Greek – Everyone else is trying to forget the ’80s

Where does someone like Greek’s Cappie come from? An excellent question if I do say so myself. And not just because we finally got to meet his parents last night … okay, that might have a little to do with my timing.

But it is still a good question. For a good guy, a caring friend, and a loving boyfriend, Cappie can be surprisingly mean and un-evolved. And for the president of a hard-partying fraternity, he can be unsuspectingly insightful, thoughtful, and, well, caring. So where does a guy like that come from?

We knew “hippies.” But did we know specifically who April (Lea Thompson) and Tobias (Jim Abele) would turn out to be? I know I wasn’t prepared for April’s pan flute rendition of “Let’s Get Physical” while Cappie and Casey were alone in the tent, no matter how open-minded they might be. He is still their son, after all.

And what I expected even less was the key to who Cappie is. He’s a drifter who’s finally been allowed to settle somewhere in life. Kappa Tau is the first home he’s known, his brothers and Casey the first stable family he’s ever had the opportunity to settle in with. And Casey walked away from her talk with April with the impression that she and Cappie were a “short story” about to conclude? I was frustrated at how she pushed Cappie, but she didn’t hear anything that April said to her. All she heard, which she then applied to her relationship with Cappie, was that they had an expiration date. I’m so upset with her for that, for totally missing who Cappie is and what he needs from her … maybe she doesn’t even deserve him.

The other Cartwright, meanwhile, was busy getting his swerve on. Can you believe that Rusty sought default dating advice from Beaver and Heath? That entire scene was hilarious. And that he then repeated it to Ashleigh like gospel? What a sweet, dumb kid.

Who made a terrible choice, by the way. I don’t like Katherine, but I think she is the way she is because she’s never really experienced anything beyond the need to excel in life. Socially she’s Rusty as an incoming freshman. But beyond that, she’s a much better match for Rusty than the annoying Dana. Unless, of course, Dana only acted how she did because she liked Rusty but he didn’t like her back, creating an awkwardness between them that would disappear if they dated. That we’ve yet to discover.

The writers of Greek really need to reconsider whether it makes sense for the kids on the show to be so familiar with John Hughes references. I know they have a great respect for him, and apparently Dobblers is an homage to Say Anything, but would these current college kids know who he was or watch his movies? I’m not so sure.

Some other stuff worth mentioning:

• Pledge checkers looks awesome. I’ve only ever seen chess played by humans — I loved Beaver studying the rules — and I thought it looked like so much fun. For everyone other than the pieces, of course.
• Dale meeting Evan for the first time. I suppose it never occurred to me that they’d never met. And I certainly didn’t realize just how many things Dale had to hate Evan for. “You’ll get one of my deep-fried snacks when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands.”
• Are Daley and Laura an item? Their messy table exchange seemed a bit heavy on double entendre and winks.
• If they didn’t have a history together, it would have been stolen straight out of a movie. But the fact that there’s history there meant that Evan punching Rusty was awesome. Will that start the ball rolling on what’s sure to be some epic payback by the KTs? I can’t wait to find out.

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Mar 16, 2010 @ 13:00 EST5EDT