KD^3C^3 - 20260607 The coins that you pay with are copper, nickel, and zinc
As a writing exercise this week I decided to see if I could write an episodic recap of a TV show like I used to read regularly back in the 2010s on the AV Club. I still read the occasional recap (Mostly on Episodic Medium, where I have a paid subscription) but I think the format has also shifted a bit over the years. For the experiment, I chose to write about the episode of TV I had just watched when the thought occurred to me, which happened to be Episode 20 of Season 2 of Two Guys A Girl and a Pizza Place. It's a little rough around the edges still and I think I landed closer to Television without Pity than old school AV Club, but I'm still pretty happy with the outcome. The Show isn't streaming anywhere, so unless you own the DVDs (Like I do) you'll have to just trust that I recapped it accurately. Or! Pretend it's back in 1999 and we don't have on-demand tv everywhere and you missed last night's episode.
Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place Season 2 Episode 20 - Two Guys, a Girl and a Mother's Day
By this point in its second season, 2 Guys A Girl and A Pizza Place has successfully retooled itself into a show auto relationships more than whatever it was in the first season. I don’t miss Mr. Bauer, even if Bill was a welcome presence. Having a character who only exists to reference movies and pretend he lived them was always something with a short shelf life. But what is 2G,1GaPP going to be as we move ever closer to excising the Pizza Place entirely from the show, is a question that I think has been answered, and this episode shows us a good example of what it would look like.
We open with Sharon entering the increasingly irrelevant pizza place to order 3 large pizzas with everything and two double cheese (size unspecified). After the lightest of fatphobic jokes from Berg (that order comes with a free mumu) we learn that the order is for Johnny's previously unseen four sisters, three of which are visibly pregnant, all of whom are in town for mother’s day.
I wouldn’t spend too much time on this if it wasn’t in the episode’ title, but that premise feels very weird once you look at it with any scrutiny. Sure three of the four sisters are mothers, but why would they travel (with their kids we find out) to another town for Mother’s day? Why would they travel together? Where are their damn husbands? At least one of them has a husband, right?
Johnny’s sisters take a liking to Sharon, even as they’re surprisingly mean to Peter & Berg (who deserve it). Sharon is surprised that Johnny never mentioned three of his sisters are pregnant. scratch that. Four are pregnant. one just threw up which everyone agrees is the universal sitcom code for pregnant. The rest of the family cheers. Johnny explains his sisters are always pregnant. Which frankly sounds terrifying.
I enjoy seeing a little more of Johnny's life, even if (or maybe because?) everyone around him continues to be a woman. I don’t know if we’ll be getting any more Shawn going forward, or if that plot has wrapped in favors of Sharon’s potential indefinitely with Pete, but seeing four new to us women in Johnny’s life further reinforces that he’s a guy often around women, a safe masculinity.
Johnny's sisters are constantly getting pregnant (a surprising lack of catholic or itish jokes, maybe the show is too good for them)
Back in the Apartment Sharon busts in and is having a surprisingly good time with Johnny’s niblings, they’re giving her enough energy to take the kids on multiple outings. She’s grabbing seemingly random items from around the apartment and we get some very, very light fluting when Pete suggests she should tie him up if she’s going to rob him. I particularly enjoyed the little thumbs up she gives Pete. Ok, maybe there’s more chemistry here than I thought.
Meanwhile at med school Ashley and Berg are in a new class where Ashley is incredibly excited to meet with the anatomy professor, Dr. Staretski, who is played with exceptional sleeze by Anthony Steward Head. This episodes aired originally on May 12 1999, which means it was exactly one day after the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode The Prom, leading up to Arguably Buffy’s greatest season finale “Graduation Day.” Just in case you were wondering.
Head here is wonderful At first it seems like he’s flirting specifically with Ashley, but during the portion of his lecture we seen, it feels like that’s just the way he talks. Berg is of course uncomfortable with this, and in particular the attention paid to Ashley, setting us up with an opportunity to screw everything up again. The professor even goes so far as to invite Ashely to apply for his research assistant position, which would actually be very good for her career, and of course Berg hates the idea.
Berg succeeding despite everything he does wrong (just declaring he will be a doctor and immediately becoming one of the highest ranking students in the program), and Pete’s continuous slide into failure despite everything he did right (earning a prestigious internship and throwing it all away because he didn’t feel passion), feels like it could be a deeper meditation on the the amount of success one can find when you’re charismatic and good looking, versus not. For another example just look at Ryan Reynolds’ career compared to Richard Ruccolo (don’t @ me if you’re a big fan of Lifetime Original comedy Rita Rocks).
