Suburgatory

Suburgatory

Episode 3: The Chatterer

By: Carlos Uribe

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

Spoilers Ahoy!

This week, the show concentrated on two stories many shows have dealt with before. There's the newspaper story, in which a struggling newspaper is temporarily saved. Then there's the story about the PTA and how it corrupts. Suburgatory presented these two stories, and while still good, it didn't present a fresh spin on these stories.

The school Tessa goes to has a newspaper, the Chatswin Chronicle, which is read by no-one but has high journalistic qualities. Like many real-life newspapers that still take themselves seriously but aren't read. Tessa is forced to join the newspaper because she needs an elective class and she meeds the nerd of the editor (who has a Medium fan club). Things happen, and it's decided that to make the paper successful it would become the Chatswin Chatterer and become a tabloid. This makes the paper super successful and the nerd running it popular.

While this is happening, George decides to join the PTA. Sheila has a problem with this because she's used to having the PTA as her territory and George is encroaching on her kingdom. George ends up taking over and this transforms him. He starts spending all his time doing stuff for the PTA (while working) and ends up acting more and more like them. He even starts to dress like a mom, a fact that escapes him for a while.

Luckily Tessa is there to fix his problem. First she has to fix the problem she caused. With help from Lisa, she convinces the editor to turn the paper back. The paper loses it's popularity and the social ecosystem goes back to the way it was supposed to be. She then goes to her dad and confronts him that he's become what he used to mock. He decides to hand the PTA gavel back to Sheila and all is right with the world.

Suburgatory had a good episode, if predictable. Luckily, it was well written so most of the jokes landed without a hitch. The show focused more on George this time around, but it still managed to find ways to crack me up. This is good, since it means the show can evolve beyond just being a Tessa show-it can concentrate on the other characters.