Was it just me or was tonight’s episode of Greek somewhat lacking in the funny department? Perhaps it was the absence of Dale or the abundance of awkward angsty drama between Rusty and Calvin. Even the return of the hilariously dry Officer Huck wasn’t able to make up for the excess of seriousness tonight. That said, there’s certainly quite a bit of set-up for the season, what with Frannie’s return, the brief war between the Omega Chi’s and Kappa Tau’s, and the ever-growing wedge between Rusty and Calvin.
Can two guys from rivaling fraternities beat the odds and still be friends? It’s like a fraternal, platonic version of Romeo and Juliet. Rusty and Calvin start out in the episode trying to get past the awkwardness that resulted in Rusty using Calvin to get at Evan and Calvin in return, deciding not to pledge Kappa Tau and returning to the Omega Chi’s despite the homophobia of a few of its members. The two try to get over it and go back to normal but when Kappa Tau decides to retaliate against Omega Chi for calling the cops and busting their Great Gatsby party things just get worse for Rusty and Calvin’s bromance.
The war starts with the Kappa’s stealing the Omega’s house picture and vandalizing it. The Omega’s retaliated by storming the Kappas’ house. The two houses dowsed each other with fish oil and hot sauce. Rusty later tried to smooth things over by showing up at the Omega Chi’s house and trying to make peace. This results in him getting duct-taped to a wall. Calvin expressed some guilt over Rusty’s very public humiliation but the score was evened when Rusty helped the Kappa’s fill the Omega’s house with barn animals. This plan was likely inspired by Rusty’s recent read-through of Animal Farm. In the end, both houses kept quiet in the blame department when campus security got involved and agreed to cool things off for a bit. The damage was done though and the war left Rusty in doubt over whether or not he could maintain a friendship with Calvin.
Meanwhile, at the ZBZ house, Lizzie set up a mixer with the Sci Phi Pi’s. While Lizzie was super excited that the girls would have the chance to mingle with the science geeks, Casey felt the pressure from her sisters to get the house out of the social event. So while she worked on Lizzie, Ashleigh took on the assignment of convincing the Sci Phi Pi’s to politely back out of the engagement. After Jason, the Sci Phi Pi Social Chair expresses a fair amount of distain for Ashleigh and the ZBZ’s, Ashleigh finds herself oddly attracted to him. Casey doesn’t understand how this could happen but after briefly chatting with Jason, she comes to realize that Ashleigh’s attraction to Jason stems from her being familiar to being bossed around and treated rudely by her former longterm boyfriend, Travis. When Ashleigh realizes that Casey’s right, she confronts Jason in the men’s room and tells him off. Poor Jason (who really is kind of a jerk so who cares?) just stands there while Ashleigh finally says all of the things she should have said to Travis.
So while the Sci Phi Pi mixer was called off, Casey still had to figure out a way to get rid of Lizzie. Lizzie tells Casey that the one final loose end that needs to be taken care of is for Casey to deal with Frannie. Frannie wants to come back to the sorority but the whole house needs to vote unanimously to have her back. Obviously Casey has some reservations considering just how manipulative Frannie was/is. Plus Casey’s still smarting from Evan sending her to dumpsville thanks to his little chat with Frannie last season. After Lizzie tries to get the girls to reconcile, Casey ends up unloading all of her frustration at Frannie in a one-on-one chat. Frannie throws a little bit of it back her way and in the end, it’s not until Lizzie encourages Casey to reread the ZBZ rule book that Casey finally decided to let Frannie come back.
After a candle ceremony inducting Frannie back into the ZBZ house with all of her soul (or whatever), Frannie tried to move back into the house. Casey then pointed out to her that according to the ZBZ rules, she can put Frannie on probation for three months and keep her from moving back into the ZBZ house during that time. So Frannie’s technically back but I’m thinking it’s going to be a long (dramatic) three months.
Lizzie’s work is done. So while she heads off to drive some other chapter of ZBZ crazy, it looks like things will be going back to mostly-normal for the ZBZ house. Strangely enough, Lizzie’s departure from the house was uneventful and it seemed as though Casey might have actually softened to her a little bit. Let’s face it though, she was annoying and making ZBZ boring so good riddance, Lizzie.
And that about covers it. Like I said, the episode seemed to be lacking funniness this week. I get that they have to devote some time to character and relationship build-up but the Rusty/Calvin stuff just depresses me. Is it really going to be a constant struggle for these two to be friends or will they be able to find some common ground? Also, is Frannie really a changed woman or are we going to see her try to weasel her way back into the presidency?