Surprising absolutely nobody, Our next appearance of Sharon shows how quickly things turn and now she has immediately become exhausted with the two nephews we see. Sharon gets a chance to talk to one of Johnny’s sisters, where Sharon marvels at how Betty manages everything and Betty peels back the transparent curtain to make it clear to the only one who didn’t know (Sharon) that things are actually really tough. But she also reinforces that it’s all worth it, and Johnny will be a great father.
Ashley arrives and informs us that she’s go an interview with the professor and canceled her & Berg’s reservation. Berg is trying to get her to see that he is just using her for sex, and demands that she not go to the interview. Ashley pretends to agree only to immediately laugh in Berg’s face and tell him she’s going to do what she wants, and leaves. Good for her. Berg later is trying his best to be respectful of her decision, but it turns out his best mostly involves leaving Ashley voicemails and panicking back at the pizza place. His panic is sent into overdrive by the arrival of Kamen, the rival student in Berg & Ashley’s class of students who would like nothing more than to see Berg fail. Kamen is a character that we haven’t seen since episode 6 which was the non-cannon Halloween episode, and before that episode 4. We also never see him again after this episode if IMDB is to be believed. He informs Berg that the professor’s hobby is nude portraiture, which sends Berg off to find and stop Ashley before something he considers terrible to happen.
Sharon has decided that despite the pep talk from Betty, she never wants to have kids. She unloads her fears about not wanting kids, and not wanting to disappoint Johnny onto Pete. Frankly this feels like a conversation that Sharon should be having with Johnny, but we need to give Pete something to do besides make snide comments, and furthering the Pete/Sharon storyline with some additional emotional labor from Pete seems like a good enough way to keep him involved.
I don’t want to read too much into it, but I could absolutely see this Pete/Sharon thing going in a way that would reinforce the classic (and rather unhinged) “Nice guy vs jock” stereotype where we’re supposed to feel sorry for Pete not getting the girl he wants because she’s with someone else. I’m not sure the term Freindzone was in wide use in 1999, but there are shades of that in this ongoing plot. I actually think Pete, as written so far this series wouldn’t do that, but it’s a little worrying. Pete is actually a nice guy, who cares about his friend, and wants her to be happy. I don’t think he would actually feel much, if any, resentment if/when Sharon stays with Johnny. A more generous read would be that Pete’s general aimlessness in his career has him flailing around for something that fits into his old plan for “the ay things are supposed to go” and latching on to the closest woman he feels any affection towards, even if that’s 99.5% platonic affection.
Berg storms into the professor’s home where Anthony Steward Head is lounging in nothing but a robe and drinking a glass of wine. Berg demands to know what is going on, assuming the worst. He straight up accuses the professor of taking advantage of Ashley and only giving her the job so he can paint her nude and go even further. Dr. Stretski asks berg to leave and when he doesn’t the professor disrobes to continue his nude *self* portrait. Only when seeing a completely nude Anthony Stewart’s head (Tastefully covered up by a bunch of flowers in the foreground for us viewers at home) does Berg realize the extreme depth of his mistake, he tries to make a quick exit, but does not manage to succeed before telling Berg that Ashley is now fired.
Ashley and Berg are interrupted in their fight about it as they come home to find Betty is in labor, and with the midwife 30 minutes away it’s too late and the new baby will be arriving momentarily. Berg makes up for his earlier mistake by taking charge when everyone else freaks out and they successfully deliver a baby (In Pete’s bedroom, over his objections). We get a bunch of classic sitcom birth style jokes, with people freaking about the disgusting beauty of the miracle of birth. We do get one gag I really enjoyed when one of Betty’s other kids comes in to get his shoelaces un-knotted and betty manages to do that while also pushing the baby out. Sharon holds the baby and decides she might want to be a mom after all.
This episode doesn’t really gel together as bing about anything specific. I think sitcoms work better when the A and B plots have some sort of thematic resonance, or at least a reason for being in the same 22 minute timeslot. Sharon’s spending the episode on a journey of discovering how she feels about becoming a parent, meanwhile Berg and Ashley are going through a storyline that feels much more appropriate to an earlier part of both their relationship and the season as a whole. This out of place feeling is reinforced by the reappearance of Kamen so much later, and Pete and Ashley starting a class this late in the season/school year. It really feels like a story the writers had in their back pocket waiting for the right guest star to come along and just dropped it in when the scheduling was right.
Sharon’s story is stronger, but feels like things I’ve seen so many times before. She likes kids, but kids are hard, she doesn’t want kids, ok actually she does. Thinly thing that elevates it is the performances from Sharon and Johnny who remains a golden retriever of a character. I think too many Nathan Fillion roles have asked him to be more serious with flashes of levity, whereas here he’s pure joy through ad through.
