speech isn’t something that he will tolerate, unlike Aaron who is a bit more open to it.

According to him, the upcoming episodes of “The Fosters” Season 5 will continue to focus on the difference between free speech and hate speech. Additionally, Aaron and Callie’s relationship will progress in episode 7. “In this next episode we definitely see Aaron and Callie get a lot closer and get a lot more comfortable with each other, not only physically but emotionally, and I think that’s great,” he said.

During their hike, Aaron and Callie will get into a few disagreements over several different issues, but Fletcher said that the couple will make up in the end. One of the things they will discuss is how Aaron seems to be very confident and proud of what he has become. But Fletcher said this isn’t entirely true for his character.

“I think Aaron does struggle quite a bit. Maybe he just doesn’t show it as much. There are ways that Callie helps him already, maybe without her even knowing it. Maybe we do see more of Aaron helping Callie, but I think Callie helping Aaron is more internal,” he said.

“The Fosters” Season 5 airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. EDT on Freeform.