Suburgatory
Episode 8: Black Thai
By: Carlos Uribe
Suburgatory is a show about a teenage girl who is stuck in her
version of hell, the suburbs.
Spoilers
Ahoy!
The
main plot for “Black Thai” was very disjointed. There was an
event of sequences that were tied together by the thinnest of
threads. It basically felt like the Family Guy writers took over
Suburgatory for one episode and this is the plot they came up with.
This is to say that there is a plot but it doesn't really flow very
well. It starts out with Tessa and Dalia getting into a fight over
test scores and the prizes that they received. This could have stood
on it's own but it was really an excuse to get the two girls to go to
a hip-hop dance so that there could be a dance fight. Only at the
dance class, Dallas and George have a completely random fight so that
they too could have their own dance fight. You could tell how one
point got from another but that's all they had in relation to each
other. The Dallas and George fight came out of nowhere as the episode
hadn't even tried to hint towards it at the beginning. The dance
class itself was introduced randomly. The story might have been very
funny but the main plot was missing something essential that is
supposed to hold it up. It basically doesn't explore any main idea
nor does it really have a core. Actually that's not really true.
Every story has a core hidden deep inside somewhere. It's just that
the story didn't revolve around it.
What
could have been the core for “Black Thai”? Most of the episode
suggests that it's the strenuous relationship between Tessa and
Dalia. The fight is between them and their actions control where the
plot goes. The problem is that the climax of the episode isn't
between those two. It's between George and Dallas. That seems to
suggest that the core is actually their relationship. It's possible
that the writers could have picked one of the two and built the plot
around that but they didn't. The problem with “Black Thai” isn't
necessarily the premise of the plot but that the writers simply
didn't execute it well because they couldn't settle on what it was
ultimately about. If they had picked the most obvious core, Tessa and
Dalia, then they could have written the entire main plot to cater to
them. It didn't really need to have the SAT score feud as an excuse
to get into the dance class and the role of the parents could have
thus been marginalized. It could have picked George and Dallas and
use the time to actually build up to their fight. What it instead got
was a huge mess that lacked the heart that this series usually has.
The
main plot might not hold up to it's emotional heart but the adoption
sub-plot had it. It appears that it is coming to a close as the Shay
family try to do their best to bring Ryan back home. This involves
trying to kidnap Malik and using him as leverage. Their entire
kidnapping scheme sort-of works because they are all invited over for
dinner. At the dinner they learn that Ryan has changed his name and
wants to emancipate himself. It seems like the Shay family has lost
Ryan but they all made him realize one thing. They made food the way
he liked it because they love him. This convinces Ryan to go back
home and be a Shay again. This was a sub-plot that had it's core:
Ryan and his issue of whether he's really a Shay or not. The episode
seems to suggest that he has accepted that he is one of them but
here's hoping he continues to have an identity crisis. It would be
nice if this entire adoption sub-plot meant we actually did get some
character growth from him. I'm not expecting him to get profound but
simply have this experience actually mean something.
I
don't expect the other sub-plot of the episode to actually mean
something for anyone. Noah and his wife are concerned when their
toddler doesn't get into a good pre-school. The idea of a highly
competitive pre-school has been done to death already but Suburgatory
manages to make the plot fit because it adapts it into the Chatswin
universe. The Werner family turns into Mr. Wolfe so that he can try
and tutor their toddler into being smart enough for pre-school. When
this ends up failing, Noah and Jill try their best to convince
themselves that their baby is actually a genius. It's a sub-plot that
ultimately works because it explores the idea of parental
expectations versus reality. We can't all have genius babies.
Black
Thai is a consistently funny episode but the main plot had severe
structural problems. It's a good thing that the episode had two
sub-plots that helped distract the viewer from how thin the dance
class plot really is. At the same time, having so many plots means
that the series is juggling a lot of stories and that might have
contributed to why the main plot didn't really work out. If the
script had gone through just one more draft, I'm sure that the
problems with the dance class plot could have been sorted out. As it
is, Black Thai is funny but it has too many problems to be a great
episode.
Other Notes:
Maybe
it's an outdated stereotype, but I felt like Tessa could have been a
more confident and competent hip-hop dancer coming from the city.
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