Suburgatory

Suburgatory

Episode 2: The Witch of East Chatswin

By: Carlos Uribe

Suburgatory is a show about a teenage girl who is stuck in her version of hell, the suburbs.

Spoilers Ahoy!

It must be Halloween season because Suburgatory decided to have a Halloween episode.

The relationship between George and Dallas has so far been a flirty one. The two have had a kiss and it's pretty obvious that they like each other. They simply haven't actually gone out. George doesn't think that being anything more than flirty friends was on the table. Dallas decides to put it there. Since it's Halloween, Dallas asks George to be her Ken. She's going as Barbie and it would be a subtle way to ask him out. George is oblivious to this and he thinks this is just about costumes. It's Dalia whose able to clarify to him that Dallas didn't mean to go as Ken but to go as her Ken. It's so obvious that the most oblivious character on the show is able to see it clear as day. When George realizes this, he's able to make Dallas' day when he decides to ask her out on a formal date. She's all to happy to accept and it looks like the show is going to head in one of two directions. The two will become a formal couple or the first date will be a disastrous mess that allows the show to continue the “will-they-won't-they” arc. Whatever the case, that there's a whole sub-plot dedicated to getting to this date underlines just how important this is going to be for both characters. It spends just the right amount of time on this because otherwise the show would have been stretching it. It should be noted that the show spend a considerable amount of time to have George inadvertently dress up like Ken. He simply doesn't realize it until Dalia points it out.

Who did George try to dress up as? Noah. That's because Noah dressed up as him. Noah tried to copy George's mannerisms which put him on George's nerves. In retaliation, George decides to shave his beard (along with his body) and wear a blond wig in order to look like Noah. The relationship between the two gives rise to a conflict about how they're treated differently. The bartender offers George the chance to put it on the tab for the first time ever and Noah is forced to pay upfront. On the other hand, women find Noah's costume more attractive than George's costume. Merely changing their appearance in Chatswin affects how people treat them. What's even more genius about this sub-plot is how it all goes to making George have a costume that could easily be confused for a Ken one. It has it's own point but it's existence itself goes towards pushing Dallas and George together. The plot is resolved when Noah apologizes that he took it a bit far and that he should have known better. It's not like his wife like it the previous Halloween when he had dressed up as her. Since this is a trend with the show, I wonder who Noah will dress up as next. I'd say Mr. Wolfe but I don't think the two have actually had a scene together.

The main plot didn't involve George but his daughter Tessa. The episode begins with someone stalking Tessa. She's led to believe that she's a witch by Lisa and Sheila. One of the best parts of the episode is when Lisa and Tessa use a Ouija board. It's obvious Lisa is pushing the piece but her explanation is that the spirits are conveniently speaking through her. Lisa is trying to use this board to not only convince Tessa that she's being haunted by a living witch but that she has gone soft since moving to the suburbs. This doesn't completely hold since the previous episode was her return from spending the summer at the cities but it manages to dent Tessa's confidence nonetheless. She does go to the witch's house but quickly runs away when she sees what she assumes is the witch doing magic spells and such. Her excuse is that she left her cloak in her car.

It isn't until the end when the show has a Scooby-Doo like explanation for all the supposed witch activities of the witch. She's not actually a witch but a feminist. She was cooking pumpkin soup in her cauldron and she was with her book club. The books she had given to Tessa was not a spell book but a feminist book. Why this feminist work had runes and called No One Can Hear You is left a mystery. She manages to explain away Sheila's proof. This might seem like a tidy clean-up but the resolution is the punchline. There's a reason that Tessa is dressed as Daphne, Lisa as Velma, and Malik (along with Ryan) as Fred. The feminist faces an angry mob at Chatswin but she's able to get away. The main plot forced the feminist story a bit and it simply wasn't as subtle as I would have liked it. Still, it's hard to criticize it when you get such funny lines as “I’ve never been on this side of a hate mob before. I kind of get it now. It’s exhilarating.” As long as the show can deliver the humor, then it can get an excuse for being a bit heavyhanded.

Suburgatory had a pretty funny episode that was very well put together. The whole George sub-plot with Noah and Dallas was great. It might have seemed like it was about Noah and George dressing like each other but in reality it was about the show advancing the George and Dallas relationship to the next step. The Tessa story could have been a bit more subtle in it's metaphor but it provided some of the best lines of the episode. The season one Halloween episode was pretty funny but I think this episode simply was better.