Suburgatory

Suburgatory

Episode 17: Independence Day

By: Carlos Uribe

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

Spoilers Ahoy!

Dallas is finally going to open that crystal store and decides to celebrate the launching of the store by inviting her old sorority sisters. She tries her best to leave out her old sorority rival simply because they do not get along. The sorority rival manages to find out about the event and invites herself to come. She tries her best to steal the attention away from Dallas and to ensure the other sisters are on her side. It isn't until the end of the episode that Dallas decides to stand up to her and the rival implies that she may be the one who slept with Dallas' ex-husband. This story-line was sort of funny, but it felt a bit dragged out. This could have worked better as a small gag rather than a fleshed out sub-plot because the jokes got old rather fast. Her daughter Dalia also has a small plot in which she tries to see which parent will buy her the best guilt presents. Her father gives her a motorcycle and a motorcycle jacket but Dallas refuses to give her a monkey. In typical Dalia function, she ignores the heart-to-heart talk Dallas is trying to give her and asks for the monkey to her dad via text message. Oh Dalia, please don't ever change. It probably says a lot that I laughed more at Dalia's sub-plot than at Dallas' plot.

The main plot has to do with Tessa. Tessa wants some kind of motor vehicle to get around. She asks George but he unsurprisingly turns her down. He tells her that if she wants wheels, she's going to have to buy them with her own money that she has earned. This causes Tessa to go look for a job and she does find one with Dallas' crystal store. It's a pity that we don't actually see Tessa working at the store so here's hoping that future episodes will show a working Tessa. Tessa manages to earn enough money to buy a scooter that she found on Craigslist. George isn't sure whether he's going to let her keep it but there really wasn't much to the plot. There really wasn't that much to analyze. Tessa wanted a car, like any teenager, so she tries her best to attain one. Just because she ended up with a scooter instead doesn't add another layer. It's too bad that nobody told George this because he totally ends up overanalyzing this event.

George is simply shocked that Tessa is trying be independent. It's always funny that parents of teenagers are always surprised whenever their precious child turns out to be...a teenager. They may logically know this, but the teenager is always a child in their heart. George tries to uncover the “real” root of why Tessa is trying to assert her independence. He thinks that there is something more going on. He even visits Mr. Wolfe at school to try and figure out what's “wrong” with her. This leads him to discovering the poem that Tessa wrote about her missing mother. The poem she had written to try and impress her poetry teacher. It's a poem that is so well done that George buys into the idea that Tessa is really hurting because she doesn't have a mother. He even tries to initiate contact with Tessa's mother but he gets blocked by Tessa's maternal grandmother. He eventually realizes that this whole thing really was about Tessa wanting her own transportation vehicle and that Tessa doesn't really care that her mother is missing. The episode then ends with a hint that Tessa's mother might end up showing up after all.

This was an episode of Suburgatory that half worked. Tessa's plot with trying to get a scooter was rather funny as well as George freaking out about his maturing teenage daughter. The only issue I have is that Dallas' story simply didn't work for me. This meant that half of the episode wasn't that funny to me and that dragged the episode down. It could have been a good episode if the Dallas' story had more to offer, but instead it was just an average episode.