Suburgatory

Suburgatory

Episode 2: The Barbeque

By: Carlos Uribe

Suburgatory is a show about a city teenage girl who is forced to move to hell-the suburbs.

Spoilers Ahoy!

Suburgatory had an excellent second episode. We also learn more about the characters, although outside of the family their still all cartoonish. This continues to aid the show in it's comedy, though. If you liked the first episode, you'll like this episode. If you hated it, well the show didn't change it's tone or style.

The episode starts with Tessa and George trying to get away from a dinner invitation by Mrs. Shay. They end up failing (hysterically) so their forced to go to dinner. During the dinner two important plot developments happen that impact the rest of the episode. The first is George learns he needs to throw a Barbeque unless he wants to be shunned. The second is that Tessa ends up kissing stupid boy Ryan and doesn't hate it.

In this show, the people who live in the suburbs are there to also live in a community. So if someone doesn't throw a barbeque when they first move in, people automatically think those people don't want to be a part of the community. They shun them. So George is forced into throwing the barbeque in order to be accepted by the other people. The plot could have ended up backfiring, but luckily it turned out to great and very humorous-especially as all the main characters essentially remark he should have it.

Tessa can't stop making out with Ryan because he's hot. She doesn't like this because he has no brains. She does everything she can to try and stop the attraction, and even feels like she isn't intelligent. She risks losing her only friend (since Ryan is Lisa's brother) over this as well so there's some stakes, albeit silly ones. Eventually she does get the necessary will power to break it off, and so ends their purely physical relationship.

To be honest, I was a bit scared for this episode. After last week's excellent premiere, I thought that maybe the network might ruin everything. It seems that for the most part, the show has managed to maintain it's style and intelligence, while remaining superbly funny. If this episode is any indication of what's to come, I can't wait for the rest of the series. It's bound to get reall good, because that's what this show aspires to be.