Sorry about not getting this recap up sooner, but homework and other demands forced me to miss Greek on Monday, prompting me to purchase the latest episode from iTunes and watch it Tuesday. I didn’t miss anything revolutionary: This week’s episode was a ho-hum affair, featuring a goofy and awkward “war” between Kappa Tau and Omega Chi, absolutely no Rebecca (yay!) or Dale (boo!), and the return of Frannie and departure of Lizzie. Only that last point means anything for the show’s overall story, and even it cheapens this season (the writers could have never introduced Lizzie, and we’d be at this point now). An OK episode at best.
One trend materializing on the show (besides lack of any characters going to class, my biggest pet peeve) is the odd literary plot-lines. A few episodes back, The Great Gatsby played a prominent role in the story and even served as a party theme, as well as the episode title. This week, George Orwell’s Animal Farm served as the loose motif, both mimicked by the plot and outright mentioned by Rusty on multiple occasions. At least they avoided naming this episode something stupid like “Four legs good, two beers rad” or something, and instead named it after another literary work. Greek is slowly becoming an even stupider Wishbone, playing out the plots to famous novels in ways any simpleton could grasp. I can’t wait for the 1984 episode where Rebecca wears a helmet with rats inside on her face.
Summary:
Lizzie’s reign of unfun-ness continues, and Casey decides to do something about it after Lizzie sets up a mixer between ZBZ and the nerdiest frat on campus. She confronts Lizzie, and asks what can be done so they regain their independence. Lizzie presents one option: having the house welcome back disgraced president Frannie. Casey doesn’t like this idea one bit. Ashleigh meets with the social chair of nerd-house, intent on telling them to back out, but she becomes attracted to him and they set up a date. Casey meets with Frannie to hear her out, but the current ZBZ president just can’t forgive someone who almost destroyed her sorority. Ashleigh realizes the geeky social chair is actually her former boyfriend Travis, and she calls him on this. He doesn’t admit it, but doesn’t deny it either. Wait until next week, I guess. Casey agrees to let Frannie back in, but only after she finds a loophole in the ZBZ rulebook (thanks to a hint from Lizzie) which stops her from living in the house. Elsewhere, Kappa Tau and Omega Chi pull pranks on each other and Cappie chomps Big League Chew. Girls swoon.
Representation of college
- College kids love Nerf guns. I don’t get it, they just do. Especially frat boys. It’s like Greek goes to college or something!
- Obviously, the academic rigor of Cyprus-Rhodes University is unknown (again, they apparently don’t have physical classes), but don’t most students read Animal Farm in like sixth grade? Rusty reads the book throughout, and unless he’s reading for fun (but college kids never read for fun, lol), he must be taking a really remedial class. That we never actually see him go to.
- I truly hope sororities have extremely creepy ceremonies like the one ZBZ had to welcome Frannie back into the fold. Any fallen sisters want to fess up to cult-like activity?
Greek’s bad writing in action
I’m going to ignore the usual awful one-liners (and boy, this episode had a bunch of clunkers), and focus on the worst plot development the show has seen yet: the possibility that the nerdy frat guy is actually Ashleigh’s old flame Travis, a character who goes to a different school altogether. I’m hoping this ends up as an odd case of mistaken identities, that Ashleigh is just stupid, but there is the off-chance the goober actually is Travis. Nothing smacks of bad TV writing more than the old “disguise” trick, having an old character show up wearing different clothes, and even this stands as low in Greek’s history of not-so-hot scripts. Hopefully, we get a whole new twist with this, otherwise we officially have the stupidest storyline in the show’s history, a history featuring an episode about spirits roaming the ZBZ house.
Closing question: Next week’s episode is a flashback? To Cappie and Evan’s freshman year? How do I build a time machine to see this now???