Greek - Sophomore Season
Starring: Clark Duke, Tiffany Dupont, Scott Michael Foster, Spencer Grammer, Paul James, Jake McDorman, Amber Stevens, Dilshad Vadaria, Jacob Zachar
Created By: Patrick Sean Smith
Premieres: Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at 9:00 pm EST on ABC Family
Is it season 2? Season 3? ABC Family is calling the next season of Greek the Sophomore season. But the show actually picks up just after Spring Break, which is where last season left off. So technically Rusty, Dale, Calvin and Rebecca are all still freshman. We’re getting ahead of ourselves here. For those of you who’ve never seen Greek, the dramedy series centers on a bunch of college kids as they deal with all of the normal drama (and plenty of humor) that comes with college as well as life in the Greek system. Rusty (Zachar) and his friend Calvin (James)are friends despite the fact that they’re pledging separate fraternities. Rusty’s older sister Casey (Grammer) is the president of the most popular Sorority on Campus, Zeta Beta Zeta.
While Rusty is somewhat of a nerd, Casey is blonde gorgeous and popular. Life’s not all roses for Casey though as she’s currently pining over two exes. Cappie (Foster) has the whole laid back, frumpy-hot thing going on. He’s the president of the Kappa Taus (the frat Rusty’s pledging). Casey’s also not over her more recent ex, Evan (McDorman), the president of Kappa Tau’s rival fraternity, the super-preppie Omega Chi’s. Cappie’s dating Rebecca (Vadsaria), the spoiled daughter of a senator and current Zeta Beta pledge. And as of last season’s finale, Evan and Frannie (Dupont), the former president of ZBZ and current frenemy of Casey’s hooked up during Spring Break. It seems probable that Frannie isn’t going to want Casey to know about this as she’s been working very hard to get back into Casey’s good graces after a huge falling out involving Casey taking over as ZBZ president and Frannie meddling in Casey and Evan’s relationship, which inevitably lead to their breakup. All caught up? Good – now on to the Season Premiere…
Here’s where the spoilers start so consider yourselves warned but as I’m not a fan of ruining things for people, I’ll try to keep the spoilers to a minimum.
As I mentioned earlier, the season picks up pretty much right after the last season ended. It’s after Spring Break and the Greeks are all back at Cyprus Rhodes and rallying for Greek Week, which involves big trophies, lots of silly competitions and of course, major bragging rights to the winning frat and sorority. Rusty and Calvin, with the help of Dale (Rusty’s uberChristian roommate) are attempting to patch up their friendship. They had more than one falling out in the previous season over their rival fraternities. As Greek Week is one big competition, their friendship and loyalty is once again put to the test when Evan and Cappie make it clear that they don’t want Rusty and Calvin associating with one another.
Rebecca had her own little Girls Gone Wild episode in the last season finale and the video of her dancing around on that stage is being circulated via cell phone. Rebecca’s rebellious phase hasn’t passed and Casey sees this as a problem for her. She worked hard to get ZBZ off probation and fears that if Nationals catches wind of this little scandal, her chances of staying president of the ZBZ’s could be destroyed. Sure enough, she has reason to worry. Nationals does find out about Rebecca’s shenanigans and while this is bad news for Casey, it’s good news for us because nationals sends back their liaison-extraordinaire, Tegan! Yes, Charisma Carpenter (Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel) returns in the season premiere to warn Casey of what could happen if she doesn’t fix the Rebecca situation. While we’re all prone to support Casey, as she’s the female lead in this show, it’s hard not to feel sympathetic towards Rebecca, who has an extremely messy family situation and is clearly going through some stuff.
And finally, without giving too much away here, there is some significant advancement in the budding romantic story arc involving Evan and Frannie. Stuff happened during Spring Break and in the season premiere, we get a better idea of where things are headed for these two. There’s also an extremely amusing cross-dressing scene involving Evan and Frannie that I found enjoyable. Once again, as Frannie’s Casey’s opposition, it seems like we’re supposed to hate her but part of me thinks she deserves a chance to redeem herself. Then again, hooking up with Casey’s ex probably won’t help her in that department.
I have to admit that I wasn’t thrilled by the way the last season ended. It didn’t have that season finale feel to it. That said, I’m loving the way things started out for this “Sophomore” season. There’s some new drama on the table while older issues are still being resolved. The humor’s also as good as ever and the season premiere includes an appearance by my favorite random side-character, Officer Huck.
Ok, that’s all the info I’m giving up. You’ll see how it all plays out when the season premieres a week from today. In the meantime, if you’re feeling lucky, we’re giving away a Greek prize pack that includes the first season on DVD and a poster signed by the cast. CLICK HERE TO ENTER.
