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Daphne (Katie Leclerc) gets involved in an important cause in tonight’s all-new episode of Switched at Birth

In “Relation of Lines and Colors,” Daphne and Sharee (Bianca Bethune) are horrified to stumble upon a racist display at the Black Student Union on campus.

When the perpetrators are given minimal punishment, Iris (Sharon Pierre-Louis) starts a hunger strike in protest.

Daphne receives an anonymous threat and Sharee grows frustrated with how the school is handling the situation.

Emmett (Sean Berdy) invites Bay to help him with an art project, causing friction with Travis (Ryan Lane) who’s already upset that John seems ready to replace him on the baseball team.

Switched at Birth airs TONIGHT, February 21 @ 9PM on Freeform.

10+ stills inside… More Here! »

Switched at Birth just got so real on last night’s episode.

During the show, Daphne (Katie Leclerc) and Mingo (Adam Hagenbuch) were accused of racism after attending a costume party where Mingo dressed up as Lil Wayne.

While Mingo and Daphne tried to figure out why dressing up like their favorite musician was racist and he can’t figure out why no one at the party had a problem with them but now it is a huge deal, most of their friends, including Iris (who pointed it out), aren’t taking to them.

“On the one hand she’s deaf. She’s Puerto Rican, or she thinks of herself as Puerto Rican even though her skin is white, but who has a bit of a blind spot or a different perspective on race,” creator Lizzy Weiss opens up about the storyline.

“To really throw her into that so that she starts off confused by why something that happens is causing such a stir with her black friends. Then to really take her through a journey, but eventually we shift and we put our black characters at the forefront of the story.”

So, what’s ahead for the show and Daphne? “[She] really struggles to figure out both what she did wrong and truly understand that and then try to mend it.”

Lizzy adds, “As we shift and slowly start moving towards the perspective of our black characters, Iris in Episode 2 really grows in importance. We get to hear her voice and really hear from our black characters [about] what it feels like to walk around a campus in black skin. What are things that white students and white viewers don’t realize? Let’s really ask them.”

WHAT DID YOU THINK of the episode last night?

Who got the chance to watch the final season premiere of Switched At Birth this week?

What did you think? How were you feeling when you heard why Bay and Daphne packed up everything and headed straight home for their “family emergency”?

Showrunner Lizzy Weiss opened up about the premiere and what we’ll be seeing throughout the final season with THR, revealing that the end will come in the form of a 90-minute episode.

“We figured it out. I mean, the network was kind enough to offer me either a 90-minute or a two-hour finale. I chose the 90-minute; I felt like a two-hour would have been flabby and really strange,” she shared.

“Compared to a 44-minute episode, double that would have felt odd but I felt like that extra half-hour kind of gave us time to really give a sendoff to every important character,” Lizzy adds. (WHAT CHARACTER?!) “I think it worked out OK. We had a few weeks. It was a little faster than I had hoped but it wasn’t like we had to screech on the brakes and do a 180 or anything.”

Lizzy adds about a theme over the course of the final, and shortest season, ever for the series: “The race story is really front and center for the first half, and then we kind of move on from it.”

“But as I said, I do like to take on interesting things. But then, as I said, we moved on to the last five episodes of rounding the corner and giving everyone a sendoff so that’s the second path: Where are they going and how far have they come since we met them in the pilot five years ago?”

Didn’t get to watch the premiere? Click inside to see the big things that happened… More Here! »

Do you remember everything that happened last season on Switched At Birth?

We know we don’t — and that’s majorly because of the year long break in between the seasons. Who else had a year long break?

Thankfully, Freeform debuted a new recap of the show, catching us all up on what happened and what’s going to come on the hit show.

“I have a lot of respect for the creators to be able to take the risk to go there,” star Katie Leclerc shared in her interview with NKD mag about taking on a deaf show.

She adds of playing Daphne, “My favorite thing about Daphne is that she is just a high school girl. The deafness is secondary to everything else and I think fans responded to that.”

Switched At Birth premieres TONIGHT @ 9PM ET/PT on Freeform.

Today’s the day! Switched At Birth‘s final season finally premieres on Freeform tonight — and JJJ isn’t sure we’re ready for the show to start because we don’t want it to end!

Vanessa Marano, who plays Bay, has been chatting with us for a while about the final season — about the storylines, Baby Carlton, ASL and more.

Today, Vanessa is opening up about Bay Kennish’s future beyond the end of the series.

“I hope that she has success in her chosen field,” she shared. “I feel like she’s gone through so much in the art world from where she started, in being a street artist, to her trying to legitimize herself in galleries, and now I think she’s finally found her calling.”

Vanessa continues, “I really want her to be successful in that world. The entire audience has been waiting for her to prove to people that she is a legitimate artist.”

She joked later, “Either that, or Bay needs to become a foreign language interpreter.”

“Bay picks up languages like no one else. She’s fluent in ASL, she speaks Mandarin…I remember her speaking French and Spanish, so really, I feel like she missed her calling. She needs to be a language professor. If this whole art thing doesn’t work out, even though I hope it does, but if it doesn’t – language is the way to go.”

Switched at Birth premieres TONIGHT, January 31st @ 9PM ET/PT on Freeform.

We are both excited and bummed to know that tonight will be the last-ever Switched at Birth premiere.

In “The Call,” Daphne (Katie Leclerc) and Bay (Vanessa Marano) receive an emergency phone call while in China and return home, where Daphne readjusts to campus life and Bay feels conflicted about her feelings for Emmett (Sean Berdy).

Meanwhile, Kathryn (Lea Thompson) and John (D. W. Moffett) argue about her job; and Regina (Constance Marie) feels guilty about a secret romance.

Switched at Birth premieres TONIGHT, January 31 @ 9PM on Freeform.

25+ stills inside… More Here! »

If you’ve watched Switched At Birth at all for the past four years, you’ve probably picked up some knowledge of ASL.

Star Vanessa Marano certainly has…but her sister Laura is another story.

“Yea, I do [sign all the time]. Especially when I’m on hiatus,” Vanessa told JJJ recently. “I don’t do it as much so when I come back to set and we’re doing it every day, all day [though].”

She added about how the one person closest to her though, doesn’t sign at all.

“I do end up doing in my everyday life and don’t realize it. I’ve done it with my sister a few times and we’re usually eating food. I can’t actually speak, but I’ll sign something. She’ll be like, ‘Vanessa, I don’t know sign language.’ She stares at me like, ‘What are you doing?’”

TELL JJJ: Do you sign since you’ve watched Switched At Birth, or are you still learning?