Being part o the post-Friends, pre-How I Met You Mother group-of-friends sitcom allows us to have a little more serialization that we might otherwise, but i don’t have a lot of hope that either of the specific storylines here, AShley getting fired because of Berg, and Sharon questioning motherhood, will get referenced again. At least until the series Finale, but that’s a long way from here and to explain why would be getting ahead of ourselves.
Rating C+
Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place Season 2 Episode 20 - Two Guys, a Girl and a Mother's Day
By this point in its second season, 2 Guys A Girl and A Pizza Place has successfully retooled itself into a show auto relationships more than whatever it was in the first season. I don’t miss Mr. Bauer, even if Bill was a welcome presence. Having a character who only exists to reference movies and pretend he lived them was always something with a short shelf life. But what is 2G,1GaPP going to be as we move ever closer to excising the Pizza Place entirely from the show, is a question that I think has been answered, and this episode shows us a good example of what it would look like.
We open with Sharon entering the increasingly irrelevant pizza place to order 3 large pizzas with everything and two double cheese (size unspecified). After the lightest of fatphobic jokes from Berg (that order comes with a free mumu) we learn that the order is for Johnny's previously unseen four sisters, three of which are visibly pregnant, all of whom are in town for mother’s day.
I wouldn’t spend too much time on this if it wasn’t in the episode’ title, but that premise feels very weird once you look at it with any scrutiny. Sure three of the four sisters are mothers, but why would they travel (with their kids we find out) to another town for Mother’s day? Why would they travel together? Where are their damn husbands? At least one of them has a husband, right?
Johnny’s sisters take a liking to Sharon, even as they’re surprisingly mean to Peter & Berg (who deserve it). Sharon is surprised that Johnny never mentioned three of his sisters are pregnant. scratch that. Four are pregnant. one just threw up which everyone agrees is the universal sitcom code for pregnant. The rest of the family cheers. Johnny explains his sisters are always pregnant. Which frankly sounds terrifying.
I enjoy seeing a little more of Johnny's life, even if (or maybe because?) everyone around him continues to be a woman. I don’t know if we’ll be getting any more Shawn going forward, or if that plot has wrapped in favors of Sharon’s potential indefinitely with Pete, but seeing four new to us women in Johnny’s life further reinforces that he’s a guy often around women, a safe masculinity.
Johnny's sisters are constantly getting pregnant (a surprising lack of catholic or itish jokes, maybe the show is too good for them)
Back in the Apartment Sharon busts in and is having a surprisingly good time with Johnny’s niblings, they’re giving her enough energy to take the kids on multiple outings. She’s grabbing seemingly random items from around the apartment and we get some very, very light fluting when Pete suggests she should tie him up if she’s going to rob him. I particularly enjoyed the little thumbs up she gives Pete. Ok, maybe there’s more chemistry here than I thought.
Meanwhile at med school Ashley and Berg are in a new class where Ashley is incredibly excited to meet with the anatomy professor, Dr. Staretski, who is played with exceptional sleeze by Anthony Steward Head. This episodes aired originally on May 12 1999, which means it was exactly one day after the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode The Prom, leading up to Arguably Buffy’s greatest season finale “Graduation Day.” Just in case you were wondering.
Head here is wonderful At first it seems like he’s flirting specifically with Ashley, but during the portion of his lecture we seen, it feels like that’s just the way he talks. Berg is of course uncomfortable with this, and in particular the attention paid to Ashley, setting us up with an opportunity to screw everything up again. The professor even goes so far as to invite Ashely to apply for his research assistant position, which would actually be very good for her career, and of course Berg hates the idea.
Berg succeeding despite everything he does wrong (just declaring he will be a doctor and immediately becoming one of the highest ranking students in the program), and Pete’s continuous slide into failure despite everything he did right (earning a prestigious internship and throwing it all away because he didn’t feel passion), feels like it could be a deeper meditation on the the amount of success one can find when you’re charismatic and good looking, versus not. For another example just look at Ryan Reynolds’ career compared to Richard Ruccolo (don’t @ me if you’re a big fan of Lifetime Original comedy Rita Rocks).
Surprising absolutely nobody, Our next appearance of Sharon shows how quickly things turn and now she has immediately become exhausted with the two nephews we see. Sharon gets a chance to talk to one of Johnny’s sisters, where Sharon marvels at how Betty manages everything and Betty peels back the transparent curtain to make it clear to the only one who didn’t know (Sharon) that things are actually really tough. But she also reinforces that it’s all worth it, and Johnny will be a great father.
Ashley arrives and informs us that she’s go an interview with the professor and canceled her & Berg’s reservation. Berg is trying to get her to see that he is just using her for sex, and demands that she not go to the interview. Ashley pretends to agree only to immediately laugh in Berg’s face and tell him she’s going to do what she wants, and leaves. Good for her. Berg later is trying his best to be respectful of her decision, but it turns out his best mostly involves leaving Ashley voicemails and panicking back at the pizza place. His panic is sent into overdrive by the arrival of Kamen, the rival student in Berg & Ashley’s class of students who would like nothing more than to see Berg fail. Kamen is a character that we haven’t seen since episode 6 which was the non-cannon Halloween episode, and before that episode 4. We also never see him again after this episode if IMDB is to be believed. He informs Berg that the professor’s hobby is nude portraiture, which sends Berg off to find and stop Ashley before something he considers terrible to happen.
Sharon has decided that despite the pep talk from Betty, she never wants to have kids. She unloads her fears about not wanting kids, and not wanting to disappoint Johnny onto Pete. Frankly this feels like a conversation that Sharon should be having with Johnny, but we need to give Pete something to do besides make snide comments, and furthering the Pete/Sharon storyline with some additional emotional labor from Pete seems like a good enough way to keep him involved.
I don’t want to read too much into it, but I could absolutely see this Pete/Sharon thing going in a way that would reinforce the classic (and rather unhinged) “Nice guy vs jock” stereotype where we’re supposed to feel sorry for Pete not getting the girl he wants because she’s with someone else. I’m not sure the term Freindzone was in wide use in 1999, but there are shades of that in this ongoing plot. I actually think Pete, as written so far this series wouldn’t do that, but it’s a little worrying. Pete is actually a nice guy, who cares about his friend, and wants her to be happy. I don’t think he would actually feel much, if any, resentment if/when Sharon stays with Johnny. A more generous read would be that Pete’s general aimlessness in his career has him flailing around for something that fits into his old plan for “the ay things are supposed to go” and latching on to the closest woman he feels any affection towards, even if that’s 99.5% platonic affection.
Berg storms into the professor’s home where Anthony Steward Head is lounging in nothing but a robe and drinking a glass of wine. Berg demands to know what is going on, assuming the worst. He straight up accuses the professor of taking advantage of Ashley and only giving her the job so he can paint her nude and go even further. Dr. Stretski asks berg to leave and when he doesn’t the professor disrobes to continue his nude *self* portrait. Only when seeing a completely nude Anthony Stewart’s head (Tastefully covered up by a bunch of flowers in the foreground for us viewers at home) does Berg realize the extreme depth of his mistake, he tries to make a quick exit, but does not manage to succeed before telling Berg that Ashley is now fired.
Ashley and Berg are interrupted in their fight about it as they come home to find Betty is in labor, and with the midwife 30 minutes away it’s too late and the new baby will be arriving momentarily. Berg makes up for his earlier mistake by taking charge when everyone else freaks out and they successfully deliver a baby (In Pete’s bedroom, over his objections). We get a bunch of classic sitcom birth style jokes, with people freaking about the disgusting beauty of the miracle of birth. We do get one gag I really enjoyed when one of Betty’s other kids comes in to get his shoelaces un-knotted and betty manages to do that while also pushing the baby out. Sharon holds the baby and decides she might want to be a mom after all.
This episode doesn’t really gel together as bing about anything specific. I think sitcoms work better when the A and B plots have some sort of thematic resonance, or at least a reason for being in the same 22 minute timeslot. Sharon’s spending the episode on a journey of discovering how she feels about becoming a parent, meanwhile Berg and Ashley are going through a storyline that feels much more appropriate to an earlier part of both their relationship and the season as a whole. This out of place feeling is reinforced by the reappearance of Kamen so much later, and Pete and Ashley starting a class this late in the season/school year. It really feels like a story the writers had in their back pocket waiting for the right guest star to come along and just dropped it in when the scheduling was right.
Sharon’s story is stronger, but feels like things I’ve seen so many times before. She likes kids, but kids are hard, she doesn’t want kids, ok actually she does. Thinly thing that elevates it is the performances from Sharon and Johnny who remains a golden retriever of a character. I think too many Nathan Fillion roles have asked him to be more serious with flashes of levity, whereas here he’s pure joy through ad through.
Being part o the post-Friends, pre-How I Met You Mother group-of-friends sitcom allows us to have a little more serialization that we might otherwise, but i don’t have a lot of hope that either of the specific storylines here, AShley getting fired because of Berg, and Sharon questioning motherhood, will get referenced again. At least until the series Finale, but that’s a long way from here and to explain why would be getting ahead of ourselves.
Rating C+